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UK: Police shut down Britain's first cannabis cafe

Reuters

Saturday 15 Sep 2001

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LONDON (Reuters) - Police have shut down Britain's first Dutch-style
marijuana cafe just minutes after it opened for the first time.

Officers closed down "The Dutch Experience" cafe in Stockport, and arrested
a 44-year-old man on suspicion of possessing cannabis with intent to supply
a controlled drug, a Greater Manchester police spokeswoman told Reuters.

The cafe had been launched by Colin Davies, 44, a leading British
campaigner for the legalisation of cannabis who once presented Queen
Elizabeth with a bouquet of marijuana plants.

Davies, a founder of the Medical Marijuana Co-operative, a non-profit
organisation that provides cannabis to people who suffer from multiple
sclerosis and arthritis, said he had wanted to give sufferers of
debilitating diseases a safe place to buy the drug.

"I believe the cafe was opened and then we went in and arrested him," the
police spokeswoman said. "The premises have now been closed and the shop is
being boarded up."

Officers also arrested five other people, a British man, three Dutch men
and a Dutch woman, on suspicion of being concerned with the supply of
controlled drugs, she added.

The debate on whether cannabis should be legalised has been raging in
recent months.

Millions of Britons are thought to regularly use the illicit drug, and a
recent government survey found that almost a third of young people had
taken it in the past year.

Some senior police officers, politicians and campaign groups have said
police should be freed to concentrate on tackling the trade in harder drugs
such as crack cocaine and heroin.

London's Metropolitan police force, with government backing, announced in
June that it was launching a pilot scheme in the Lambeth area whereby
offenders caught with the drug would be given no more than a verbal warning.

In July, Home Secretary David Blunkett signalled that the government would
at least consider the arguments for changing the law, calling for "adult,
intelligent debate" specifically on cannabis.

 

 

 

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