[420 Girl]

The wet weather didn’t dampen too many spirits — or spliffs — as over 5,000 people gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery to celebrate the 4/20 high holiday.

“This event unites people, everybody feels a sense of community,” said Donna, 46, as she stood on the outside of the fray gathered outside the gallery’s front steps.

People of all walks of life milled about, although there was a high percentage of students in their mid-20s donning pot-leaf-adorned clothing, and the occasional gaggle of preteens with red eyes and glazed expressions gawked at their surroundings.

Vendors sold everything from bongs and pipes to baked goods while others walked through the crowds offering rolled joints and baggies of hashish and kush for $10 a gram.

Aaron Thompson, who attended the celebration for the first time, was shocked by the tolerance for pro-marijuana gatherings in Vancouver versus in his hometown of Calgary.

“It’s way different than in Alberta,” the 26-year-old said. “There they have crowd control with cops on horses and everything. I’ve had cops take my pot and then give me the riot act.”

Among the crowd was marijuana activist Marc Emery and his wife Jodie. The high holiday could very well be the last in a while for Emery who is on bail, facing extradition to the United States to serve a five-year jail sentence for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet.

Emery’s Cannabis Culture Headquarters is often noted in international media coverage, including a mention in Lonely Planet’s Vancouver guide as a place to gather “with like-minded people.”

Rally organizer Jacob Hunter estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 were at yesterday’s 4/20 event, making it one of the largest annual worldwide protests, rivalling only Boulder, Colorado’s 4/20 gathering and Toronto’s annual Marijuana March.

“4/20 is getting a lot more of a political edge to it,” Hunter said. “This year we saw a lot more people with professional and handmade political messages . . . and more people were reading and posting on the website.”

Hunter and many other advocates at yesterday’s party/protest advocate for the legalization of marijuana, creating a “fully legal, regulated environment” like that for alcohol sales.

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