Bud, there’s plenty of spark in pot rally despite legalization
Thousands pack Sunset Park for 4/20 as activists vow to continue the fight
Impending federal legalization did nothing to burn out the turnout at 4/20 in Vancouver on Friday.
The pro-cannabis event looked to be larger than ever, with tens of thousands of people packing Sunset Beach to worship, smoke, eat, dab, sell and pass around the dank drug that will be legal sometime after July 1.
Hundreds of vendors paid $500 to secure a space for tents from which they sold bud, extracts, edibles, pipes and clothing, while hundreds more took free spots on the sandy beach. Attendees “dabbed” for $2 and participated in contests to win free shatter. Roaming salespeople carried placards advertising magic mushrooms and a man wearing a dog mask carried CBD treats for pets.
Entrepreneurs such as Wes Hooper, of Lifespace Gardens, came to make inroads into a burgeoning, lucrative industry. He demonstrated his self-watering cedar planters, which were designed for organic vegetables but have proven to be great for growing bud, he said.
Cindy Heemeryck, of Overgrow Canada, handed out free packets of cannabis seeds. She said her group distributed five million seeds in 2017 to be planted in public places — outside courthouses, on beaches and in parks — and will continue to do so after legalization.
Ian Hayzelden and Marcus Taylor each spent $30 on a knee-high cannabis plant, which they said they will clone and share with other activists ahead of legalization. Under the proposed regime, Canadian adults will be allowed to grow four plants per household for personal adult use.
Postmedia watched dozens of teens — clearly not the age of majority, which is expected to be 19 in B.C. after legalization — spark up and pass around joints on the beach. Vendors were warned by Vancouver Coastal Health to not sell or provide samples to minors, and check all customers’ photo IDs.
West of the so-called “farmer’s market,” cannabis activists and musicians took turns on the sound stage to praise pot and slam prohibition.
Organizer Jodie Emery, who with her husband pleaded guilty to trafficking charges in December after their Cannabis Culture dispensaries were raided by police across the country, grew fiery as she addressed her crowd.
“The government across this country — federally, provincially and in many cities — think of you all as criminals,” she said.
“They call you criminals because you’re breaking the law and today 4/20 is not just about coming together and celebrating cannabis and protesting prohibition. 4/20, on April 20th, is the biggest, mass civil-disobedience act of law-breaking around the world.”
David Malmo-Levine, a longtime cannabis activist, said the civil disobedience will continue until cannabis is regulated like more-benign substances. Malmo-Levine said he had to sell his dispensary last year because the city’s cannabis licensing fees were too high.
“I really think it should be regulated like Starbucks or coffee,” he said. “They took away the edibles, they took away mail-order and they destroyed my business.”
Just before 4 p.m., light rain began to fall, one of the organizers’ biggest worries after the soaked grass field on which the event was held last year turned to mud, causing a lengthy, expensive closure for reseeding. This year, they said they spent more than $30,000 for rubber matting to cover high-traffic areas.
Tuesday, the park board released a statement about its concerns that the event is an inappropriate use of the space “because it violates our no smoking bylaws and has negative consequences for park users and infrastructure.”
By 4:13, veteran pot activist Neil Magnuson had coaxed the crowd in front of the stage to sit on the grass while his helpers distributed 10 pounds of pre-rolled joints ahead of the countdown to 4:20 p.m. He railed against the Trudeau government’s proposed legalization framework, which he argued rewards corporate cannabis growers and excludes those who founded his movement decades ago.
“There’s so much hypocrisy and corruption in this world we’re living in and we’re still going to fight hard to get what we deserve,” Magnuson said. “And it’s not Trudeau’s legalization — it’s legalization that includes everybody here.”
As the crowd counted down to 4:20 p.m., passengers on a dinnercruise boat watched from False Creek as a massive plume of smoke slowly rose about the shore.
“The cannabis movement has transformed Vancouver,” said organizer Dana Larsen.
“We lead the world in dispensaries and in cannabis freedom and access, and we’ve done it all without changing the law. We’ve done it despite changing our own reality, by becoming what we want to see. We can keep doing that so that people all across Canada can enjoy the same freedom every day.”
Today 4/20 is not just about coming together and celebrating cannabis and protesting prohibition. 4/20, on April 20th, is the biggest, mass civil-disobedience act of law-breaking around the world.