Pubdate: Thu, 26 Aug 1999
Source: Peace River Block Daily News (Canada)
Website: http://www.sterlingnews.com/Peace/
Contact:  Mark Neilson, Daily News Staff

RALLY SEEKS TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Local pot enthusiasts will be putting down their joints and picking up
their placards Saturday.

That's when a rally in support of legalizing marijuana starts at 4:20
p.m. at Kin Park.

Organizer Carole Mathieson said she supports legalizing marijuana for
both recreational and medicinal use.

"We just think that instead of cops wasting their time busting normal
people who have one or two joints or a little bit of marijuana for
their own use, they should be out solving murders, and carjackings and
burglaries and things like that," she said. "Almost every person in
the country has at least tried it. It's as common as alcohol and we
figure it should be legal."

At least 50 people and possibly more than 100 may show up for what
Mathieson said will be a peaceful rally that will include middle-aged
adults and grandparents as well as young people. And Mathieson expects
that a few of them don't even smoke marijuana, but support its
legalization nonetheless.

Whether anyone will toke up in a show of defiance, Mathieson could not
say. "I personally am not going to," she said. "I know a couple of
people that said they would, but we're hoping just to have a peaceful
get-together."

Whether or not someone would be smoking a joint during the rally was
one of the reasons why city council voted against expressing support
for the get-together.

But councillors agreed that whether or not the rally had their
blessing, it could still be held at Kin Park because it's a public
place.

Mathieson pointed to Amsterdam as an example of a city where marijuana
has been legalized without any major trouble.

"They have little coffee shops, it's fairly regulated, they don't have
any problems with it," she said.

And she said the government could generate enough tax revenue from
marijuana sales to pay off their deficits.

Rally-goers will also be supporting the legalization of hemp, which
has been grown by farmers for its use as a textile before it was made
illegal.

Mathieson said that THC, the psycho-active ingredient that gives
marijuana smokers the high is so minimal in hemp that it has no effect
when consumed.

Growing hemp for commercial purposes was legalized last year, but is
only allowed with a government-issued permit.

Mathieson, who is allergic to Demerol, said she's smoked marijuana to
alleviate the pain from a concussion she received in a car accident a
few years ago.

The starting time of 4:20 p.m. was chosen because it's an odd time, as
opposed to 4 p.m. or 4:30 p.m., and because it's in keeping with a saying
in the American magazine High Times: "If it's 4:20, it's time to smoke up."

Other than making a routine patrol past the rally to make sure there
is nothing illegal happening, Dawson Creek RCMP Sergeant Arlen Miller
said police will not be doing anything special.

"Hopefully, if they see us, they won't light up," he
said.

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