Marc-Boris St-Maurice is an activist, politician and Canadian musician, who has campaigned for many years for the legalization of cannabis, and to facilitate access to the drug for health reasons. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Music career
He first became known in the early 1990s as bassist of punk bandGrimskunk. It was then that Marc Saint-Maurice received the nickname "Boris".
Political career
In 1998, he founded the Bloc Pot, a Quebec provincial political party whose main goal is the decriminalization and eventual legalization of marijuana complete. In 2000, he created the equivalent of the federal Bloc Pot, Marijuana Party, which ran candidates in federal elections. In February 2005, Saint-Maurice left the Marijuana Party to join the Liberal Party of Canada, arguing that the chances of reaching the objectives pursued by both cannabis rights parties were better in the then ruling party. The movement for marijuana had actually made some progress under Liberal rule in the early 2000s, with decriminalization bills introduced in 2003 and 2004 by the governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. When Stephen Harper's Conservatives won in the 2006 election, the new government did not continue with this legislation.
At the general election of November 30, 1998, Saint-Maurice finishes fourth out of nine candidates with 985 votes, or 3% of the vote in the riding of Mercier. In an election on October 1, 2001, Saint-Maurice finished 5th out of five candidates, winning 323 votes for the Bloc Pot in the riding of Jonquiere, left vacant by Premier Lucien Bouchard resigned and won on that occasion by Françoise Gauthier Party Quebec Liberal.
Federal elections (Canada)
On September 11, 2000, in a by-election in Okanagan-Coquihalla, British Columbia, Saint-Maurice finished 6th out of eight candidates with 438 votes as an independent candidate. Stockwell Day was elected to the Canadian Alliance. In the elections of November 27, 2000, Saint-Maurice finished in 4th place with 2156 votes for the Marijuana Party in the riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie, behind leader Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc Québécois, Jean-Philippe Côté, PLC and Dylan Perceval-Maxwell's Green Party. On May 13, 2002, during a partial in St-Léonard-St-Michel, St-Maurice received 197 votes and finished last for the Marijuana Party. In the elections of June 28, 2004 in Lasalle-Emard, he finished sixth and last for the Marijuana Party with 349 votes in the constituency of Prime Minister Paul Martin.
St-Maurice has also experienced trouble with the law when he was a full-time volunteer at the Compassion Club, an organization that provides marijuana to seriously ill individuals with a medical prescription. The first Montreal Compassion Club, based on the example of those in Toronto and British Columbia was opened on Rachel, Montreal, near a police station. Following a police raid, St-Maurice and his colleague Alexander Neron were accused of possession and trafficking of narcotics. The lawyers pleaded that the Canadian legislation left a legal loophole, allowing certain individuals to possess cannabis for medicinal purposes, but not supplying the product in question. Judge Gilles Cadieux halted the proceedings against the two men in December 2002. St-Maurice is the founder and director of the Montreal Compassion Centre, a medical marijuana facility in downtown Montreal. Prior to the legalization of cannabis in Canada, the centre was raided and shut down in 2011.
