BOOKWORM POT PRINCE BUGGING HIS U.S. JAILERS

PRISON: Marc Emery is the cause of new rules

A prison term in Georgia hasn't stopped ex-Londoner Marc Emery being
Marc Emery.

Canada's Prince of Pot, whose libertarian philosophies were honed as
outspoken owner of City Lights Bookshop in London, is having his
scrapes with officials at the D. Ray James prison near Folkston,
reports a longtime friend in London with whom Emery corresponds.

"They got upset with him because he was getting so many books that
they started making all these rules . . . his followers were sending
him books," Londoner Gord Mood says.

Mood, owner of L.A. Mood Comics and Games, a few doors down from City
Lights, is among those who have sent comics and books to the 52-year-
old Emery.

"They didn't give him everything I sent, they had some petty little
thing against him," Mood said, quoting from letters he has received
from Emery.

"He wants to make them run by their own rules and he knows the rules."

Emery, operator of a cannabis-related store in Vancouver, was
extradited to the United States where he is serving a five-year term
for selling marijuana seeds to Americans in the mail.

Emery was given a job in the prison library, a perfect job for a
bookseller. Through the postings of his wife Jodie on Facebook and a
blog posted at Cannabis Culture, he appealed for reading materials
from his supporters.

In a late December letter to Mood, Emery said about 1,000 of the 1,050
inmates are Hispanic, with only about 10 Canadians in the facility he
dubs a "concentration camp."

He said he has helped more than 100 of his non-English-speaking fellow
inmates with their legal paperwork.

Emery complained the facility, converted from a "notorious" state
prison to an institution for foreigners, contained "no books from the
last decade (and) were from 10 to 40 years old."

So he solicited friends and supporters to send books, comics and
magazines but the flood prompted prison officials to clamp down on him
and restrict new books until he got rid of earlier ones he had
received.

Emery talked about having no privacy in his ward with 63 other men.

"So far I have put in 10 months of this sentence," he said. "If I get
transferred back to Canada as I hope this summer, I could be out on
parole by November."

Mood, who worked for Emery at City Lights for two years in the
mid-1980s, said he has stayed in touch with Emery.

His old friend, Mood said, "has his ups and downs" in prison that he
complains is far below normal prison standards.

Mood said Emery is helping a man from Vietnam learn English and Emery
himself is learning Spanish.

Emery's wife Jodie still lives in Vancouver and regularly makes the
long trip to visit him, Mood said.

It appears Emery is on an "up" again and his differences with prison
officials have been patched up.

"They're letting him get everything again," Mood said.

So in the next week or so the comic book store operator will assemble
a selection of comic books and other reading material he figures the
caged libertarian might like.