Windsor’s pot lovers hosting three-day downtown celebration

In Ontario, you’ll soon be able to buy booze at the corner store and drink it in a public park, and you’ll be able to order a drink at 9 a.m. and crack open a six-pack at a parking lot tailgate party.

Booze kills, says Leo Lucier. But nobody, the long-time Windsor pot activist insists, dies from consuming marijuana.

Despite being made legal in Canada last October, Lucier said enforcement of new marijuana laws since then by the authorities appears to be stricter than anything he’s seen in years.

After his Compassion House on Tecumseh Road West was recently busted for the second time since legalization, Lucier was locked out of his pot-related business by his landlord. The criminal cases against Lucier — among the first to be charged under Canada’s new Cannabis Act — as well as against 10 co-accused arrested at the Compassion House and downtown Windsor’s Envy, are currently before the court.

With a list of prior pot convictions, including having to serve jail sentences, Lucier is worried about another potential stint behind bars, but that’s not preventing him from hosting a big pot party this week in downtown Windsor.

Skirting the nation’s drug laws has always been a part of 4/20. That’s the name of the annual gathering in cities on April 20 when pot enthusiasts openly and defiantly consumed cannabis and called for changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that made such activity subject to fines and jail.

Of course there’ll be pot — lots

This week’s “Epic 420 Festival” will be a three-day affair at Charles Clark Square starting Thursday and running from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day until Saturday. There will be live music, DJs, speakers, food — and lots and lots of pot.

Perhaps given his legal challenges, Lucier downplays the latter.

Officially, it’s a “peaceful demonstration,” he said, and the focus is on medical cannabis: “Nobody can tell us where to take our medicine.”

Pressed on the subject, however, he concedes: “Of course there’ll be pot — lots of giveaways, lots of freebies.”

The festival site will be fenced off and nobody under 19 — the legal age in Canada for the recreational use of marijuana — is allowed in. Entrance fee is $5 or a non-perishable food donation.

After the initial police raid, the Compassion House quickly reopened, offering free cannabis in return for food and other “donations.” In just a few months, Lucier said more than 22 tonnes of food were collected and distributed to local charities, food banks and service organizations.

“We were on the right path, doing the right thing,” said Lucier. For all the talk of harm reduction, he points out that the nearest Ontario-licensed brick-and-mortar retail outlet for Windsorites is a four-hour round trip to London.

While some purveyors of pot are being charged by police, Lucier said some of those who used to bust him and his peers “are now the ones getting into the business.”

Recently retired Windsor police deputy chief Rick Derus is now head of security for a huge new cannabis greenhouse facility being built in Leamington for licensed producer PharmHouse. Julian Fantino, former OPP commissioner, Toronto police chief and Tory cabinet minister who once compared weed to murder, partnered with a former RCMP deputy commissioner to start a medical marijuana business, and the former national head of the RCMP’s drug squad became president of a pot company.

“The government has a monopoly, and the government decides who’s allowed in and who’s not allowed in,” said Lucier.

While cannabis laws have “drastically changed” in Canada, Windsor Police Service spokesman Sgt. Steve Betteridge said there are still “many laws on what people can and cannot do.” He said impaired driving is a big no-no and that there are currently no approved brick-and-mortar cannabis retail licences in Essex County. “If someone is selling here, then yes, that’s an offence.”

Betteridge said local authorities are aware of Windsor’s 4/20 plans and that everything is fine “as long as they abide by certain rules. Our No. 1 goal is always community safety.”

Lucier said that, unlike big gatherings where alcohol is consumed, Windsor’s 4/20 events in the past have attracted thousands and “there has never been fights, never been violence — take the booze out and the violence goes.”

There will be no alcohol served at Windsor’s 4/20, which takes place just days after the local health unit warned of mental illness being among possible risks for young people consuming too much cannabis.

Related

• Barred from selling pot, Windsor man now giving it away
• Four-plant limit won’t limit giant pot harvests, local grower shows
• Windsor cops lay first Cannabis Act charges after city raid, five arrests
• ‘A great day’ — pot smokers celebrate end of prohibition

Among the speakers, said Lucier, will be comedian and Royal Canadian Air Farce alumnus Alan Park, who credits cannabis in his recovery from stage-four cancer; Richard Clement of the marijuana advocacy group Lansing NORML, which scored a recent victory in getting Michigan to legalize recreational pot; and Toronto activist Michael Gallagher on how governments have been handling legalization so far.

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