Pubdate: Mon, 21 Apr 2014
Source: Metro (Ottawa, CN ON)
Page: Front Page
Copyright: 2014 Metro
Contact:  http://www.metronews.ca/Ottawa
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4032
Author: Lucy Scholey

4-20 MESSAGE: IF YOU CAN'T BEAT IT, SELL IT

Weed Day. Annual Protest/Party Touts Medical Uses, Potential Tax
Benefits

Thousands of pro-marijuana activists lit up blunts and bongs at
Parliament Hill on Sunday afternoon to promote pot
legalization.

The annual 4-20 Weed Day rally was less like a protest and more like a
giant outdoor party, with people hula-hooping, playing Hacky Sack,
waving giant marijuana-leaf flags and donning dreads.

Claude Galipeau, spokesperson for the committee that organizes the
rally, said the group's message to the Conservative government is
"stop unjustly criminalizing cannabis and start benefiting from it."

"It's a billion-dollar industry, regardless of its legal status,"
Galipeau said. "So might as well create a legal framework where it can
be to the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian economy, instead of a
drain to the Canadian economy through judiciary costs."

Alexandre Smith, an employee at Scottie's Spot cannabis shop, said he
attended the rally for both work and personal reasons. He said he used
to take Ritalin when he was a student, but then switched to pot.

"It actually helped me concentrate better in school," he said. "It
really helped me. It helps me with appetite and helps me with sleep."

Robert Warnock, a sociology student at the University of Ottawa, was a
lone demonstrator protesting against marijuana legalization.

"My major concern is the social impacts, specifically how drugs are
one of the major forms of income for organized crime," he said. "I
think legalization would only serve to legitimize one of their biggest
forms of income and I don't agree with that."

Les Mosquitos played reggae-style tunes to end the protest, and then
everyone was ordered off the Hill by 5 p.m.

By that point, the line-up was already long at a nearby chip wagon. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D