Living in Mapleland: It's my smoke, it's my right

Democracy: free smoke in free country

There’s a day in Vancouver will be always cloudy, no matter what the weather forecasts can say: 20^th April, or 420, as they call it here. It’s the day they celebrate marijuana and their right to smoke and get happily stoned. No wonder if it is cloudy it’s because of the smoke.

Being myself a non-smoker, I was curious to have a look at this kind of “alternative” event they hold every year on 20^th April in downtown in front of the Art Gallery.

As soon as I got out of Vancouver City Centre Skytrain Station my nose was literally attacked by the violent smell coming from the crowd of pot lovers.

It was something unbelievable: I had never seen so many people at a time in Vancouver, probably not even on Canada Day. I knew already in the city the weed culture is deeply rooted and at some extent tolerated, at the point you can hear Vancouverites boasting as the best in the world the quality of their harvest, nevertheless I could not imagine such an amount of people being involved in this celebration.

The event itself looked like a village market, a local fair of trip where you could get pretty much everything to get stoned: special cookies, weed, and even joints ready for use. A chap was showing with pride his 2 plants of hemp. Inevitable to hear people shouting in unison “Legalize!” at 4:20.

But probably the most incredible thing to my European eyes was to see at a short distance policemen doing absolutely nothing but to keep an eye on the event in a very discreet way.

When I left to take the Skytrain to go for my weekly shopping I had to show my monthly pass to the cops at the station. This is Vancouver: you can smoke what you want, but don’t even dare to break more serious rules, like smoking too close to buildings or travelling without tickets. There’s no room to play smart here or to disrespect the others.

And yes, feel free to burn an inhale the kind of grass you prefer, but please consider yourself obliged to live a healthy lifestyle, eat organic food and practice jogging not to get overweight: health is important and a moral obligation in Vancouver.

Smoky and (out of) ordinary contradictions of a Canadian city.