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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Press Release: Cannabis Campaigner's Support Magistrates Revolt
Legalise Cannabis Alliance
Tuesday 17 Apr 2007 PRESS RELEASE: 17 April 2007: No Embargo Legalise Cannabis Alliance PO Box 2884, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 9EE http://www.lca-uk.org CANNABIS CAMPAIGNERS SUPPORT MAGISTRATES REVOLT The Legalise Cannabis Campaign has come out in support of Cambridge magistrate Alan Williams and two colleagues who resigned last week after refusing to levy a "victims' surcharge" on a teenager fined for possessing a small amount of cannabis. [1] Dilys Wood of Stoke-on-Trent, a spokesperson for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, said: I am pleased to see that magistrates are at last accepting cannabis possession is a crime without victims. "We can only hope that all magistrate and Judges faced with imposing this unfair and unjust surcharge will accept that cannabis possession is a crime without victims and follow the example of Mr Williams and his colleagues and resign in protest." Contact: Dilys Wood DilysWood@lca-uk.org Public Relation Office Legalise Cannabis Alliance http://www.lca-uk.org Editors notes 1: Magistrates involved in the case who resigned: Mr Williams, 60, (from Ely) Having fined a teenager for possessing a small amount of cannabis declared in court at Ely that surcharging the teenager for the crimes of others was "morally wrong" .... Mr Williams later resigned. Mrs Johnson, 61, (from Cartmel, Cumbria), said: "let the punishment fit the crime." Mr Foster, 63, a magistrate in Boston Lincolnshire for 15 years, said: "The only way you can fight these sorts of things is by making the protest, as others will no doubt do". The government £15 "victims' surcharge" to fund services for victims suffering domestic violence was imposed on JP's despite opposition from the Magistrates' Association which condemned the scheme as fundamentally flawed" Source: The Guardian: "Magistrates quit over government demand to impose charges" Author: Clare Dyer, legal editor; April 16 2007) http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2058081,00.html
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