Car boot ban over a cannabis poster:

Youngsters attending sale could be easily led, say organisers

A ROW has broken out after a family was banned from a Fylde car boot sale because they displayed a poster advertising a cannabis manual and website. Kathleen Graham and her sons Matthew, 25, and William, 17, of Cambridge Road, Blackpool, have been told not to return to the sale held each week on a field at Bilsborrow, near the village of St Michael's.

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They admitted displaying tile poster; advertising the Homegrower's Manual by cannabis campaigner Billy McCann, but claim they were doing nothing wrong by the action. But the organisers of the car boot sale say they did not want youngsters who attended the event to see the posters and be encouraged to try the class B drug. Mrs Graham, who says she is treasurer of her local Neighbourhood Watch scheme, said: "We were just advertising a book which informs people fully about cannabis both the legal side and its medicinal

uses. What we were doing was not illegal.

"The book interested me because I used to look after people with MS when I was a nurse and I wanted to know more about how cannabis might help them."

Irene Brindley, who has run the Bilsborrow car boot sale for 15 years in aid of the Animal Rescue Centre, a charity, said they were advised by the police to ban the family from the site.

She said: "There are a lot of youngsters who go on to the car boot field and they could be easily led. "They could go on the Internet and find out more about cannabis and we don't want anyone on the site who might encourage that. "We have the right to turn anybody away from the car boot sale whom we're not happy with."

Don Barnard, press officer for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, admitted that the book did tell people how to grow cannabis.

He said: "This is a very, very informative and educational book. "I am absolutely amazed that they are stopping people putting a poster up when at the market at my local town here in Essex, there are stalls which are selling all kinds of things to do with cannabis.

"There is no law against selling anything that is cannabis-related as long as you do not use them for an illegal purpose and the supplier makes that clear to you."

A spokesperson for Lancashire Police said they were not aware of any criminal activity at the Bilsborrow car boot sale. Possession of cannabis is punishable by a jail sentence of up to five years, plus a fine. Under plans to reclassify the drug as class C, the maximum jail sentence for possession will be reduced to two years. But people found guilty of supplying the drug will still face up to 14 years in prison