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UK: Cannabis activists smoke up London
Reuters
Saturday 16 Jun 2001 LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of Cannabis legalisation activists have paraded through London carrying giant models of "spliffs" and "buds," and openly smoking "the weed" as police turned a blind eye to the revelry. The London Cannabis March and Festival on Saturday ame a day after London's police force, Britain's biggest, said it was telling officers to take a more relaxed attitude to cannabis possession. "Have a laugh and free the weed," chanted Peter Matthews as he danced down Kennington Park Road, spliff in hand, followed by several thousand more Cannabis legalisation activists who left police and passers-by in a cloud of smoke. Nearby, Superintendent Michael Wood kept in touch with an overhead police helicopter as a marcher rolled a joint next to him. "We're using a policy of making the stewards advise marchers against persistent and open use of drugs and when that is disregarded the officers can make arrests," said Wood, adding that there had been no arrests so far. Prime Minister Tony Blair is firmly opposed to legalising cannabis on grounds that sales of the drug are linked to organised crime. Police forces around the country say they struggle to enforce little-respected cannabis laws when the nation has the highest rate of cannabis use in Europe, higher even than in the Netherlands which has a tolerance policy. Some constabularies like Cleveland County say it is time to consider the legalisation of some or all drugs. Cleveland says making drugs illegal pushes up their price and forces some users to turn to crime in order to buy often unsafe, unregulated hard drugs like cocaine and heroine. Courts can still jail Britons for cannabis possession and Home Office figures for 2000 showed the number of people convicted for possessing cannabis in Britain had more than doubled in the previous six years to over 40,000 a year. "We're here to celebrate all aspects of the Cannabis plant and protest about the ridiculous prohibition of it," said festival organiser Andy Cornwell, who welcomed the Metropolitan Police's pilot scheme for cannabis. Under the scheme, to be operated in the south London area of Lambeth, offenders caught with cannabis will have the drug confiscated but be given a verbal warning rather than face an official caution or arrest. Most marchers said the criminalisation of cannabis made as much sense as the 1920s prohibition of alcohol in the United States. "It's an everyday thing, it's like alcohol, except alcohol makes you fight, this makes you chill out," said Matthews.
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