|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
Nimbin Hemp Embassy
Nimbin H.E.M.P. Embassy Press Release
Tuesday 15 May 2001 From: "Nimbin H.E.M.P. Embassy" PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE NIMBIN HEMP EMBASSY 15 MAY 2001 The village of Nimbin is in an uproar this morning after the raids on cannabis cafes yesterday. The police and politicians have already let the genie out of the bottle on this. They began here about two years ago and slowly the word has spread. Obviously people would prefer to buy their cannabis in a safe and regulated environment away from the aggressive and violent street dealers who also sell other drugs. Separating cannabis from other more dangerous drugs is very important. We know for a fact heroin dealers use very young people to hold their stash, no doubt in return for a taste. We've sat in these cafes with politicians and police talking to them about it! In the European Union of 15 countries, only four member countries are prosecuting for personal use of cannabis. There's drive through hashish shops now starting up on the Dutch/German border! Backpackers arrive in Australia, often after travelling through zero tolerance Asia, and are clearly casual about purchasing and using small amounts of cannabis despite warnings of its illegality. It's a confusing situation. As you know, as tourism booms on the north coast, in turn the gravy train created by the drug laws is attracting more and more seriously undesirable characters. The word is out in Grafton jail - go to Nimbin, it's easy money selling pot, you can drink alcohol on the street all day, and police rarely interfere. The easy money in street dealing is also tempting local youth in a big way. They've grown up in this criminalised alternative culture with no respect for injustice, understandably. The scariest thing for us is that many of the youth accept that going to jail may be part of the game. There should be a law "thou shalt not lead us into temptation". The government is 100% guilty. Prohibition sets up a marketing structure that makes cannabis accessible to children, whereas regulation through the cafes had already made major inroads into the street dealing with sales strictly only to over 18 year olds and only small amounts. No-one was ever offered cannabis and that's why Barry Audsley's undercovers had trouble purchasing. They would have walked past dozens of people offering them pot on the street to get to the cafes! We've never tried to hide these cafes and the police have given us every indication they were happy with the results - the street has been noticeably better. This is a very close community, desperately trying to solve a serious problem in our one street town. This is a community trying to solve its own problems in a harm minimisation manner. We have not had one complaint about the cafes and in fact, the local Chamber of Commerce and other conservative members of the community have been moved to comment positively on the impact it's having on our problem street scene. ONE PHONE CALL FROM THE POLICE COULD HAVE CLOSED THE CAFES! Why did you need to send in 35 police, sniffer dogs and so on? Community policing has been destroyed here now. The community feels seriously betrayed. Police need to explain their priorities. No-one believes the community has requested this action. In fact, we know most of the complaints about Nimbin involve the street dealers. Is this just policing by media? The Nimbin HEMP Embassy states that the arrests yesterday are purely political, these are cannabis law reform activists. People are lined up in the street this morning offering to get busted. Is this the way it has to go? Our local daily, The Northern Star editorial today states "NSW is moving towards regulated use of marijuana. It seems inevitable." Michael Balderstone Nimbin HEMP Embassy President HEMP Party. 15 May 2001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HEMP SA Inc - Help End Marijuana Prohibition South Australia PO Box 1019 Kent Town South Australia 5071 Email: mailto:hempSA@va.com.au Website: Check out our on-line news service - HempSA-News! To subscribe to HempSA-News send mailto:hempsa-news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Or go to: To unsubscribe to HempSA-News send mailto:hempsa-news-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!