The police have been accused of acting ‘Aggressive and Militant’ towards Cannabis activists at the Canada day event in Vancouver. The police pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and arrested during a clash between the two.
The comments were made by well known Canadian cannabis activist Marc Emery. Marc spoke to the crowd after the incident by saying “I’ve been to jail for marijuana” continuing with “I’ve been to 34 different prisons. I’ve actually been arrested on 23 separate occasions and some of those, like my last 5 year stint in the United States involved 6 prisons. So I’ve seen my share of prisons…”
Giving a short interview after Mr Emery concluded “…the Police were acting aggressive and militant from the dawn, from early this morning and then eventually they pepper-sprayed people, tackled some activists.”
“Allegedly these people were selling marijuana to someone underage is the pretence but what a violent response to even such a trivial accusation as that when we have Heroin injection sites sponsored by the city”
“You know we’ve got bars with thousands of people drinking alcohol. But they’ve actually spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in double time and a half today on a holiday to police an event that doesn’t need any policing”
“And so they went looking for a problem and they created one and they were probably so embarrassed they had to withdraw and so the event has returned to the very peaceful, nice thing it always is”
Robin Douglas from the Church Of The Holy Smoke spoke on his duty to speak up for his fellow church goer saying ” …a bunch of the protesters being arrested for cannabis possession I understand and one of them is a member of my church. So as their pastor I had to stand up for ’em and try and support him.”
This all comes just a week after Vancouver became the first Canadian city to licence and regulate medical cannabis dispensaries. Canada day is a national holiday that takes place annually on the 1st of July. Some footage of the clash below: