4/20 protests will become celebrations after federal decision to legalize marijuana

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This article was published 20/04/2016 (3457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pot advocates called for marijuana legalization at Wednesday’s 4/20 festivities, but it could be the last time they have to.

A group of weed smokers clouded up downtown and gathered at the Manitoba legislature to celebrate the herb. The usual premise of 4/20 is to encourage politicians to look into either legalizing or decriminalizing the drug, but now that Justin Trudeau is prime minister, that could change.

Marijuana legalization and regulation was one of the Liberal government’s big promises before the federal election last October. Wedensday, Health Minister Jane Philpott told the United Nations that legislation could be introduced as early as next spring in Canada.

Steven Stairs, president of the Winnipeg 4/20 organizing committee, has been coming to 4/20 for around 15 years and has been an organizer of different festivities for the last five, which led to his position with the committee. He said he’s a medical marijuana user and became an advocate when he was a student representative for students with disabilities at the University of Manitoba.

“I’m a disabled person, I’m legally blind, so I thought why not combine the two,” Stairs said. “I’m a marijuana user, I’m a disabled rights advocate, let’s become both. And now I’m able to advocate for the access for sick people through the medical marijuana system which I’m also a user of. It’s almost a duty of mine.”

Brendan Armitt was also at 4/20 and said he’s been self-medicating with marijuana for years. He said he hopes around this time next year he’ll finally be able to do it legally.

“I had a problem with sleeping,” Armitt said. “I went to the doctors and they said I had narcolepsy. My parents weren’t all for medicating me so I had to find ways to put myself to sleep. I started smoking pot and I realized that it helped and there’s very little to no negative side effects and so I continued.”

Wednesday’s event featured local marijuana vendors set up along Broadway as well as an organized March through downtown Winnipeg.

Jason Oliveira had a table set up for an online medical marijuana dispensary called medicalcannab.is. He said once the Liberal government legalizes weed, it will make administration easier for a lot of marijuana businesses.

“It just means that we’re going to have simple legalization,” Oliveira said. “We’ll be able to finally pay taxes without jumping through any hoops, and asking a whole lot of weird questions. We’ll be able to distribute to people recreationally.”

Stairs said he encourages any marijuana naysayers to come out to 4/20 in the future to experience it firsthand to dispel what he calls myths, stigmas and stereotypes about marijuana users and 4/20.

“This isn’t just some sort of niche anymore,” Stairs said. “This is your grandma, this is your uncle, this is your school teacher and your lawyer. Everybody in society uses marijuana for either recreation purpose or medical benefit and we’re just here to perpetuate the idea that we’re not criminals — we’re all here to have a good time and educate the public.”

bailey.hildebrand@freepress.mb.ca