The idea for this type of action came from Treating Yourself renting a display booth at non cannabis related trade shows and getting seriously positive feed back, so much so they were encouraged to come back and do it again. I felt this would be a excellent way to get to the general public that are not exposed to the truth about cannabis in their daily lives. After a lot of planning and research I felt the best way for Calgary 420 to attempt this for the first time in conservative Calgary was the 3 day Body, Soul and Spirit Expo. Second was to stick with a educational booth only. In other words we were there selling nothing and only providing free truthful fact based information in the form of displays including samples of legal high quality medical grade cannabis, audio/video, cannabis related magazines and easy to read one page documents (many provided by frankdiscussion.net) and how to get a Health Canada medical cannabis exemption license from the CDSA as well as answer questions the general public would likely want to know.

 

Not only was it also a great way for Calgary 420 to celebrate 4/20 since the Body, Soul and Spirit Expo was on the weekend right before April 20, Calgary 420 has the people that would volunteer the time and effort and the sponsors that would pay the bills so it became a must do type of action.

 

As suspected Friday proved to be the biggest shock for the Body, Soul and Spirit Expo and the Big Four Building on the Calgary Stampede Grounds. Also as suspected a complaint was called into the Calgary Police Service (CPS) and they send a undercover police officer to investigate us Friday evening. I didn’t know the undercover police officer had arrived due to his questions were like others we had already answered a number of times. Comments and questions like “that can’t be real marijuana”,  and after being told it was real cannabis and then the question “is that not illegal?” After explaining it was legal due the fact we had Health Canada exempted people in the booth in full control of the high quality medical grade cannabis the red flag for me was when he asked if he could see a Health Canada license. Right then I knew the person was very likely a Calgary Police Service (CPS) undercover police officer. His last question after looking at the Health Canada license provide by Rob Blair was “is there more then 90 grams in the jars on the table”. That question confirmed to me right away this person was a Calgary Police Service (CPS) undercover police officer. Once I assured him there was under 90 grams on display he winked and turned on his hell and left with a smile on his face. I knew he would report to the CPS, show management and the Big Four Building staff all was legal and the CPS has no interest in our activities at the show. It was interesting to see how the vibe change towards our booth on Saturday morning. Many vendors at the Expo that avoided our booth on Friday and even a few that frowned at us as they keep a wide space between themselves and our booth on Friday were now stopping by our booth very curious and asking many questions.

 

There was so many more other highlights during the 3 days of the Body, Soul and Spirit Expo to many to mention here but one I feel must be mentioned here is the email messages I received from Body, Soul and Spirit Expo show management early Sunday morning, before the start of the last day of the show, thanking us for our booth and that they had received a lot of very positive feed back about our booth and how we all conducted ourselves. They went on to say they would love to have us at there shows in Edmonton and Saskatchewan.

 

Lastly but not least a huge thank you goes out to all the Calgary 420 volunteers, sponsors and all the people that stopped by our booth during the 3 days we celebrated 4/20!