SPRING, AND POT, WAS IN THE AIR

Toke-Up Day Draws Thousands To Art Gallery

VANCOUVER - Sam McKinnon, spent three days working on her
international pot-smoking day costume: a green tutu and T-shirt
printed with the words "THC Fairy."

The annual event -- known simply as "4/20" in reference to the date,
April 20 -- lured thousands of weed worshippers to the lawn of the
Vancouver Art Gallery on Friday for a collective toke that lasted all
afternoon.

You could smell it from at least two blocks away.

"It's a big deal," said McKinnon, 17, standing at the corner of Howe
and Georgia just after 4:20 p.m., when organizers handed out about 400
free joints to the crowd.

Behind her, plumes of skunky smoke clouded the blue sky. Canned reggae
music played over a sound system drowning out the traffic.

"We're all about the same thing -- pot," said McKinnon, showing off
her braces as she grinned. "We all share the love for the same thing."

Love it they did.

Wherever you looked people were busily rolling joints, passing pipes,
admiring each other's bongs or passing out stems from marijuana
plants. The crowd -- made up of everyone from aging hippies and
skateboarders to yuppies and goth brats -- bubbled over on to the
sidewalks along Georgia and Howe.

It was the biggest gathering of its kind yet, said so-called prince of
pot Marc Emery.

"It emboldens us when we see we can gather 7,000 or 8,000 people
together in a public space," said Emery, the head of the B.C.
Marijuana Party. When the smoke-in began, back in 1997, he said, only
50 people showed up.

"It's certainly a community that supports its cannabis," said Emery.
"Vancouver is the greatest city on Earth."

And on Friday it might have been one of the most stoned cities on
Earth.

The marijuana revellers don't misbehave, Emery pointed
out.

Apart from a few security guards, who patrol the 2010 Olympic
countdown clock, there were no police officers on site.

"They didn't even see a need to send any over," Emery said. "It was
very orderly."

The masses of people, many of whom sported costumes or waved flags,
caught the eye of tourist Yingke Wang, 22, who stopped to photograph
the event.

"You wouldn't see this elsewhere," said Wang, of Cardiff, Wales. "I'd
say it's pot-smoking on a very big scale."

And if they weren't inhaling or munching on marijuana-laced baked
goods, they were busy eating junk food or sipping slurpees and
fighting the "munchies," like Chance Ernewin, 16, of Vancouver.

"It's great that we can do this," said Ernewin, scooping handfuls of
potato chips and chocolate cookies into his mouth. "Stoned people are
so relaxed."

Amber Hamilton, 23, said she looks forward to pot day more than other
holidays, even Christmas.

"It's always nice on this day," Hamilton said. "When it comes up I
like to take the day off work."

Hamilton said it makes some laws seem ironic.

"You can't go to Wreck Beach and have a beer because you'll get
arrested but you can do this: get together and smoke pot," said Hamilton.

And Grant Hatson, 15, a Grade 11 student from North Vancouver summed up the
laws relating to pot in Vancouver: "It's illegal but it's not really
illegal."

Now the question is, did the city inhale?