Pubdate: Sat, 21 Apr 2012
Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2012 The StarPhoenix
Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/400
Author: Peter Henderson

THOUSANDS RALLY AGAINST CANADA'S POT LAWS

OTTAWA - The air got thick and hazy in cities across Canada on Friday
as thousands of marijuana activists lit up to mark 4/20 (April 20),
the annual, international day to celebrate pot.

The event is much a day to rail against prohibitionist drug laws as it
is a day to indulge.

Fittingly, more than 5,000 gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa,
according to police estimates.

In Toronto, crowds jammed the downtown Yonge-Dundas
Square.

Vancouver typically hosts the country's largest 4/20 event, with a
radio-news helicopter hovering over anticipated crowds of up to 20,000.

Prairie potheads blazed up in Winnipeg and in Regina.

Pot activists say they're concerned about the Harper government's
recent move to toughen Canada's drug laws.

The Safe Streets and Communities Act passed in March includes new
mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences that involve youth or
criminal gangs, including marijuana-related offences.

The reforms were made to fight criminal cartels that profit from the
illicit drug trade and protect Canadian families, a spokesperson from
the Justice Department said in an email.

"We are not making any changes to the law with regards to simple
marijuana possession," said Julie Di Mambro.

"Instead, we are targeting the source of the illicit drug trade: the
drug traffickers and those who import drugs into Canada."

"Prohibition is not solving the problem, it's making it worse," said
Jodie Emery, a B.C. marijuana activist who attended the Vancouver
rally. "We need a new approach."

Emery's husband Marc, the Prince of Pot, is currently serving a
five-year prison sentence in the United States for mailing marijuana
seeds over the border.

"People who use or share marijuana shouldn't face criminal penalties
when they're not hurting anybody else," Emery said.

"Each year the protests get bigger and bigger. Do all those thousands
of people deserve to be put it prison? The answer is no."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed to agree with protesters when he
said "the current approach is not working" in response to a question
about the war on drugs at the Summit of the Americas on April 15.

But Di Mambro said Harper was only talking about the war on
international drug cartels.

She said the federal government's position stands: decriminalization
and legalization are off the table.

The mood on Parliament Hill was defiant as smokers inhaled at 4:20
p.m.

"It shouldn't be just this one day, it should be every day," said John
Albert, who attended the protest in sunglasses decorated with a
marijuana leaf.

"It's a farce. If this many people can break the law at once, the law
is dysfunctional."

In Winnipeg, one sturdy man stood out among the throng at the Manitoba
legislature, wearing a black shirt that bore a bold message: "COPS SAY
LEGALIZE DRUGS," it read. "ASK ME WHY."

So a Winnipeg Free Press reporter did. "For 40 years, we've enforced
the law," said Bill Vandergraaf, a retired Winnipeg police staff
sergeant who used to work the homicide and street gang beats.

"Now Harper's increased the law, and I think that's going to make our
country more dangerous. We're criminalizing too many young people ...
you can recover from an addiction, but you'll never recover from a
conviction."

According to the United Nations World Drug Report, in 2009 more than
one in 10 Canadians ingested marijuana in some form. That rose to more
than one in four for those aged 15 to 24.

The number 4/20 has long been associated with marijuana use but the
origins of the association between digits and marijuana use are hazy
and ill remembered.

One legend posits that the tradition began in the 1970s with a bunch
of Northern California teenagers who smoked up daily at 4:20.

The number is now enshrined in law, as California's medical marijuana
bill was introduced in the state senate as Bill 420.
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