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Marijuana Party candidate ready to roll in Nunavut

"I can see government-built greenhouses training and hiring Inuit workers to grow and distribute marijuana"

JIM BELL

Ed deVries, a 47-year-old traditional healer and therapist from Iqaluit, will carry the Marijuana Party's leafy banner across Nunavut in the next federal election.

"I'm very much an advocate of the people and people's rights," deVries said this week, saying he's gathered 107 signatures for his nomination papers and that he'll file them the moment a federal election is called.

Formed in 2000, the tiny but ambitious Marijuana Party, which grew out of a provincial party in Quebec called the "Bloc Pot," competed in the 2000 and 2004 federal elections, usually polling between one and two per cent of the vote in those ridings where they were able to run candidates.

Founded by Marc-Boris St-Maurice of Montreal and now led by Blair T. Longley of Vancouver, the Marijuana Party's platform is simple: legalize the production, sale and use of cannabis in Canada.

Ed deVries, who says he's been a pot smoker for 37 years, believes that message will be well-received in Nunavut, where in some communities up to 80 per cent of adult residents are believed to be regular dope smokers.

"I've smoked pot with the leaders of our community... I've been in communities where I've seen elders smoking joints and doing hot knives, people I've seen written up in Above and Beyond as being saints, smoking dope with me," deVries said.

But Nunavut's many dope smokers, who include prominent business people, politicians, and civil servants, are forced to "live in the closet" because their chosen recreational substance is illegal, he said.

Tired of the hypocrisy, deVries recently decided to come out of that closet and declare himself a candidate for the Marijuana Party, saying that alcohol causes far more violence and social damage.

"It's fine for people to go out to the Legion, brag about how drunk they got, brag about the ugly girl they woke up with, but people who smoke pot and don't do any harm have to stay in the closet," deVries said.

Based on his knowledge of pot consumption in Nunavut, deVries estimates that Nunavummiut spend $27 to $30 million a year on cannabis products, almost all of which leaks to the South.

So he believes the legalization of marijuana in Canada could be turned into an economic bonanza for Nunavut, where locally-grown, low-cost weed could be grown in greenhouses and sold to Nunavummiut.

"They're looking for $5 million to build a community greenhouse in Iqaluit? They could make that much in the first year. I can see government-built greenhouses training and hiring Inuit workers to grow and distribute marijuana," deVries said.

He also says the greatest harm caused by marijuana is the legal price that people pay when they're caught possessing it.

Since his first conviction for marijuana possession, before an Ontario court in 1975, deVries said he's been convicted of that offence several times.

But he says that he has received a federal pardon for those convictions, even though he admits to being a regular dope-smoker.

"They investigated me and at no time did they ask me about it," deVries said.

Still, coming out publicly as a pot smoker wasn't an easy decision for him. He said he first discussed it with his wife, who he says is a "non-smoker and doesn't touch the stuff."

But he says he has a lot of quiet support from people working in the justice and social service fields and that there is wide support for the legalization of marijuana in Nunavut.

Ed deVries now runs a small business offering "natural pain relief" and pressure point therapy. He says he does not distribute marijuana as part of that business and keeps his occupation and his political belief in legalization entirely separate.

As for Bill C-38, which would legalize same-sex marriage in Canada, deVries said that, if elected, he would poll his constituents on the issue and vote according to their wishes.

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