MARIJUANA PARTY BOSS PAYS FOR SHAKY AIM

Party Leader Charged After Mountie Gets Piece Of Pie In Face

Marijuana Party leader Marc-Boris St-Maurice was charged with
assaulting an RCMP officer with a pie.

Marc-Boris St-Maurice, the leader of Canada's Marijuana Party, was
charged with assaulting a police officer yesterday over a
pie-throwing incident during a day-long marijuana decriminalization
rally on Parliament Hill.

The pie, however, was one that Mr. St-Maurice threw at himself.

The 31-year-old Montrealer was trying to put a pie in the face of a
Parliament Hill statue when he was confronted by three RCMP officers.

"I was still holding a live pie," he said yesterday, after being
charged and released by Ottawa-Carleton police. "So I de-activated it
by putting my own face in it." Some of the pie splashed onto the face
of a nearby Mountie -- "about two bites" worth, he said.

That, he said, was the basis of the assault charge. According to the
RCMP, half of the officer's face was covered in pie. Mr. St-Maurice
is to appear in court on Dec. 15.

The mid-afternoon incident occurred well into the rally, which drew a
diverse crowd of several hundred people fighting for the
decriminalization of marijuana.

There were the medical exemptees, each with a long list of health
problems and a longer list of legal battles fought to secure their
permission to light up. There were the recreational users, still
taking their chances legally. There were the libertarians and the
economics-talking candidates for the Marijuana Party.

There were RCMP officers in full uniform, with their big blue coats
and furry hats. There were undercover Mounties with tuques and
earrings.

In the middle of it all was Renee Boje, the celebrity casualty of the
American war on drugs -- the 31-year-old California woman applying to
the Canadian government for status as a refugee from the U.S. and its
justice system.

She is bundled up against the Canadian cold not by choice. Charged by
her federal government with watering the marijuana plant of a friend,
Ms. Boje could face a 10-year imprisonment if she is extradited to
the U.S. She has been in B.C. for two years and will stay there while
she waits for Justice Minister Anne McLellan to decide whether she
can stay in Canada.

"Mother Earth gave us this plant," she told a crowd yesterday, "so
that we can heal each other and the planet."

A film crew follows Ms. Boje around, working on a documentary with
the working title, The Flower in the Storm. Everyone at the rally
knows her. Many have been on the Internet show she hosts, The Healing
Herb Hour.

"She's basically a flower child," said Ottawa lawyer and drug policy
advocate Eugene Oscapella.

"She's a lovely gentle woman who has gotten caught up with one of the
most punitive and violent prison systems in the world."

As Mr. Oscapella speaks, he is quick to point out that 1,000 RCMP
officers are employed to enforce drug laws, he said. Half of the
offences are simple possession of marijuana. Like everyone else at
the rally, he finds that to be a waste of taxpayers' money.

"I'm here to talk about marijuana and money," said Raymond Turmel,
the Marijuana Party candidate for the Ottawa-Vanier riding.

So much money would be saved by legalizing and taxing marijuana, that
everything from health care to Quebec separatism would be solved, he
said.