Victoria's top toker can't join smoke-in - Pot aroma wafts over City Hall in sixth annual joint jubilee
By: Gerard Young, Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC), 04-21-05


Victoria's best-known pot advocate was one of the few who didn't light up Thursday afternoon outside City Hall.

It's not that Ted Smith didn't want to join revelers in the annual marijuana 4/20 celebrations -- it's just that a few police officers were keeping an eye on Centennial Square, and Smith is already facing drug charges.

Still, it didn't stop the former Victoria mayoralty candidate from being on hand to advocate freedom of cannabis use for recreation or medicinal purposes and a change in marijuana laws.

Surprisingly, however, Smith said he plans to vote NDP in the May 17 provincial election rather than Green or Marijuana Party. His goal is to defeat a B.C. Liberal government he sees as unsympathetic to his cause.

Lighters flashed throughout the crowd of a couple of hundred as the clock struck 4:20 p.m. on the 20th day of the fourth month, a symbolic date in the pot crowd. Explanations for the date's significance range from speculation 420 was once the code for pot possession in California, to theories 4:20 was the time university students in Michigan met each day to smoke up.

The event has been held here every April 20 since 1999.

"It's certainly a global event now," Smith said, noting B.C.'s Marijuana Party unveiled its May 17 election platform during celebrations in Vancouver on Wednesday.

Wafts of pot lingered in the air as smokers toked on little joints, others the size of cigars, or personal bongs or pipe-like devices for smoking the weed.

"I'd like to thank everybody who offered me a toke but I'm still on bail," said Smith, who wore a green and white Dr. Seuss-type hat as he addressed the crowd.

Smith, who has been on bail since 2000 as a variety of drug charges work their way through the courts, expects his jury trial for possession of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, to begin this fall. He was charged after selling pot cookies to raise money for those who use pot for medicinal reasons.

Smith is also part of a group that operates the storefront Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada, which sells medical marijuana to those who show ID and a doctor's note.

In January, he was fined $500 for handing out a few joints at a fall 2000 rally at the University of Victoria.

Sgt. Doug Bond, who was among a handful of uniformed Victoria police officers that mingled with the crowd, said the annual April 20 celebrations typically generate few problems.

There were no arrests this year, although one young man, either stoned or drunk or both,was carted away by police to sleep it off.

The rally, which included strumming, drumming, harmonica playing and hackey-sack kicking, attracted mostly young people, along with some middle-aged participants.

"It's definitely a lifestyle," said View Royal gas station worker Mike Liebig, 19, who put down his Maple Leaf-like cannabis flag as joints came at him from every direction.

"No way I would give it up. I find it easier to function with it."

© 2005 H.U.M.A.N.: Hemp Users Medical Access Network - Toronto Medical Marijuana