POT SMOKERS GET OFF SCOT-FREE

Local News - Standing outside Kingston Police headquarters dressed in a
black pinstripe suit, Canada's pre-eminent marijuana activist smoked a
joint with about 150 protesters and expounded for hours on why he feels
marijuana should be legalized across the country.

The four uniformed officers at the protest never approached Marc Emery, the
president of British Columbia's Marijuana Party. They just watched him talk.

And talk and talk and talk.

"Now, here's something we can all celebrate," Emery told the cheering crowd
as he pulled out a fat joint the size of a screwdriver.

When he paused to light the joint ­ packed with a strain known as Marley's
Collie, which Emery says gives a "social lubricant" kind of high ­ it was
one of the rare moments when his lips weren't moving.

Emery captivated a crowd ­ which dwindled to less than 10 people by sundown
­ for more than 2 1/2 hours, waxing on a host of pot-related topics,
including what he called the abusive policy of Kingston Police to seize
marijuana from people carrying less than 30 grams.

Since May 16, when an Ontario Superior Court judge upheld a lower court
decision to quash a charge against a youth for simple possession of
marijuana, Kingston Police have changed their stance on marijuana.

Officers have been instructed not to lay charges but to confiscate the pot.

The new policy inspired Emery to add Kingston to his summer tour of
Canadian police stations.

So far, he's been arrested in six cities. Only police in Toronto, Halifax,
Charlottetown, Prince George, B.C. ­ and now Kingston ­ have let him puff away.

As teens sparked up miniature pipes and adults sucked back on homemade
bongs yesterday afternoon, police made no motion towards the smokers or
their stashes.

"Jesus, it must be good. Everyone's hacking up a lung," said 22-year-old
Barb Hutson, as Emery's joint was passed around the crowd and the sound of
coughing filled the air.

There was a broad cross-section of society at the protest ­ from aging
hippies with ponytails in tie-dyed T-shirts to adults in business-casual
attire to high schoolers getting a glimpse of the man they have read so
much about in magazines such as Cannabis Culture.

Many older protesters wouldn't speak on the record, citing repercussions in
the workplace.

"A lot of people are still in the closet," said Gord Near, a 33-year-old
Napanee videographer, holding a bong made out of a sportsdrink bottle.

Near brought along his wife, Donna Hart, and their two children,
seven-year-old Dylan Near and one-year-old Evan Near.

"The more they know, the better. The more taboo it is, the more likely it
is they're going to do it at an earlier age" said Hart, who watched most of
the festivities from the other side of the street because she's four
months' pregnant.

Near said he doesn't smoke pot openly in the house around his children, but
he wants to educate them as they grow old so they don't buy into the
negative stigma surrounding pot smokers like their father.

"I won't hide anything from them," he said.

Mike Foster, a Kingston native who owns one of the biggest
pot-paraphernalia shops in Ottawa, made the trek to support Emery.

Foster said he thought the protest was an effective way to make citizens
understand what their rights are.

"Even though we can legally smoke out in the open, people don't believe
they can do it. It takes something like this to get people to come out of
their shells. He's saying 'Look, I'm smoking it in front of a police
station and I 'm not being arrested,' " Foster said.

Emery attacked the attitudes of police departments across the country.

He pointed out that in his home town of Vancouver, police devote thousands
of dollars to raids on grow houses, but when 60 women went missing in an
impoverished part of the city and no one was charged for a long time,
police complained they didn't have a large enough force to investigate.

He said the drug war has allowed police to invade people's privacy,
specifically with the heat-detection sensors used from helicopters to
detect grow operations in homes.

"So they can see you having sex. They can see all of your movements because
as a human being you give off heat. Only the drug war can give police
permission to pry into your homes," Emery said while a pair of men giggled
in the background.

Over and over again, Emery said that lawmakers and law enforcers have no
right to persecute someone for their lifestyle.

"Marijuana never created anything but a good vibe," he said.

Jason Back, a 19-year-old Queen's University student, and his 17-year-old
brother David Back, said when their parents dropped them off at the
protest, their mother and father were torn.

Their father likes the idea of them being politically engaged, but he's not
completely sold on their current cause, they said.

"They figure it's our choice," said Jason Back. "As long as [our smoking]
is in moderation."

Since the May court decision, Back said he's frequently smoked weed on the
Queen's campus because he believes it's now legal.

But not enough people know about the change in the law and are confused, he
said.

"People talk about how it's going to be decriminalized, because that's
what' s in the press, but when I tell them it's basically legal in Ontario,
they don't believe me."

At the end of the protest, Emery said he wasn't surprised that police
didn't confiscate his weed, suggesting that they would have been
"humiliated" if they had tried.

Not only did he think more Kingstonians would start smoking pot in the
streets because of his protest, he said the Limestone City is in store for
a new pot-smoking cafe.

Since the May ruling, a few cafes have popped up in the province, such as
one in London, he said.

"I think people here will have a smoke-easy [a marijuana cafe] opened
within a month," he told The Whig.

He said the city's restrictive smoking bylaw won't be an obstacle because
it only applies to tobacco products.