POT PARTY SUPPORTERS ROLL UP TO HILL PROTEST

It's not the kind of smell a visitor would think they'd encounter while
walking up to Ottawa's majestic Parliament Buildings.

Nor would anyone expect to see people taking deep hauls on joints outside
the nerve centre of Canada's top law makers. Which is probably why tourists
who walked past a Parliament Hill demonstration to legalize marijuana
yesterday laughed nervously and stared openly.

"Let's get high," joked one woman, as she made her way up the steps.

But for those 75 Canadians who have been exempted from federal marijuana
laws, and others who want to be, the government's take on the issue isn't
funny. They are ailing, suffering from a painful range of diseases.

Yesterday's event was organized by Rick Reimer, a Pembroke lawyer who is
one of the select group allowed to grow and possess pot for medicinal purposes.

"I'm allowed to have this," Cobourg resident Steven Bacon told an RCMP
officer, in the first of two incidents.

Bacon spent several minutes arguing with the officer about the legality of
bringing a pot plant to the Hill before backing down and putting it in a
nearby car.

In the incident, a protester tried to throw a cream pie at a statue but
ended up pegging an RCMP officer in the face as he tried to intervene.

Marc St. Maurice, 31, was charged with assaulting a police officer.