April 20, 2013. The air around the Vancouver Art Gallery is thick with pot smoke.
It’s the annual 4/20 rally, once a fringe event whose attendance has grown 1,000-fold since its inception. On the gallery’s north side, you can hardly move an inch amid a crush of patrons at an illicit farmer’s market, where merchants peddle all types of marijuana, from blueberry strain to Purple Kush.
The police largely turn a blind eye to the festivities, and the only reprisal anyone faces is from an eccentric street preacher who urges the revellers to count their blessings.
But 4/20 isn’t just a free pass to smoke weed for a day. It’s also a movement to decriminalize the drug and make the police turn their heads permanently, with a base of public support that has grown in lockstep with the rally’s attendance numbers.
After 18 years, the movement may finally be reaching its goal as marijuana advocates find practical, pragmatic, legal paths to making every day 4/20 in B.C.
– Read the entire article at The Huffington Post.
