Rainey and Williams get probation in “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery plea deal

After four years of politically charged legal wrangling, two employees of Canada’s so-called “Prince of Pot” have avoided prison for their roles in exporting marijuana seeds to the U.S. by mail-order.

The plea deal, finalized on Friday, sets the stage for the Prince of Pot himself, Marc Emery, to surrender to U.S. authorities later this year to face prison time. That will close the long-running, high-profile case that had pitted some of Canada’s most vocal marijuana activists against the Justice Department in a war of words.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez accepted the deal for Michelle Rainey, 38, and Gregory Williams, 54, to be sentenced to two years of probation for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. Both may return to Canada, where they remain active in the marijuana-legalization movement.

[Emery] has said his seed business was a way to “overgrow” the U.S. war on marijuana, which he has called “immoral and lethal.” He and supporters accused the Justice Department of indicting him and his employees for political reasons.

Federal prosecutors have vehemently denied that.

“We went after him for his criminal activities, not for his political views,” Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle, reiterated Friday.

Yeah, right.  That’s like saying the FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. because he was holding marches without a permit and John Lennon because of indecent exposure on the “Two Virgins” album cover.  (Note: I am not directly elevating Emery to King or Lennon status; neither of them ever called me “ignorant and unworthy”.  On the other hand, King and Lennon never helped produce the crops of fine Pacific Northwest sativas I enjoy, either.  Emery did eventually decide I was a “pretty useful guy”, so I guess we’re cool.)

In the piece, Emery states he believes the US actions to bring him to prison will ultimately backfire.  As the “Prince of Pot” continues his activism during incarceration, his status in and outside the cannabis community will grow as Tommy Chong’s did during his stint in jail.  Americans will have to reconcile the notion that our federal government reached its tentacles into an allied foreign country to lock up a successful businessman, publisher, and political activist for selling seeds.  They’ll be forced to confront the idea that if you willingly and knowingly order an unsmokable, never-get-you-high marijuana seed from Marc Emery, you plant it into the ground, you water and care for it, you harvest and cure it and smoke it, that makes Marc Emery a drug dealer.