CANNABIS CULTURE – A group of Vancouver marijuana activists occupied Conservative MP James Moore’s Port Moody office on Tuesday to demand an end to the extradition of ‘Prince of Pot’ Marc Emery.

At about 11am, activists from the British Columbia Marijuana Party and Cannabis Culture, including this reporter, stormed through the front doors of the office of Conservative Heritage Minister James Moore. The lone secretary on duty was shocked and appalled to see the mega-phone wielding group crowd into the small office and gather around the front counter.

“We’re going to be protesting in your office today,” BCMP director Jacob Hunter told the lady working behind the counter.

“Uh, no you won’t,” she said looking flustered as she grabbed the telephone and frantically started dialing.

But we did! We sang chants, shouted drug war facts into the megaphone, and pulled out huge bags of weed and rolled joints on the front counter. Police showed up shortly afterward and immediately began checking medical cards after seeing the large 200-gram bag of pot brought by a legal medical patient. One cop grabbed a bag of weed and threw it across the room to another cop, suggesting that it be confiscated. He was quickly informed that it was legal and stood down.

At first, police wanted to arrest the protesters for “assault by trespassing” but after several minutes of heated debate and negotiations the police called The Crown who told them to leave us alone.

The cops did what they were told; instead of busting anyone, two unusually enlightened police officers sat with protesters and discussed the destructiveness of the drug war. By the end of the conversation, we were exchanging email addresses so we could send them info about Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group dedicated to ending prohibition.

We soon realized the door to Mr. Moore’s personal office was wide open, so we made our way in and began looking over his bookshelf and rolling joints on his desk.



Click here for the Flickr photo gallery by Jeremiah Vandermeer.

Though the protest was fun, we hope it sent a serious message to the Conservative Minister and his party, who have decided to extradited Marc Emery to the USA to face a five-year prison term for selling marijuana seeds and using the money to fund activism. Marc is a political prisoner, and we will continue to protest, unrelentingly, in new and inventive ways, until he is released.

We will be staging more protests in the offices of Conservative members of the government, and you should too!

Your MP’s office is public property, and you have a right to protest on public property. Watch the video and consider holding a protest in your Conservative MP’s office!



Watch the Video on YouTube