REBELLION IS IN THE AIR AT ANNUAL MARIJUANA RALLY

Sixty-Two are arrested on possession charges-fewer than last year.
Attendance also is down at the Boston Common Gathering.

Boston-With swirls of marijuana smoke wafting through the air,about 40,000
people poured into Boston Common on Saturday for a rally supporting
legalization of the drug.

Police, who had vowed a crackdown on the ninth annual Freedom Rally,
arrested 62 on drug-possesion charges - fewer than the 150 arrests at last
year's event, which attracted about 10,000 more people.

"The cops were trying to intimidate people from coming ... but I don't
think it worked," said Bill Downing, president of the Massachusetts
Cannabis Reform Coalition.

At one police checkpoint, Amy Cook and three other students prayed for
marijuana smokers to turn away from drugs. "They're going to do what
they're going to do. But they might see us and think twice later," she
said.

Doug Goudreau, 19, of Peabody, Mass., said marijuana was plentiful at the
rally - at about $5 per cigarette, or $20 to $30 for a small bag.

The police, he said, missed a lot of the dealing.

"They don't know what's going on," Goudreau said. "They look for the fools
who are acting stupid."

Tie-dyed shirts, mushroom-shaped hats and marijuana-leaf motifs were
everywhere, as was the unmistakable odor of marijuana - masked occasionally
by the smell of tobacco or clove cigarettes.

Richard Elrick, a councilman in the Cape Cod town of Barnstable, sold
"Decriminalize Marijuana" buttons to help raise money for the cause.

"Marijuana is less of a public health threat than alcohol or tobacco," he
said. "I can't think of a more counterproductive way for society to spend
its resources than to arrest marijuana users."

On the west side of the park, 16-year-old Jake Sealine of Cambridge
displayed homemade didgeridoos - musical wind instruments. Many mistook
them for marijuana bongs and Sealine had to explain himself again and again
to buyers.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson