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Fort Langley-Aldergrove: Pot party leader set to battle Coleman
By: Leanna Jantzi, Langley Advance (CN BC), 02-22-05

The leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party is setting his sights on Langley and Solicitor General Rich Coleman.

The leader of a party that wants to legalize marijuana is going head-to-head against B.C.'s top cop in the upcoming provincial election.

B.C. Marijuana Party's Marc Emery plans to run under his party's banner in Fort Langley-Aldergrove.

"[Coleman] is public enemy number one to anybody in the cannabis culture in British Columbia," Emery told the Langley Advance News on Monday.

One of the BCMP's key goals in the 2005 election is to ensure the defeat of Coleman, a man the party calls the "top prohibitionist" in the B.C. Liberal government.

Emery, a Vancouver resident, admitted beating Coleman himself would be unlikely.

"I'm hopeful to get a message out, but I'm very practical," he said.

What Emery wants is to make the voters of Aldergrove-Fort Langley think twice about electing Coleman.

Many people in the riding may support Coleman's position, Emery said: "I'd like to have an opportunity to convince them that that position is bad."

Coleman disseminates falsehoods about marijuana, Emery said, such as the drug is traded kilo-for-kilo for cocaine, and is linked to guns in Afghanistan: "He's basically declared war on the province's number one industry."

Coleman is not concerned.

"If the marijuana party wants to target Rich Coleman, the Solicitor General, about a product that's illegal in this country, then bring it on," he said during an interview with the Langley Advance News last week

Coleman maintained pot is traded equally for cocaine, and that the drug is connected with organized crime.

Coleman said he's "comfortable with everything I say" about the marijuana issue.

There's no question everyone wants some reforms when it comes to the issue of the laws and marijuana, he said: "But the first thing we need to do is decide that we're going after the manufacture and distribution of the drug itself as part of those reforms, before you can talk about just an initiative to decriminalize."