This is an accepted version of this page Marc Scott Emery (born February 13, 1958) is a Canadian cannabis rights activist, entrepreneur and politician.

Often described as the "Prince of Pot", Emery has been a notable advocate of international cannabis policy reform, and has been active in multiple Canadian political parties at the provincial and federal levels.

He is the estranged spouse of fellow activist Jodie Emery, with whom he operated Cannabis Culture magazine and Pot TV.

[4] He dropped out of high school in 1975 at age 17 to purchase a used book store in London, Ontario which he renamed City Lights Bookshop.

Emery moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in March 1994, and founded Hemp BC, a store selling cannabis-related paraphernalia.

"[18] Emery switched his walk-in marijuana seed business to mail-order only, and continued to publish Cannabis Culture magazine.

[21] On December 15, 2016, Marc and Jodie Emery opened six illegal Cannabis Culture marijuana "dispensaries" in Montreal, Quebec as an act of "civil disobedience".

[22] On 16 December 2016, Marc Emery was arrested at the Mont-Royal Avenue store, during a series of raids conducted by the Montreal police.

[27] He was a critic of slow police response times to robberies, advocating for private security officers for merchants and business owners.

[4] He started a campaign to eliminate the annual levy tax of $35 a year for downtown improvements, stating that it favoured a handful of the elite.

[29][30] Emery ran as a candidate of the Freedom Party in the rural constituency of Middlesex, near London, Ontario in the 1987 provincial election.

In 1991, Emery was convicted for selling copies of 2 Live Crew's rap CD As Nasty As They Wanna Be which had been deemed obscene and banned in Ontario.

[52][53] He was given one year's probation, but immediately after sentencing he began selling marijuana-related literature and High Times magazine, all in violation of Canadian law.

[8] He also sponsored visits from marijuana activists including Ed Rosenthal, Steven Hager, Jack Herer and Paul Mavrides.

[55] Court documents showed that four American Navy undercover agents attempted to buy marijuana and smoke it at the Vancouver Cannabis Cafe in April 1998.

Emery and his two associates, all charged in the United States with drug and money laundering offences, each faced a minimum 10-year sentence and the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted there.

[77] While at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Washington Emery was locked in a Segregated Housing Unit (SHU) for three weeks as a result of allowing his wife to record a message from him over the phone.

The police also searched two homes in Toronto, one in Stoney Creek, Ontario, and one in Vancouver that all had ties to Emery's Cannabis Culture franchise.

[84] On March 10, Marc and Jodie were granted bail, with conditions limiting or banning their access to marijuana and Cannabis Culture franchises.

[85] The couple had claimed that the operation of pot shops was a form of civil disobedience, but Justice Leslie Chapin ruled as follows: "No doubt there were pro-social motivations that were behind the actions, but at the same time, I have to recognize that much profit was made".

[90] In 2001, Emery was a featured presenter at Idea City,[91] an annual gathering of notable Canadians organized by Moses Znaimer.

In November 2002, Emery and his guests heckled then US drug czar John Walters during his speech at a luncheon sponsored by the Vancouver Board of Trade.

[97] As a result of these allegations, Emery was pulled as the keynote speaker from the First International Cannabis Seminar held in Argentina in February 2019.

Shortly after, the Legalized Summit in Vancouver withdrew Emery's nomination for a lifetime achievement award and removed his estranged wife Jodie as a speaker.