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Long before it was fashionable or politically popular, London native Marc Emery was championing legal marijuana, putting his freedom and his finances on the line as he battled authorities in Canada and the United States. Reporter Shannon Coulter caught up with Emery, the Prince of Pot, who was in London to visit family before he begins a nine-month worldwide speaking tour.

What are your overall thoughts about cannabis legalization coming up in October?

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A: Well I’m disappointed that it’s so focused with recriminalization… There’s just so many unnecessary rules… The key message is that cannabis is safe and doesn’t require any of these restrictions, rules and arbitrary designations.

You’ve been very vocal about supporting legalization in the past. Does it feel like your long fight has paid off or do you think we still have a long way to go?

A: Oh no, we have a long way to go, about five years more to sort it all out. Ultimately, what’s going to happen is people are going to defy the rules and regulations, go to court, and the court is going to strike most of them down, if not all of them. I don’t see keeping any of these things that maintain a discriminatory regime… They’re not going to have parallel systems of justice running in the country depending on who you are and where you got your weed. That’s absurd.

How do you see the system working out once it’s legal?

A: It’s dysfunctional. It won’t work. You can’t make something legal on October 17 and then not have it available in retail stores for six, seven months later. That’s absurd and nutty. And at the same time, it’s made a legal product but they’re still going to raid and arrest people who are selling it in their free market stores in October. It’s totally wrong.

Do you prefer the current PC plan or did you prefer the original Liberal plan?

A: The previous Liberal government was proposing a system that would be feasible in the Soviet Union. It was all they determine the price, they’ll determine the outlets, the locations, how it was going to be sold, everything. The Ford plan is much improved because we’ll see many more stores opening much quicker. It won’t cost the taxpayer anything and those are good things. But there are still rules, restrictions and absurd punishment involved if you don’t obey their peculiar regime.