Marc Emery is the so-called Prince of Pot. And the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) wants to put this prince behind bars.

Last Thursday, Emery, Canada's most prominent pro-marijuana advocate, spoke at McGill regarding his pending extradition to the U.S. and the "political conspiracy" against marijuana.

In July 2005, the RCMP arrested Emery in Halifax on a request from the DEA, which has labelled him a drug kingpin responsible for a vast criminal enterprise across North America. Although he has been arrested 21 times and jailed on 17 occasions in Canada, he currently faces no charges in this country.

"I've never had a Canadian call me a drug dealer," said Emery. "The reason I was so popular as a seed vendor, the most popular in the world, is because everyone knew that I spent all that money on the cause, whereas every other seed person has just kept it for themselves."

Over the past five years, he has funded pro-marijuana initiatives and political parties around the world from the profits of his business selling marijuana seeds. He continues to support Israel's pro-marijuana Green Leaf Party, and this year he paid $6,000 for two full-page advertisements for New Zealand's Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party election campaign.

Throughout his speech Thursday night, Emery referred to himself as a hero of his cause - a martyr to be remembered. He also called marijuana consumers "the most picked-on, brutalized, and persecuted group of people on the planet."

He believes that marijuana use is a "lifestyle choice" that should not be criminalized. In order to legalize marijuana, his ultimate goal, marijuana users need to sustain pressure on governments. Until then, though, they will continue to be abused.

"Unfortunately there will be lots of victims in the meantime. When you have sustained pressure it means you have a conflict - in a conflict where the other side has guns, German Sheperd attack dogs, wire-tapping, urine testing, snitches, informers.. It's like Nazi Germany," he said. "We are hated and hunted down because we are a respectful people, a chosen people, an enlightened people."

In an interview with The Daily, Emery said he hoped to inspire his fellow supporters to stand up against his extradition.

"I want people to oppose the extradition simply because it is allowing the DEA to pluck out a liberator, freedom-fighter-type person, and allowing them to do that legally is going to set a dangerous precedent for anyone who takes on an anti-U.S. point of view," he said.

Currently, the DEA is seeking to extradite Emery to Seattle, where a grand jury had indicted him on charges related to his business of selling marijuana seeds; over the past five years the DEA has arrested seven people who have testified that they received seeds from him.