THE PRINCE OF POT: THE US VS. MARC EMERY at the 2007 Vancouver Film Festival
by Andre Soares
In the Toronto Globe and Mail, Marsha Lederman discusses Nick Wilson’s documentary The Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery.
Wilson’s documentary focuses on the U.S. government’s never-ending multibillion-dollar War on Drugs (the older sister of the equally ineffectual and wasteful War on Terror) and one of its targets, Canadian citizen Marc Emery, head of the B.C. Marijuana Party and owner of a mail-order marijuana-seed distribution business.
In her article, Lederman writes that "in 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asked Canada to extradite Emery and two of his employees to face drug-trafficking charges for sending seeds south of the border. Vancouver Police moved in and arrested him.
"And it was that fact — the co-operation of a Canadian police force with American anti-drug forces — that drew Wilson in. ‘Emery is a symptom of a much bigger issue, which is Canadian sovereignty,’ Wilson says. ‘Who’s setting our priorities? Is it us or is it the Americans?’"
The Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery is one of three Canadian films at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival focusing on marijuana’s legal limbo.
The other two are Brett Harvey’s The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (left) and Weirdsville, a comedy directed by "proud pothead" Allan Moyle.
Harvey’s The Union asserts that market forces — with greedy power-players ranging from pharmaceutical giants to prison-guard unions — not health concerns, are keeping pot illegal. The Union was chosen best documentary at this year’s Winnipeg International Film Festival.
Written by Willem Wennekers, Weirdsville (right) stars Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley (who was excellent as Chris Cooper’s unusual son in American Beauty) as a couple of pot smokers in Hamilton, Ontario, who get enmeshed with a quirky satanic cult.
"If there’s a reason these films have all found their way onto the big screen at this time, it’s as much about politics as it is pot," adds Lederman. "With the current U.S. administration and its war in Iraq, the distinctions between Canada and the United States have never been so obvious. These Canadian filmmakers would like to see Canada distance itself from America’s war on drugs, too."
The Vancouver Film Festival runs until Oct. 12.
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