Global Marijuana March – May 3, 2008

Just catching up on some of the reports from the March this weekend:

Close to 500 protesters took to the streets [of Calgary, Alberta, Canada] Saturday in favour of marijuana’s medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain.

Amid the incense aromas and reggae beats, several hundred Austinites rallied at the Capitol on Saturday for the legalization of marijuana for personal and medical use.

Rolling out at high noon May 3, the Ninth Annual Million Marijuana March smoked through downtown Portland as part of Oregon NORML’s protest of pot prohibition and to support the use of medicinal marijuana through Oregon’s sometimes controversial Medical Marijuana Act.

“These guys are easy compared to the anarchists,” said Sgt. Voepel of the Portland Police Department, “they’re on time, and they’re orderly.”

According to the Sarge, the only rabble rousers during the march were two drunkards who were pestering people but were unconnected to the peaceful pro-pot gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.

Thousands of marijuana activists from key Canadian cities puffed joints in public on Saturday as part of the Global Marijuana March – a worldwide protest on cannabis prohibition.

Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg held similar protests which took place simultaneously in 239 major cities across the globe, according to a Cannabis News’ website.

Supporters of legalizing marijuana gathered in Civic Center Park behind the Larimer County Justice Center on Saturday.

The event in Fort Collins was part of the Global Marijuana March; 239 cities across the globe also held events.

Supporters also set up shop in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.

Police have fired tear gas to clear scores of youths during clashes outside a pro-marijuana festival in Athens.

Officers moved in as youths set fire to tires and blocked a busy road outside a university campus. No arrests or injuries were reported during three hours of pre-dawn clashes Saturday.

Roemer, who uses a wheelchair and a cane because of the pain in one leg, was among more than 100 people who marched from Capitol Hill to Westlake Park in downtown Seattle on Saturday in support of liberalizing marijuana laws. She thinks it should be legal for anyone to use.

An AIDS patient and a wounded veteran of the Iraq war joined a small group of demonstrators Saturday in downtown Rapid City who advocated the legalization of marijuana for medical uses.

During a relaxed march from Memorial Park to several of the presidential statues, organizer Bob Newland of Hermosa said he was planning another public campaign to make marijuana legal for medical use in the state. The last such effort failed on a statewide vote 52 percent to 48 percent in 2006.

A few hundred people gathered at Fountain Square [in Cincinnati] on Sunday for a rally to support legalizing marijuana – a scene that played out in many U.S. cities this weekend.

OMAHA, Neb. — A group of young men and women were holding signs and lobbying for marijuana Saturday at the Gene Leahy Mall.

The signs advocated using marijuana for medicinal purposes. The group thinks pot is not dangerous.

Queen’s Park may have been soggy from yesterday’s rain, but sparks were flying as thousands spent the day smoking pot just north of the Legislature.

It was part of the Toronto Freedom Festival and the 10th Global Marijuana March, with the intent of pushing to legalize marijuana.

Intent as ever to shake the Reagan propaganda for good and get people to start calling weed “grass” again, Cleveland’s cannabis activists are on the march. Again. For the 10th-annual worldwide Million Marijuana March. After three years sitting out. And no, the grass had nothing to do with it.

John Hartman, the longtime de facto leader of the region’s cannabis activist community as owner of Lakewood’s Cannabis Connection and founder of the Ohio Cannabis Society, died in February after years of intensifying kidney dialysis. A transplant could have saved him, his friends say, but that wasn’t happening in today’s climate of ignorance and fear.

“He got knocked off the transplant list because he tested positive for pot,” says Jerry J., another longtime activist who was on his way to visit Hartman at the nursing home when he learned of his death. “He got the death sentence for pot.”

If you’ve got news clips or photos or videos from the March, please let us know here on the Stash. Send me an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.