The thousands of marijuana users and advocates meeting for the annual 4/20 celebration in downtown Vancouver Friday know they can breathe easy.

That's because police have long held a policy of public safety over enforcement at the pro-legalization rally, overlooking possession of minor amounts of marijuana in exchange for what is generally an otherwise incident-free afternoon at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

"There have been no problems in the past and we anticipate none this year," Const. Lindsey Houghton told ctvbc.ca.

"We're not talking about 4,000 people with a kilogram of cocaine each."

While authorities have been turning their heads to joint-smoking, bong-hitting and pot brownie-munching at 4/20 for years, the City of Vancouver went a step further at Friday's celebration by granting a temporary permit to close a stretch of Howe Street.

The erected stage and food carts lined up on the normally-busy roadway resemble those seen at any number of city-sanctioned street parties, though Houghton said the road was blocked mainly for safety, "so there is no concern about vehicular traffic coming into contact with pedestrians."

The apparent step toward legitimacy comes months after Mayor Gregor Robertson, who was unavailable for comment Friday, called for an end to pot prohibition. Four former Vancouver mayors, B.C.'s chief medical officer and a growing number of municipalities in the province have also come out in support of the cause.

On Wednesday, they were joined by U.S. attorney John McKay, the man who helped convict Vancouver's self-described "Prince of Pot," Marc Emery.

"We are, through our policies, promoting a huge black market with billions of dollars that are being exploited through criminal cartels, through gangs, through organized crime on both sides of the border," McKay said.

An Angus Reid survey released last fall suggests that position is also shared by a majority of Canadians. A full 69 per cent of respondents said they favoured taxing and regulating pot over chasing down growers and sellers.

Only 12 per cent said they were in favour of maintaining Canada's current pot laws.

But the calls have so-far fallen on deaf ears; far from decriminalizing marijuana, the federal government's omnibus crime bill is doubling the jail term for marijuana production from seven to 14 years.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government is "strongly opposed" to drug legalization, and Heritage Minister James Moore assured reporters that the Conservative administration remained firm in its approach Friday.

"Our position hasn't changed on that subject. It's not something that we see as in the public interest right now," Moore said.

The federal NDP says it supports decriminalization, while the Liberals made a highly-publicized announcement in December favouring full-on legalization.