VANCOUVER — Part carnival, part raucous marketplace, part political statement — 4/20 Vancouver has evolved into a celebration that epitomizes the marijuana movement.
The annual event at the Vancouver Art Gallery attracted a crush of thousands of people Sunday who came to smoke pot, party, stand up for the legalization of recreational pot use in Canada and sample the goods from the dozens of booths that crowded the squares and cordoned off streets around the art gallery.
Everything was for sale: T-shirts, posters and towels emblazoned with the ubiquitous cannabis leaf or reggae king and pot lord Bob Marley, as well as all manner of bongs and pipes.
Marijuana itself was also for sale in endless forms: in cookies, brownies, popcorn, lollipops, banana bread, oil.
You could buy seeds or bags or already-rolled joints: three joints for $10. This was hawked loudly by sellers pushing through the crowds.
Everywhere was the acrid scent of pot and a smoky haze hung above the crowd in the main square.
There were police present, standing at the sides of roads or on the opposite sidewalks. But they were not there to interfere — even though it’s still illegal to sell pot in Canada — but simply to keep the peace and manage traffic.
“It’s a monumental thing. It’s really grown,” said Jesse Staines.
A former Vancouver resident who took part in five years of 4/20 celebrations before moving to Calgary, Staines came by bus with a friend because he didn’t want to miss the party. “We just had to come back,” he says, noting the celebration in Calgary is much smaller.
The label 4/20 came into popular use after a group of high school friends in San Rafael, Calif. in the 1970s began using the time school ended as code for smoking pot.
Marc Bourrel came to the party from White Rock.
The 57-year-old has been using pot for 45 years and loves that acceptance of pot has evolved so it can be used openly.
He believes there’s less chance of anything violent happening at the pot celebration than if there was booze being served. “It’s nice to see. No fighting. No problems.”
Booths, which circled the art gallery, had colourful names: Weedy Wonkas, Buddha Hut, Pot Pirates, Trippy Hippy Shack, Ignite.
At HighZenHerb, owner Dan Borchardt was focusing on selling edible products such as candy and cookies.
The active ingredient in pot — tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — is crystallized and then put into an oil before it is used in the food products, notes Borchardt.
He believes that edible product will have a bigger role in the future, in part because there’s less stigmatization than in smoking pot, particularly as the sellers exist in a legal grey zone.
Borchardt, like others such as Staines and Bourrel, believes that eventually pot will be legalized in Canada.
But how and when that will happen remains uncertain, says Borchardt.
Across the border, Colorado and Washington State have legalized the use of recreational pot use following referendums in 2012. Similar measures in Oregon and California just barely failed.
In the U.S., the federal government has said that if states want to pass a pot legalization law they can.
In Canada, the federal government under the Conservatives has strongly resisted legalization and decriminalization, and it is only allowed in certain circumstances for medical purposes.
Jodie Emery says there’s been a huge spike in interest in legalization as the American state experiment plays out.
“I can tell you from my spot as being a pot activist for 10 years in Vancouver, the last year has been insane — even in Canada — with respect to licensed providers and all these companies trying to be the next big thing,” Emery said in an interview.
“We’ve won over the Man and the establishment. You know, they’re on our side. And it is definitely financially motivated.”
The organization Sensible B.C. launched a failed effort last year to get support for an official referendum.
Because B.C. lawmakers cannot legalize pot, the Sensible B.C. referendum called for reforms to provincial policing laws so that police would not spend any time, money or resources on cases of simple possession of marijuana.
At the celebration Sunday, Sensible B.C. was trying to sign up volunteers and get support for another try at a referendum.
Organizer Nick Whitehead said given the federal government intransigence on the issue, a provincial referendum is the only way to start the process of decriminalizing marijuana use.
“Legalization is the future: It’s just a matter of time,” he said.
