If you live in Canada, you may have heard of Marc Emery, the Prince of Pot.  If you live in the United States you may have heard of him too, although when I am in the US I never see any news coverage about him, 60 minutes did a show but that’s about it.

Anyway, Marc Emery is a Canadian Marijuana activist.  He opened Hemp BC in Vancouver, and also started Pot TV.  He is very passionate about legalizing marijuana and what’s not to love about that?  Read more about him here.

Anyway, along with his other accomplishments, Emery also sold marijuana seeds online.  In 2005, the United States DEA went into Canada and closed down Emery’s shop and seed business.  The United States went into Canada and enforced US LAW in CANADA???!!  YES!  Because, seeds were sold to customers in the United States.

Since then, Emery has been facing a possible life term in prison(under US law)- and today accepted a plea deal that would result in him spending 5-10 years in prison.  He did this to (obviously keep him out of a life term) AND to keep his two colleagues from having to serve sentences as well- one of his fellow activists who faced jail time has Crohn’s disease, and uses the drug to alleviate symptoms.  Just like millions of chronically ill people could benefit from.  I think if your condition is chronic, you should get a little chronic.

But what is wrong with this picture?  If you are a fellow pot head, you have probably come across a seed or two in your day.  Now, what would a weed lover do with a wayward seed?  Plant it!  And then you get a little sprout and your practically selling your crop already, and then you wake up 3 days later and your precious little sprout is flopped over dead.  It’s f-ing hard to grow pot!  You need a specific set-up and even the most basic equipment can be expensive.  So my guess is that over half of the US customers were probably stoners like me who think pot is as easy to grow as a Chia Pet, and produced no crop from these illegal seeds.  But does the United States care?  No, because the government refuses to recognize that pot is not on the same level as heroin and as usual, we make it our job to stick our nose in the business of other countries.  So I guess we’d rather import weed instead of have it grown at home.

I am outraged that Marc Emery has to serve jail time at all, what a criminal!  Rapists serve less time than him!  And I’m outraged that we are living in this nightmare world where alcohol and cigarettes are legal and BOTH can kill you, but a PLANT that is never fatal, is not addictive, and has no negative health effects is treated like a WMD. 

No wonder kids are dying from things like huffing and the choking game, Jesus if they had a couple joints on hand like normal teenagers are supposed to we wouldn’t have all these freaky accidents!  MySpace wouldn’t run their young lives and video games wouldn’t be turning young men into owl-eyed, nocturnal, I-can’t-change-a-flat-but-I-can-work-a-machine-gun-in-halo, and girls into catty text-messaging Paris Hilton carbon copies (Paris smokes pot though, but I couldn’t think of anything else).  And adults could fucking relax once in a while instead of filling their time with work/tv/work/tv.  People could have a reason to get together and visit, instead of living isolated lives and only getting together for holidays. 

“Hey Neighbor, want to pop into my garage and want to help me smoke this joint?”

“Sure, I just got home from work and would love to experience human interaction instead of watching television until bed.  Crimeny, I just spend 8 hours staring at a computer and truthfully, I’m lonely.  My kids spent all night in their rooms watching tv, text-messaging, going on MySpace and huffing spraypaint.  And my wife just watches reality tv while drinking wine from a box.  When she isn’t doing that she’s busy buying the latest sheet set from the Martha Stewart collection.  I really don’t see my family at all, and we don’t laugh together anymore.”

“Well” says the joint-providing neighbor as they proceed into his garage, “my family used to have the same problem, and while my wife still has the occassional box of wine and my kids still have cybersex on MySpace with men my age, I have found solace in this special time I like to call After-Work-Daddy’s-In-The-Garage-Hour.  My family knows they can come into join me, and sometimes my wife does and we laugh and talk about funny things and split a bag of Doritos, it’s really helped our relationship”

“Wow, that sounds wonderful, perhaps I’ll occassionally do the same, it’s not that expensive and it’s not bad for you, and if it encourages interaction with me and my family then why wouldn’t I try it?” 

“You know, Neighbor, we live in a lonely world, and sometimes I think this little plant” (motioning to a small terrarium with 1 pot plant thriving) “is the only thing that truly helps me relax while living in this problem ridden society”

BOOM BOOM BOOM- garage door blows off it’s tracks- men wearing gas masks and weilding maching guns and shields burst in and immediately taser Neighbor and Neighbor with Joint.  Both men are currently serving 9 years in jail.

The End

JUST LEGALIZE IT ALREADY YOU FOOLS!  CANADA IS GETTING CLOSE, THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO WAKE UP AND GET ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER.

I guess I’ll go drink a liter of vodka and smoke a carton of cigarettes now, totally legal, totally acceptable.  Fucking backwards.

Alright, here is the background information:

• I’m a US citizen
• My husband is Canadian
• I want to live in Canada with him
• Immigrating sucks

So after trying every way possible to stay together during my immigration process- I have come to realize that there is no easy way to do so.  Last winter I “moved” here and thought applying for Permanent Residency would be easy/ no big deal.  Wrong.  Came back home with my parents in Illinois. 

I have been researching how to do this crap for a year now, and after coming to Saskatchewan and trying to get a job then apply for PR from within Canada and that FAILING after 12 weeks of waiting, I have accepted the fact that I must return home once again and file from outside of Canada.

I have to fill out a stack of paperwork (which I am 90% done with- yay), provide pictures and any other type of documentation that proves I did not marry my husband for his wealth (ha!) or for a better life in Canada (HAHA!), get an immigrant medical examination in Chicago (checking to see I have all my teeth, am not HIV +, crazy, a TB carrier, an alien, or infected in any other way), pay $1000, and then I’m done!  How easy?!  Then I get to wait 3-11 months for the verdict. 

I feel stupid for not doing this sooner, but honestly- it’s hard and time consuming!  Plus until recently I was thinking it took 2 years to process  and didn’t know where I should be before committing to that, AND if you fill out the forms wrong or forget something you can totally screw yourself over.  AND I didn’t know I had to get a medical examination, didn’t have the money, and we weren’t married until last June and if we were to apply as common law partners before then we really didn’t have enough documentation to prove it (shared bills, bank accounts- you can’t get that stuff in a country where you aren’t a citizen!). 

It has just been so incredibly difficult to get accurate help and get straight answers… so if ANYONE or anyone you know is trying to live or work in Canada feel free to contact me because I will help you!  I feel sorry for anyone else in a similar situation… especially when these Canadians keep shipping their cute hockey players to US schools!  But anyway, if you too are immigrating and have questions or are seeking tips- I would be happy to help.

I am a smoker.  I love smoking cigarettes.  If I was alone on an island I would not take “a friend and a good book.”  I would take a dumpster full of cigarettes and maybe a loofah or something.  I know they’re bad for me, I know they stink, and I know it’s stupid but ”as a dog goes back to its vomit, so a fool repeats his stupidity” (Proverbs 26:11).  I heard that the other day from somewhere and it fits… I didn’t pull that from memory- sorry.

So anyway, I am returning to my vomit because I QUIT smoking a while ago, I read a really good book and just quit.  It wasn’t even that great though, I missed it and all the people who got on my back about it when I did it didn’t even say anything about me quitting!  How about a little present or something?

So anyway, I quit and didn’t start again the whole time I was living in BC (in the creepiest little hamlet ever).  Then I moved back home and started hanging out with my stupid, crack-head, loser, smoker  friends and of course started smoking again.  What else do you do for 3 hours when you’re sitting in a garage with a bunch of loser crack-heads?? (I don’t do crack, I just hung out with people at home who were stupid and about one house-party away from being crack-heads.)Then I quit again… because my mom was getting on my case and my husband (who was living in Canada without me at that time)  still thought I was not smoking.  So I moved back to Canada and quit again.  I thought this would be easy because no one in his family smokes and you’re pretty much a leper if you do, he’s OBNOXIOUS about it whenever I try and smoke with him around, and most of all… Canadian cigarettes are different, and disgusting, and about $10 a pack.  They taste like someone rolled tobacco from 1928 in a piece of oilcloth and then dipped it in Maple Syrup or something.  They suck.

So I’ve been bored lately and kind of pissy and feel like I’ve been sacrificing a lot to live in wonderful Canada with my wonderful husband.  So I went and bought a pack.  I thought about it for about 3 days, about how much I missed smoking, about how it was not a big deal, lots of people smoke, if it’s something I enjoy why can’t I just do it for now while I don’t have anything else to do, etc. etc. 

So I bought a pack of these disgusting shit-sticks and lit one… my hand trembling with excitement, like a ballroom dancer back on her feet after being out with a broken ankle.  I knew what my body had to do but it felt much more difficult.  Then I inhaled and it was like I was a 12 year old choking on their first j.  Pathetic.  I was pissed I didn’t have a Camel or something in my hand.  But I finished it and didn’t enjoy it.  The next day, repeat.  Then Thanksgiving with the inlaws and no smoking.  Then today… damn you Canadian cigarettes…. you’ve seduced me with your disgusting flavor.  I still would prefer an American Freedom Cig, but I’ve now lowered my standards to accept a Peter Jackson.

Canada Post is the Worst Institution in the Universe

Canada Post is the worst institution in the universe.  I was going to list several examples to prove this statement, but I think one will do the trick: THEY DON’T DELIVER MAIL! 

You have to pretty much leave a trail of maple syrup that leads to your house to get any Canada Post worker to deliver a package.  I don’t know which dimension packages enter before arriving at some random grocery store but they certainly do not stop at my house.  I just wait for a month and then suddenly get a threatening FINAL NOTICE slip in my mail box (oh my God, they found it!) and have to walk to the drug store 2 miles away to pick up a package that I expected to be delivered to my house!!! 

Quoting a book about living and working in Canada, the mail system is “the epitome of inefficiency.”  Good luck getting through to complain about this too… everyone is too busy watching a Calgary Flames game and eating poutine to even bother helping out a customer- why should they?  The one time I did get through, the lady was very helpful… but I still get final notices and have to walk two miles to get my own goddam packages.  Why should the even deliver it there?  Why don’t I just wait at the receiving docks downtown and just get it myself… I would certainly hate to bother a letter carrier.  NO!  How ATTEMPT to deliver a package to ME, AT HOME.  There is a buzzer next to the door with MY NAME on it… push button…. I’m probably home since I’m waiting for a fucking package!  In the event I am not home… you should have some tags in your little bag there… go ahead and look… there they are… that’s a notice to say you attempted a delivery, and will try again tomorrow…. I will surely be home waiting if I get a tag saying you’re trying to deliver something.  Don’t bring the package to my house and if I’m not hanging over my balcony naked with a “DELIVER TO ME” sign around my neck just leave… no buzzer, no tag.  What is wrong with you?  What in God’s name is wrong with Canada Post?  Your ONE JOB is to deliver mail… and you FAIL EVERY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  FUCK YOU!!!!!!