When the so called Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, emerged from prison last year he was a celebrity in cannabis circles. The Canadian served a five year sentence in prison for selling mail order cannabis seeds to the United States even though this was not a crime in his native country. In 2009, upon his extradition to the United States, protests exploded across the globe. Emery was a legend in the cannabis legalisation community as he had been an outspoken advocate of revising weed laws. The protests encompassed 80 cities in a dozen countries and Emery welcomed the support from his fans. However widespread support did not change the situation for Emery and he ended up serving his full 5 year sentence in a number of prisons throughout the United States. After his release in 2014 he continued to promote the cause of relaxed cannabis laws and his brief stint in jail seems to have earned him even more fame and popularity than before. His return to Canada was greeted with an enormous welcome home rally and his return precipitates a run for office by his wife Jodie under the banner of Canadas liberal Party where she hopes to promote and legislate for relaxed pot laws.
David O'Donoghue is a student and freelance writer from Co. Kerry, Ireland. His writing has appeared in the Irish Independent, Film Ireland, Ultraculture.com, Listverse and he is the former Political Editor for Campus.ie. He also writes short fiction and poetry which can be found at his blog/spellbook davidjodonoghue.tumblr.com
