photo: 420/2010 Vic Park Regina

There have been NORML supporters in Saskatchewan since the early 1970's when NORML and NORML Canada started. The Saskatchewan chapter itself didn't come along until 1997, and it wasn't a chapter of NORML Canada.

Umberto Iorfida of NORML Canada with Sebastian Bach of Skid Row

You might not know this, but not that long ago, 1988 to be exact, the Mulroney Canadian Government made it illegal even to advocate legalization. You also might not know that "Morality Bureaus" existed in Canada to enforce these sorts of things.
For a short version of the story of NORML Canada and Umberto Iorfida's historic fight just to fight for our rights, it's here in an old issue of Cannabis Canada (now Cannabis Culture).
More thorough documentation can be found here from efc.ca

Marc Emery was also instrumental in successfully fighting the parephenalia laws.
In Saskatchewan, strange circumstances would draw a controversial university professor into the fight for cannabis legalization and soon fighting against corruption in every aspect of our legal system.

Sheila Steele kicked off the pot movement for Saskatchewan in 1994, right after getting busted, and a little while later she started the infamous Injustice Busters website, which she ran until death in 2005 and which still exists today but only as an archive.

Injustice Busters largely existed to generate public support for falsely convicted people, and which also remained highly critical of the war on drugs, even naming informants in drug cases, and, though she had began putting most of her energy into generating support for people falsely accused of more serious crimes, Sheila Steele was instrumental at the early stages in forming NORML Saskatchewan and remained an energetic supporter.

photo: From the vigil for Emery outside the Saskatoon Jail in 2004

There's also a "time capsule" of the old NORML Canada website.

Plus an even older NORML Canada website.

photo: Ernie Rogalsky outside court, 1999

Right after that was over, Ernie Rogalsky started NORML Saskatchewan in 1997. He was almost immediately targetted with a set up "investigation" designed to destroy his life and NORML Saskatchewan's viability as an organization. It sort of worked.

His fight, like many important endevours in the pursuit of liberty and justice in Saskatchewan's often corrupt legal system, was assisted by The Injustice Busters group.

In the meantime, Cannabis Day '97, Saskatchewan's first major pot rally since the early 80's took place in Victoria Park, Regina on Canada Day 1997, featuring one of the first public speeches by med pot hero Grant Krieger, a Regina resident at the time, though he moved to Calgary shortly after, who's case was in full swing at that time.

Grant Krieger circa 1997

When Rogalsky went to jail he passed the torch to his wife, Marie Johnson(2000-2001), who passed it on to Timothy Hampton(2001-2006) shortly after.

These were interesting times for the movement in Saskatchewan. The Headshop revolution started slowly in the prairies, in the early 90's with Vintage Vinyl in Regina selling hemp and giving out pro-hemp pamphlets culled from "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer, followed by magazines and books, followed by everything else you expect to see at Vintage Vinyl today.

There was a threat hanging over Vintage owner Pat Baumet during that time, with the parephenalia laws that had hit NORML Canada still in force. Then it reared it's head closer to home, taking out the near identical Vinyl Exchange in Saskatoon. Vinyl Exchange owner Mike Spindloe fought a hard battle, through lawyer Alan Young, with publicity assisted by NORML Saskatchewan as well as The Injustice Busters, though he eventually lost and paid a fine in 2000, but by then there were full fledged headshops springing up everywhere and the movement was unstoppable.

In 2001 the After the epic legal battles of Grant Krieger, Terry Parker and others, the Federal government introduced the first medical marijuana legislation. This allowed the patient to designate a grower, so NORML Saskatchewan started an initiative called "Grower Patient Connection" to connect patients with growers. It got a lot of media attention but fizzled out because the rules were so strict very few people were approved in the first 2 years. Rules later loosened, but now there are other groups doing the same thing so the Grower Patient Connection initiative was never revived.

NORML Saskatchewan has also been behind the "Sick Of Syringes" needle pick up program, the first organized needle pickup program, other than the overworked fire department, in Canada's worst neighborhood, North Central Regina. Started by a NORMLSask volunteer and North Central resident in 1998, after his then 2 year old daughter almost fell on a needle, it was used to draw attention to the growing hard drug crisis.

Timothy Hampton gave a moving presentation on behalf of NORML Saskatchewan when testifying before the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs in Regina on Monday, May 13, 2002.
From Timothy Hampton's presentation:

"What we have to do is stop it from going across the border. I will be really blunt here. There is lots of pot grown in B.C. that is going across the border, and it is causing a lot of trouble. There are a lot of guns and a lot of big money. The Yankees are not happy, and it is dangerous. Americans are bringing big money to Canada. They are bringing guns. They are bringing cocaine and heroin and trading it for our pot. That has to be stopped. "
"You have to get people in line. You need a contract that we, as cannabis users, agree with, because you need our help to stop that traffic. Without us, you will never stop it. To get our help, there has to be a mutually agreeable contract."
"Once we are on side, I will be the first guy to stand up and take a marijuana policeman's badge, and I will be out there policing my people. We have said to our people that we have to be prepared to police our own folks."

In September 2002, after hearing from experts all over Canada was " the Committee concludes that the state of knowledge supports the belief that, for the vast majority of recreational users, cannabis use presents no harmful consequences for physical, psychological or social well-being in either the short or the long term."

In another section they say "The social and economic costs of illegal drugs affect many aspects of society through lower productivity and business loss, hours of hospitalization and medical treatment of all kinds, police time and prison time, and broken or lost lives. Even if no one can pinpoint the exact figures, a portion of these costs arise, not from the substances themselves, but from the fact that they are criminalized. The drug most frequently associated with violence and criminal offences, including impaired driving, is in fact legal, alcohol.
Cannabis, the criminal organizations that control part of the production and distribution chain aside, neither leads to crime nor compromises safety. Even its social and health costs are relatively small compared to those of alcohol and tobacco. In fact, more than for any other illegal drug, we can safely state that its criminalization is the principal source of social and economic costs."

Everyone should read the Senate's full report

On the first Saturday of May every year since 2001, NORML Saskatchewan has organized the Regina component of the Global Marijuana March, with help from local headshops and others, and also organized the Saskatoon component, with some difficulties, in 2001 and 2002.

Various members of NORML Saskatchewan were unofficially involved at the grassroots level, printing and distributing posters, etc., in promoting Marc Emery's 2003 SmokeOut Tour stops in Sask and his post smoke out events, as well as demonstrations related to the resulting court cases.

One NORMLSask activist got a bit more directly involved in the Regina Smokeout tour event.

We've also organized fundraisers for activists in trouble like Marc Emery and Grant Krieger

photo: Free Marc rally in front of the Service Canada building, May 2010.

Timothy Hampton faded away by 2006, NORML Saskatchewan was now headed by long time webmaster and Regina organizer Daniel Johnson. For the GMM and various other events, the focus since then has been on events in Regina, while the Sask Marijuana Party focused on events in Saskatoon. New fundraising methods came about, including Metal 4 Marijuana 2008, which is now to be an annual event. NORML Saskatchewan is also mapping out a plan to become active province wide once again.