Stanley Sambey

Stan Sambey is a social/environmental activist who co-founded the Federal Marijuana Party of Canada, and ran as a candidate in the 2000 and 2004 Federal Election.

Personal Life

Sambey was born in Trenton, Ontario. As a youth his family moved a number of times and he attended grade school in Trenton, Bayside, and a year in Comox, British Columbia. He attended Trenton High School in his hometown and left school early to enter the masonry trade. With masonry being a largely seasonal trade he took to food service in the off-seasons to pay the bills. Having wanderlust in his teen years he moved moved to British Columbia where he received franchise management training with Domino's pizza in Vancouver and did two tours as a tree planter in the northern interior of B.C. seeing firsthand the damage caused by the lumber industry.

In 2005 on a lark Stan went to Toronto and wrote the LSAT (law school application test), scoring a rough 151 with no formal education. He plans to prepare for another LSAT testing in the near future followed by law schooling as a mature student.

Political workings

In the 80's and early 90's Stan was a BBS sysop (Bulletin Board System, system operator), a computer network that was a precursor of todays internet. (at the time the concept was known as the Information Superhighway). Through these early information networks Stan forwarded cannabis plant information. This information was censored and illegal in Canada at the time[http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/afraid.html], as were all cannabis related publications.

In 1994 Sambey has the first Canadian Web Page dedicated to the decriminalization of industrial hemp. This page got him the attention of then Senator Whelans office which was investigating the subject. This simple beginning lead to over a decade of front line social activism on the cannabis issue. While living in Calgary, Alberta Stan began an association with Grant Krieger. Together with a woman named Deb Harper they began one of the very first Cannabis Compassion Societies in Canada and North America,the Universal Compassion Society (UCS) with the Victoria Island Compassion club formed just weeks prior.

Also in '94 Stan registered one of the first email based retail businesses in Canada, which he ran on the BBS. This lead to him opening one of Canada's first Cyber Cafes in Trenton, Ontario the same year.

Sambey travelled to British Columbia with Kreiger and Harper to a meeting of cannabis activists from across the country and they all formed the Canadian Cannabis Coalition, which today has affiliates around the globe.

Travelling back to Ontario in 2000 Stan began associations with a number of activists in the Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal areas. This resulted in his forming Canada's first Federally registered not-for-profit corporation providing medicial cannabis to medical users, of which he sat as President and Director for two years. His office was situated overlooking Bank St. in Ottawa a few blocks from Paliament Hill. At the same time he became a founding member of the Federal Marijuana Party, and ran for the party in the 2000 and 2004 Federal Elections in the riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. Stan left the party and the corporation around the same time and became a card carrying member of the NDP (new democratic party).

He worked the campaign of Sue McSheffy, his onetime political adversary, during the 2006 Federal election. Stans time with the NDP was shortlived however, as he discovered their 'union first' policies which greatly conflicted with his personal beliefs.

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