I was astounded by the amount of people jammed onto the north grounds of Queens Park for the 4th annual 2010 Toronto Freedom Festival (TFF) and Marijuana March. The festival's stated goal is to promote the freedom to choose and to expose their ideas. I believe their real goal is to gather in gigantic numbers and smoke weed hoping their show of public resistance will change the laws making marijuana a legal product. They say that this peaceful celebration is the 3rd year without an arrest. The police did attend in small numbers, mostly guiding traffic and pedestrians, with a pair of mounted police just hanging just outside the park. See photos of the 2011 march and festival on my post here.
I think a good part of downtown Toronto ended up with a contact high from all the smoke coming from this event.
The crowd was generally young, laid back (almost lethargic for some reason) and enjoyed the entertainment, atmosphere and empowerment that the mass gathering inspired.
Queens Park seemed pretty deserted and I didn't see any politicians greeting existing or future voters.
