Timmins celebrated “420” for the first official time this year.
Northern Ontario Cannabis Education and Resources invited everyone to celebrate cannabis and peacefully protest the current laws around marijuana at the Mattagami River boat launch on Friday afternoon. CEO Kim Cooper says these events started because a group of artisans at a university in the states would meet at a statue every day at 4:20pm and get high to become more creative in their work she says the band “The Grateful Dead” had a member that was a friend of one of the artist and he relayed their story one night before a concert. After that, Gerry Garcia would always say, it’s 4:20 somewhere and “spark a doobie” to the crowd before a show. Cooper says the message caught on and went viral. From then on, 4:20 was associated with cannabis consumption. She adds that over the years, it evolved into a “Hippy Holiday” every April 20th, consumers gather in mass to celebrate the plant and protest unjust Laws governing it.
Cooper says it was time for the Timmins community to embrace some of the changes coming Canada’s way.
She says about a 100 people were planning to show up and partake in the activities and protest.
Danielle Turgeon partook in the celebration. Turgeon says she thought it was something different for the community to get together and learn to accept each other. She says events like this are contradictory, so seeing a community come out and celebrate it is cool.
Cooper says she is hopeful that the marijuana legalization will be approved this summer, and that this event can happen again next year.
