Chase: “Alright everybody, Chase March here with Alison Myrden at the Toronto Freedom Festival. You can you can stream this interview with the player below, or you can just continue reading.
Chase: So, how’s it going Alison?”
Alison: “Hey everybody, how’s it going? Hey Chase!”
Chase: “It’s good to see you.”
Alison: “It’s good to see you too.”
Chase: “I know we talked to you last year about this, but for anyone who wasn’t listening last year, why are you here and what’s your involvement?”
Alison: “I am always here for the same reason, and I’ve been coming out before there WAS a march in Toronto. We have been sharing the message that not only do we want cannabis legalized and regulated here in Canada for EVERY possible reason: religious, medical, social, anything you can think of. Cannabis needs to be legalized and regulated once and for all, and today is the day we speak about that.”
Chase: “Definitely. Yeah, so there are lots of people out today. It’s a nice sunny day. Everyone is out to support it, and for a lot of different reasons.”
Alison: “Yeah.”
Chase: “One of your reasons is medical.”
Alison: “You bet. I am actually one of Canada’s first medical marijuana patients and have been since 1994, and I find that I need some help here in the country because I choose medical marijuana long before there was such a thing as medical marijuana and I end up, luckily, getting a lot of people to understand what I was talking about because they too were finding the same thing with cannabis and it was a good reason to get away from pharmaceuticals and use something a little more natural, a little safer. So I have been fighting for the right for people to use medical marijuana here in Canada since, like I said, openly since about 1999 – 2000, but again I have had my own license since 1994. Been going for a long time Chase!”
Chase: “Yeah, definitely. And the Toronto Freedom Festival has been going for a long time too right?
Alison: “This is the thirteenth year!”
Chase: “But we have had some problems with it this year. I know we here at DOPEfm did not really know what was going on or who was going to be here. The permits weren’t available-”
Alison: “Yeah, it was canceled completely at one point till Tommy Chong saved the day for us in California.”
Chase: “Nice.”
Alison: “I don’t know if people know about that. There was a big YouTube Toronto Freedom Festival video with Tommy Chong which is absolutely hilarious.