Emery on TV

I caught the 60 Minutes segment on Marc Emery. I thought it was a pretty sympathetic piece. Bob Simon was practically sneering at the DEA guys several times during the Q&A's. I was struck by one point the DEA apologist agent kept making about Marc being a major drug transporter. At one point he claimed Marc had imported more marijuana into the US than any single person in the history of smuggling.

You could feel Simon biting his tongue. I'm sure he was also thinking if you weighed the seeds they wouldn't amount to more than a few pounds at most. The DEA man kindly elaborated to say that they consider every seed to be the equivalent of a mature plant and would be charging Emery with the same, charges that could result in life imprisonment.

So in other words they're charging him with imaginary plants. It's absurd. Anybody who has tried to grow something from seed knows that no one -- ever -- has a 100% success rate. But I guess it makes a kind of perverse sense. They're fighting an imaginary war by taking down an imaginary kingpin, why not charge him with non-existent plants. Takes up less space in the evidence room that way.

As Dax Montana would say, just damn.

Update: Thanks to Tim Meehan for a link to the transcript of the segment.