(Thumbnail Image: The Vancouver Sun)

BY NINA MOINI

CROWD: “Free Marc Emery. Free Marc Emery.”
REPORTER: “In downtown Seattle, supporters of Marc Emery rallied outside a U.S. District Court as he was about to be sentenced for drug distribution.” (Global TV)

A U.S. district judge in Washington state sentenced Canada’s self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot” to five years in prison Friday. His crime: selling marijuana seeds to U.S. customers through his mail-order business.

CTV News reports most of Emery’s seeds ended up in the U.S., and the U.S. Attorney’s office says they were linked to illegal marijuana-growing operations. A CTV article quotes Emery as expressing regret for breaking U.S. law.

"My zealous pursuit of what may be an honourable goal of repeal of a bad law blinded me from recognizing that my example of flouting the law is a bad example to set for others...”

Seattle’s KIRO TV reports Emery’s wife just wants her husband to be able to serve his sentence at home in Canada.

JODIE EMERY: “It’s very clear by the ongoing activity of seed selling by many other Americans, Canadians, and people around the world that Marc was targeted for his political activities.”

If the U.S. State Department and Canadian government allow Emery to serve his sentence north of the border he would be eligible for parole as soon as November 2011.  Emery’s current prosecutor addresses Mrs. Emery’s accusation in a Global TV interview after Emery’s sentencing.

PROSECUTOR “Once again today the only person in the courtroom that inserted Mr. Emery’s politics into this case was Mr. Emery.”

A former prosecutor who indicted Emery back in 2005 weighed in with some choice words for him in an opinion piece in the Seattle Times.

“I DON'T smoke pot. And I pretty much think people who do are idiots. This certainly includes Marc Emery, the self-styled ‘Prince of Pot’ from Canada ... for peddling marijuana seeds to every man, woman and child with an envelope and a stamp.”

But Emery maintains his status as a political prisoner in his published letters from prison on his magazine’s website.

“My hero, Martin Luther King, Jr. was often called on to go to jail to force the issue of segregation before the media, courts, and politicians...and I have spent already far more time in jail for my cause and my people that King endured in his time.”

So what do you think? Is Emery a political prisoner? Or does he deserve his sentence?