Local Pot Activists Educate the Public
It’s a good thing there are people like Nancy Deveau-Lajeunesse in this world, people who put time and energy into informing and activating their fellow citizens. Not many of us are aware of this, but there is a piece of legislation before the Senate right now that, when passed, will result in mandatory minimum sentences of 6 – 9 months for growing 6 or more marijuana plants.
Growing marijuana is a victimless crime. A vast number of people in this community smoke marijuana for recreational purposes, and we normally don’t think that society would be better off with them behind bars. I personally have never talked to someone who thinks that a person should go to jail for smoking pot. How different could people possibly feel about the criminality of growing 6 plants?
When it comes to growing marijuana, 6 plants is a very small amount. I can’t imagine that any reasonable person would think that our government should spend tens of thousands of our tax dollars to incarcerate a person for cultivating 6 pot plants. Stephen Harper does though, and he thinks enough of us agree to make it politically smart to do so. He is also counting on the fact that people who wouldn’t agree with him, are not paying enough attention to do anything about it.
Nancy Deveau-Lajeunesse, Justin Valiquette, and Cody Chatelaine want to prove Harper wrong. As many pot activists across the country did, they spent Saturday October 2, around North Bay, getting information out to people, and having a petition signed in support of repatriating Canadian pot activist who was extradited to the States to serve a sentence for selling seeds. Ironically, he was declaring the income from these sales, and paying Canadian taxes on the income. Funny that our government should think he should serve jail time for activity that it gladly collected taxes on.
Nancy does not believe in a confrontational approach to protest. “We are very low key. We don’t smoke at our protests. Today we decided to go for a little walk and educate some people about Bill S-10, and Marc Emery. We wound up collecting quite a few signatures. We passed out a lot of information, and we got people talking about these very important issues.”
Nancy has organized previous Marc Emery protests here in town, but she does not act on behalf of any organization, and was not involved in any kind of advocacy until recently – when Marc Emery was extradited to the States. Describing the origin of her activism, Nancy says: “I got really upset, as a Canadian citizen, and as Canadian taxpayer, that our justice system was not dealing with the situation here in Canada, and he was sent away to face a much harsher punishment than he would have gotten here.”
With regard to Bill S-10, she says, “Bill S-10 involves mandatory minimum sentencing. Our American neighbours have shown us this concept does not work. It is a relic.”
Check out the facebook group “North Bay Cannabis Activists”, which Nancy has just started to receive information about future events.
