XPost: can.politics, van.general, vic.general   
   From: puela@nyet.ca   
      
   Postmedia News - January 8, 2015   
      
      
   Jodie Emery will run for Liberal nod   
      
   Wife of 'Prince of Pot' Marc Emery doesn't like being called a one-issue   
   candidate   
      
      
   The old building is like a marijuana super store, without marijuana for sale.   
   There’s a large retail shop on the ground level that offers old-school pipes   
   and papers and bongs, and pricey high-tech vaporizers for the modern, more   
   health-conscious crowd.   Upstairs there’s a comfortable, if malodorous,   
   lounge   
   where bring-your-own cannabis products are openly consumed. Tobacco smoking is   
   not allowed.   
      
   Everywhere, there are illustrations and pictures of this town’s patron saint   
   of   
   marijuana, the so-called Prince of Pot, Marc Emery.  This is his joint, and on   
   most days since his release last summer from a U.S. prison, where he served a   
   five-year sentence for selling marijuana seeds, he can be found in his store or   
   in the lounge, getting high and handing out free samples of potent hash oils   
   and what he calls his “8-bud blend.”   
      
   Emery is as cantankerous as ever, directing written and verbal jabs at anyone   
   he considers an enemy of the marijuana freedom and legalization movement and to   
   those he perceives as threats to himself and his wife, Jodie. His targets   
   include Stephen Harper, who both Emerys despise.   
      
   They have also included Liberal leader Justin Trudeau — which is a problem   
   for   
   Jodie.   
      
   She’s a politician.  She once ran as a provincial Green party candidate in   
   B.C.   
     She’s now a member of Trudeau’s Liberal party and hopes to be his   
   candidate   
   in the riding of Vancouver East in the coming election.  Vancouver East is NDP   
   territory, long held by MP Libby Davies, who recently announced she won’t   
   seek   
   re-election.   
      
   It’s hard to tell if her intentions are a lark, perhaps a publicity stunt to   
   benefit the couple’s mini-business empire, or if she’s serious.   
      
   “What if some radical managed to get a position and ran for the party and   
   caused a massive headache and caused them to lose the election?” she asked.   
      
   “Some people might say that would be me,” she added with a laugh.    
   “I’m just   
   joking.”   
      
   A large bong sat on a desk in the office.  On another desk lay a back issue of   
   Cannabis Culture magazine, which the Emerys used to publish.  I picked up the   
   magazine and a sprinkling of medium-grind marijuana slid from the front cover   
   and fell onto the floor.   
      
   Emery, 30, doesn’t like being called a one-issue candidate, but marijuana and   
   marijuana legalization seem the most important things to her, after her   
   husband.  She smokes marijuana recreationally, she advocates for it, she wants   
   it to be made accessible to every adult in Canada.   
      
   Two years ago, after Trudeau became Liberal leader and declared his party in   
   favour of marijuana legalization, the Emerys decided they could endorse the   
   Grits.  Last year, a pair of Vancouver East riding executives asked Emery if   
   she would put her name forward as the Liberal candidate.  She thought it over   
   for a couple of months, then decided she would do it.   
      
   Not every Liberal was thrilled.  The Emerys are controversial.  And Marc Emery   
   and Trudeau have a history, of sorts.   
      
   In 2009, before he went to prison, Emery made a fiery speech attacking Trudeau,   
   who was then just a Liberal MP.  Trudeau had voted in favour of a Conservative   
   government bill supporting mandatory minimum sentences for lawbreakers, such as   
   unlicensed marijuana cultivators.   
      
   “(Mr. Trudeau) has smoked with me four or five times,” Emery fumed at the   
   time,   
   “so it really pisses me off when I see Justin Trudeau, who took big gaggers   
   with me, is in Parliament actually voting for Bill C-15.  What a …   
   hypocrite.”   
      
   Trudeau later accused Emery of “flat-out lying” and said he had never   
   smoked   
   marijuana with him.   
      
   Marc Emery has mellowed, his wife claims.   
      
   “Since Marc’s been out of prison, a lot of people were waiting to see how   
   outrageous he would be, what kind of crazy statement he would make, how he   
   would humiliate Trudeau.  But a lot of people forget that prison kind of calms   
   one down and as time goes by, you have a chance to stop and think and   
   strategize.”   
      
   The strategy for securing the Vancouver East nomination?  Sign up as many pot   
   smokers as possible.   
      
   Meanwhile, prominent veteran Vancouver city Coun. Raymond Louie said Wednesday   
   he is no longer considering a bid to win the Liberal or New Democratic Party   
   nomination in Vancouver East, considered one of the safest NDP seats in the   
   country.   
      
   B.C. New Democrat MLA Mable Elmore has already announced her candidacy while   
   caucus mate Jenny Kwan and former city councillor Ellen Woodsworth have said   
   they are seriously considering bids.   
      
      
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     It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the   
   environment   
      
                                ~  Ansel Adams   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)