HE'S HIGH ON HEMP

'Pegger Plans Marijuana Museum

A Winnipeg pot advocate predicts his cannabis museum will be one of the
city's top tourist joints when it opens this summer.

Chris Dalman, whose efforts to unveil the city's first authentic cannabis
cafe last year were short-lived, told The Sun yesterday about his latest
endeavour -- a museum/educational institute/hemp pizza delivery service.

"It's going to be the most innovative and state-of-the-art museum," said
Dalman, a self-professed "reverend" of the Church of the Universe, which
uses marijuana as a sacrament. "I'm going to open the first museum of its
kind in North America."

Called The Canadian Cannabis and Hemp Museum and Educational Institute, the
museum will showcase Dalman's collection of cannabis artifacts dating back
100 years and will open as early as July 1 in the Exchange District, he said.

The food will come later -- hemp smoothies, tea, ice cream and pizza delivery.

Dalman said he's no longer "a radicalist" and insists his museum will be
marijuana-free. He'll use replica plastic plants to show the history and
evolution of pot.

"I don't think any reasonably minded and educated person would oppose this.
It's opposing history, Mother Nature, religion and freedom of speech," said
Dalman.

Treasures on display will include a 1930s ship rope made of hemp,
hand-crocheted hemp bags and rugs from Nepal, hemp shoe twine from 1947 and
Chinese hemp slippers dating back to the 1920s.

Visitors can flip through dozens of books and magazines, including a '70s
edition of High Times, Amsterdam government publications warning tourists
about what to watch out for in their coffee shops and Winnipeg newspaper
clippings from the '60s about busted marijuana grow operations.

"We'll offer education, too, raising awareness to the medicinal benefits as
well as the harms of abuse and overuse of cannabis," said Dalman, adding
visitors can check out an Aboriginal peace pipe, a hash pipe from India and
rolling papers from the '60s. "We're going to educate the public."