The Varsity
(University Of Toronto)
An afternoon on the grass
By Katie A. Szymanski
Published: Monday, September 13, 2004
Media Credit: Doug Gibbons
Photo caption: Alex Phillips rolls up a herbal jazz cigarette at the Marijuana Legalization Day of Action
The grassy field behind the SAC offices was the location for the first Marijuana Legalization Day of Action at U of T on Sunday afternoon.
Organized by SAC External Commissioner Sam Rahimi, the event was held to raise awareness about Canada's laws surrounding the use of marijuana and the varied supporters among Canadian people for the legalization of marijuana.
About 100 people attended the afternoon's events, a group made up of students, interested citizens and professionals, many of whom are involved in marijuana organizations and advocacy groups.
For Rahimi, his main reason in organizing the event was his concern over the difficult issues surrounding the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes by people in need, and his strong belief in the personal autonomy over one's own body.
"It's crazy that the government can tell you what you can and can't put in your body," he explained, and that "sick people can get addictive drugs from their drugstore like morphine, and you can't really argue that marijuana causes bodily harm."
Alison Myrden, an activist with the Medical Marijuana Mission, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and multiple-sclerosis sufferer, spoke at the event and talked with a member of SAC's external commission, Saba Tariq, about medicinal marijuana issues.
Tariq, a political science student entering law school next year, came to the event "to get informed, especially about medicinal users because of all the drugs they have to take already and what side effects they have."
As an individual who doesn't use marijuana herself, Tariq said she could now teach others in the organizations she belongs to, and advocate for change in Canadian law.
Lawyer, professor and pre-eminent pot activist Allan Young also spoke at the event, calling for the laws to be changed to address what he calls Canada's most popular national pastime (not lacrosse) which, he says, is "three million people strong."
Fighting against the Canadian government and arguing the value of intoxication and altered consciousness, Young began his campaign 15 years ago, using his training as a litigator to challenge what he calls "consensual crimes."
He stressed the fact that young people between the ages of 18-25 have the highest risk of prosecution for marijuana possession. This generational gap, Young suggests, is due to the mystification, and vilification of pot use among professionals and adults like himself.
"There is something about the slow maturity into parenthood which makes people change their political views in very uninformed ways," he asserted.
Mingling at the event were supporters such as U of T alumni Dominic Kramer (founder of the Toronto Hemp Company on Yonge Street), a team of students from Ryerson making a documentary, and a spliff or two out in the open. Rahimi acknowledged this "civil disobedience" right away, but said that support for the event was solid. Given the easy-going atmosphere and nature of the event, he said he couldn't see how anyone could take issue over a student-organized awareness day.
U of T student and Ontario Cannabis Activist Network member Mike McGown's own experience as a supporter, however, has been quite the opposite.
McGown was arrested for carrying a sign at a rally of a similar nature at Queen's Park recently for breach of peace, bearing the words: "Weed My Lips-Legalize it."
Not only was he arrested, but he was also injured during his arrest after being thrown onto his face after positioning his sign next to the statue of King Edward at the centre of the park. He was further injured, he said, while being put into a police vehicle, and again when he was put into a holding cell for four hours.
The Day of Action blended pot enthusiasm with education and awareness. On the list of issues was the criminalization of medical marijuana, but participants said they came away informed about many different aspects of marijuana for all kinds of users and supporters.
2004/09/12 as presented at the UofT Legalize! Day of Action
Why is today so important?
Dominic S. Cramer
Well, aside from all of the long-known reasons for events like this to take place, from the benefits of industrial hemp and medical marijuana to the undeniable corruption, greed, prejudice, expense and evil associated with the prohibition of cannabis; the timing couldn’t be more right.
We have made all kinds of strides forward over the past many years, but we’ve taken way too many blows, steps backward, and far too many people have suffered unnecessarily, and still are suffering, whether by being forced to shop for often substandard medicine on the black market or by being thrown in jail and saddled with a debilitating criminal record or by any of the other many destructive aspects of this violation of our rights. In many ways it’s getting worse, not better… Let me give you just a few examples…
Everybody thinks pot’s legal here, and due to some inconsistencies in legal decisions over the past few decades it likely technically is – but we don’t have a recognized state of decriminalization, and even if we did the bill our government has tried to push through for the past few years is NOT DECRIMINALIZATION! Don’t believe it, they aren’t even pretending it is anymore. It increases penalties and will result in dramatic increases in harassment and persecution of millions of Canadians, users of this beneficial herb, you and I. If you don’t know why the Bullshit bill is bad, please FIND OUT! A few cosmetic changes aren’t going to fix it.
You might also think that we have a system in place allowing medical users to access cannabis if they need it, but that too is bullshit. The government is so reluctant to help sick Canadians, so cruel and incompetent, that their Marihuana Medical Access Regulations are as complicated and inaccessible as possible, and they arrogantly ignore every court ordered improvement of their system that we have to fight so desperately, and futilely, for. And you’ve surely heard about the quality of the pot they’ve tried to force upon those supposedly lucky enough to get into the MMAR system – yes it’s getting better, but it’s all just a big pile of shit no matter how you look at it.
You may not have heard much about Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop in Vancouver… They’ve been openly selling pot over the counter for months. The city knew about it, the cops knew about it, and it was only when the media found out about it and CTV decided to do what they could to stir the proverbial pot, that the situation came to a head. Well, the cops didn’t bust in, at least not for a week – while the news choppers waited overhead. First they said they’d wait and see what the city wanted to do about issuing them some kind of special harm-reduction business license. Wow, for the past week it’s seemed we had semi-legal and almost-approved marijuana stores in Canada! But then a few days ago the cops did bust in, after harsh words from BC’s Dick of a Solicitor General, but guess what - Da Kine was back open the next day.
Since the CTV story and related spin-off, Da Kine registered at least 7000 new customers! The cops watched hundreds of customers per hour pass through the shop. The big lesson here folks is that more pot selling cafes are coming! It’s pretty obvious that there’s a ton of cash to be made, for entrepreneurs and governments alike. It’s going to happen one way or another. It’s certainly obvious that DaKine would have kept going strong if they’d flown under the radar a little more rather than selling pot to CTV. We already have semi-underground shops like that in T.O., and delivery services, and many more are coming.
But at another café in Hamilton, this one where NO WEED is sold, the cops have been on a campaign of harassment and persecution, going so far even as to arrest a 76 year old woman and other medical users who were doing nothing more than smoking a little pot. And we’ve seen similar experiences at other cafes as in Montreal and New Brunswick. So far, Toronto cafes have been left alone, but they could be next.
A few weeks ago, Marc Emery was sentenced to serve 90 days in jail for trafficking marijuana, for passing a joint! Even though the precedent set by our courts before this incident was that sharing is not trafficking, even though Marc did nothing but share a joint with some supporters in a conservative Canadian town.
Around the same time, a cannabis festival, a protest much like this one, was taking place in Queen’s Park, right over there, when City officials and a few gung-ho cops decided to start manhandling and arresting protestors for no logical reason – it was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen happen in this great nation. Canabian Day was shut down because they couldn’t get insurance for their event – insurance that’s necessary if you are going to get a permit for city property – insurance that’s absolutely impossible to get if you tell the truth about what you’re doing.
Similarly, legal and licensed patients who grow their own meds under the Health Canada exemption system are being refused home insurance because of their gardens. They’re being kicked out of their homes – “Get out, cancer patient, and take your wife and children with you, you have 72 hours.” What kind of ridiculous hatred is that? The insurance companies blatantly discriminate against pot smokers and pot growers for no damn reason - hold a tobacco rally or grow a tomato garden and you’re eligible for whatever insurance you want. And the government just says “but that’s not our fault,” completely ignoring the lives that hang in the balance.
And as reported in Now magazine this week, it turns out that the Canada Revenue and Customs Agency has decided that marijuana is taxable and that compassion centres are businesses just like any other. While at the same time, they state that without a prescription and a Drug Identification Number, marijuana is not tax deductible for even legal exemptees. Gee, not too huge a contradiction there, huh?
So really what we’re learning now is that it’s happening, it’s on. It’s time. Right now. And it’s happening without the input and control of our USELESS government. It’s happening in the courts, the courts of public opinion, the streets, the cafes, the stores, right here.
We Canadians are unwilling participants in the misguided war on drugs, unwilling victims of the downward spiral inevitably caused by waging that war.
And we Canadians are neither stupid enough, nor corruptible enough to put up with it any longer, no matter what the idiots in Ottawa say.
That’s pretty much all I have to say, except to encourage you to enjoy this gorgeous day, and consider what you can do next to further help make this world a better place. Get involved, keep informed, inform others, it’s up to us.
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