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But that doesn’t mean the industry itself hasn’t shifted in response to the laws. More importantly, it doesn’t mean the problems that prompted the legal change in the first place have gone away.

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On April 20 — the world’s unofficial marijuana holiday — as many as 30,000 people gathered around the Vancouver Art Gallery for the city’s annual “smoke-out.” By mid-afternoon, a crushing throng of people splayed for a block in every direction, all cloaked by a skunky thin haze.

When this event started in the 1990s, a defiant few roamed the event with baskets of joints for sale. Now, it’s among the largest open-air markets in the City of Vancouver: More than 300 vendors, from slickly branded booths selling pot-infused olive oil all the way to dreadlocked men clutching hand-lettered signs reading “Dubes $5.”

There are no permits, since this is technically a protest. There are no sales taxes, since these are all illegal transactions. And there are no age limits, as evidenced by a crowd comprised largely of glassy-eyed high schoolers.

There are plenty of Vancouver Police, of course, but they’re only there to direct traffic and call in paramedics whenever an attendee drops from over-consumption. Most of the time, they can be seen leaning on barricades looking bored.

Just after 5 p.m., an emcee summed up the scene from the 4/20 main stage, “nobody’s this free anywhere on Earth!”

Cannabis and all its “preparations, derivatives and similar synthetic preparations” are effectively banned in Canada, according to the Chretien-era Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. With a doctor’s note, medical pot users can attain the stuff from an Ottawa-sanctioned catalogue of commercial growers. But for everyone else, get caught with a sandwich baggie of the stuff, and it can technically mean five years in a federal prison.