The Youth International Party (YIP) organized "smoke-ins" across North America through the 1970s and into the 1980s. The first YIP smoke-in was attended by 25,000 in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1970.[2][3] There was a culture clash when many of the hippie protesters strolled en masse into the nearby "Honor America Day" festivities with Billy Graham and Bob Hope.[4]
On August 7, 1971, a Yippie smoke-in in Vancouver was attacked by police, resulting in the Gastown Riot, one of the most famous protests in Canadian history.[5]
The annual July 4 Yippie smoke-in in Washington, D.C., became a counterculture tradition.[6][7][8][9] Other smoke-ins as protests for cannabis law reform have been held in the 1960s in London;[10] and through the 1990s at least at the U.S. Capitol,[11] and in and around Austin, Texas.[12][13]
^Harris, Art (4 July 1979). "Yippies Turn On". Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. Retrieved December 15, 2017.
^DANA ADAMS SCHMIDT (July 17, 1967). "BRITISH 'SMOKE-IN' PUFFS MARIJUANA: 'Flower People' in Hyde Park Chant Case for Legality". The New York Times. p. 9.
^"Marijuana supporters hold smoke-in protest". Kitchener - Waterloo Record. Kitchener, Ontario. July 16, 1992.
^"Marijuana 'smoke-in' may be smoke screen", Austin American Statesman, p. B2, May 23, 1990
^MacCormack, John (July 2, 1993). "Marijuana-law protest sprouts outside Hays jail". San Antonio Express-News. San Antonio, Texas. p. 10D. [He] was among seven local residents who staged dope smoke-ins at local police stations in 1991 to protest the criminalization of marijuana.