On Thursday, cannabis figure Marc Emery responded to allegations of sexual assault that were brought against him online earlier this week.
The allegations commented on repeated predatory behaviour towards teenage girls that he employed at Vancouver’s iconic Cannabis Culture store during the 2000s.
Toronto journalist Deidre Olsen released the accusations, detailing numerous allegations against the “Prince of Pot” as he has become known.
Olsen presented a series of detailed accounts against Emery, which included her own, accusing the 60-year-old of grooming, harassing, assaulting and exploiting “vulnerable teenage girls and young women” and creating a “toxic work environment” at Cannabis Culture.
She claims Emery would have sexually explicit conversations in front of staff and hosted parties where hard drugs were pushed on teenage girls and young women.
The entire history of @CannabisCulture is that of an Old Boys Club where middle-aged men worked alongside vulnerable teenage girls and young women and watched as Marc Emery groomed, harassed, assaulted and exploited them.
— deidre olsen (@DeidreLOlsen) January 14, 2019
In response, Emery has released a lengthy statement, denies any sexual wrongdoing but describes himself as a deliberately controversial figure, claiming to be “misunderstood.”
“I’ve lived a very outspoken, provocative, possibly even outrageous life. I’ve thrived on controversy. And I’ve offended people. Lots of people,” he wrote on Facebook. “I do say outrageous things but it is my sincere belief that I have never harmed anyone, or sexually aggressed anyone, in my life.
“I used to write about sex, but I have never ever had sex with anyone under 19. I have only ever had sex with three employees in those 40 years I was an employer (1975-2009), two of them I married and one was a woman in her 20’s.”
Read Emery's full response below via Facebook.
Emery founded Cannabis Culture magazine in 1995, eventually opening a chain of dispensaries across Canada, with the most recent shutting down in Vancouver.
