Dozens gather in Center City to "Free the Weed"

"THIS IS NOT a stoner event," N.A. Poe said yesterday while proudly sporting a tank top depicting marijuana buds, cigars and joints arranged in the shape of the American flag.

"It's a direct action by stoners to raise awareness and make progress."

Nearly 200 people assembled in LOVE Park yesterday for Smoke Down Prohibition 2.0: Free the Weed, a protest calling for the legalization of the herb by the federal government.

The group gathered at 4 p.m., some toting homemade signs and banners, others bringing more creative props, like one man's six-foot tall "bong."

It was a motley assortment of activists: dozens of hipsters, hippies and even the drag queen "Weedney Houston."

The group skewed young and old: Wendy, a 62-year-old from Camden County, puffed on a joint not far from where Veda, 6, and Bella, 7, stood by their mom with handmade signs.

The girls took pride in the posters, one of which bore "Cannabis is God's medicine" scrawled in Magic Marker.

And at 4:20 p.m., a minute hallowed by pot smokers, the plaza was filled with a thick, fragrant cloud, one the protesters hoped could be seen by Gov. Wolf in Harrisburg.

Poe - a marijuana activist whose real name is Richard Tamaccio - and his supporters staged the event to underscore the medicinal benefits of the plant, especially for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and children with chronic conditions.

Kids like 8-year-old Tatyana "Tuffy" Rivera, a New Jersey medical-marijuana patient who suffers from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a form of epilepsy.

"Cannabis helped her more than any medicine," said her father, Ricardo Rivera. "There's no way of stopping her seizures, but cannabis gives her the best quality of life."

Rivera said his daughter went from having 300 seizures a day to one every few weeks, thanks to medical marijuana.

He's now on a mission to make it easier for other kids and adults suffering from similar conditions to find relief.

"It bothers me, because if it were broccoli that made her better, it wouldn't be a problem," he said. "But there's a prejudice against this one plant by pharmaceutical companies and the doctors they influence."

South Philly resident Michael Whiter pushed a similar message, albeit more bluntly.

"Cannabis saved my life," said Whiter, 39. "That's not a joke. I'm dead serious."

After serving as a staff sergeant in the Marines, Whiter came home from Iraq racked by PTSD.

He barely left his house. He showered maybe once a week, because "he was so numb from pills."

Whiter said the Department of Veterans Affairs prescribed him 40 medications over the course of five years - heavy-duty pills like methadone and clonazepam, an anti-anxiety medication.

The chemical cocktail didn't help: He tried to kill himself three times, he said.

Then, in 2012, he found a National Geographic documentary about medical marijuana while channel surfing.

He started smoking. He started sleeping better. He stopped taking the pills.

"Pills have the same effect as alcohol - they numb you to PTSD," he said. "You have to feel to heal, and that's what cannabis helps you do."

Following the rally, Poe, Rivera, Whiter and their colleagues marched through Center City to the offices of U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, as well as Gov. Wolf's local office, chanting for change:

"I smoke pot and I like it a lot."