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Longtime cannabis policy reform advocate Marc Emery, also known as the “Prince of Pot,” failed in his first attempt to get arrested for selling goods that promote cannabis culture in downtown Montreal on Sunday.

But he vowed to keep trying.

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Emery was hoping to get arrested to shine a light on, and eventually challenge in court, what he calls the hypocrisy of Quebec’s Cannabis Regulation Act, which prohibits, for example, the use of the cannabis leaf symbol to sell items that are not cannabis.

“The government is trying to usurp our culture,” he told the Montreal Gazette in an interview. “They take it over and monopolize it, and then they ban our cultural references.”

At noon, Emery parked himself and his table of wares on the sidewalk outside the legal government-run cannabis store on Ste-Catherine St. W.

For the next 2 1/2 hours, he proceeded to loudly hawk, at discount prices, a panoply of pot-related items that he says are now illegal to sell in Quebec because they contravene the province’s Cannabis Regulation Act.