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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: The frontline dope: cannabis cafes are ready for lift-off Jonathan Miller The Times Sunday 24 Mar 2002 To Stockport, Mecca of British pot smokers, to check on preparations for 'C-Day' at the Dutch Experience cannabis cafe. The place is heaving and the mood is one of high excitement as the dopers contemplate victory. After three decades of often confused official efforts to suppress cannabis, the tokers in Britain's first pot shop reckon the government is about to surrender. In London the police are preparing to extend their zone of toleration from Lambeth. A poll taken for the Police Federation reports that 80% of the public no longer care about cannabis. And most significant of all, the government is preparing to reclassify cannabis as a class C drug: the date this goes through will be C-Day. Is all this tantamount to decriminalisation and a green light for Amsterdam-style coffee shops nationwide? The government denies it but ministers seem as befuddled as the pot heads. Nobody is certain when the government orders will be signed and the Home Office is not keen to give a date lest it provoke unseemly celebrations. Perhaps it has in mind the notorious annual hash bash in Ann Arbor, Michigan, now in its 31st year. The festival (which I helped to initiate) celebrates the council's de facto decriminalisation of cannabis when an ordinance was passed specifying offenders should receive only a $5 penalty notice. There had been rumours that Britain's C-Day would be in March, then some time in April. But whenever it happens, you can expect the tokers of Stockport to be celebrating in a cloud of pungent smoke. Vikki, passing a joint to her friend Daz, who is on his fifth of the day, says: 'Class C is the trigger. After C-Day it is going to be exactly like Holland.' The conversation in the Dutch Experience does not always tend to be joined up, but they may be right. Lambeth, where the police no longer make arrests for possession of cannabis, has sent a delegation to Amsterdam to learn how to regulate cannabis cafes. Businessmen like Simon Woodroffe, who owns the Yo! chain of sushi restaurants, are ready to pile in: 'If cannabis is legalised, we in Britain should do it well and not the way Amsterdam went, with those slightly dodgy characters running the cafes. I would look at doing something in our bars or something special.' Dutch Experience opened on September 15 last year which, given other contemporaneous events, guaranteed its appearance went almost unnoticed. It is a joint venture between Colin Davies and Nol van Schaik, a Dutch entrepreneur who already owns three cannabis cafes in Holland. What of the cops? Thus far, the Greater Manchester police are showing themselves to be dopey. They raided the cafe on opening day and arrested five people including Davies, who is disabled, with possession or intent to distribute cannabis. He refused to agree to bail conditions requiring him to stay away from his own cafe and so he has been in prison ever since. Everyone else has been released. Meanwhile, the Dutch Experience has stayed open. The cops put their head round the door from time to time but otherwise they leave it alone. If this is a model for how cannabis cafes will be tolerated there seems nothing much to stop them. Schaik is busy prospecting sites to expand the concept across Britain. He may open a second one in Bournemouth this week. Other locations include Brighton, Liverpool, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh and London. To say that the local community is outraged would not be correct. The neighbours seem blase and the local visitor centre cheerfully gives directions to the narco-tourists arriving at the nearby train station. A guest book contains messages of support from visitors from all over Britain as well as America and Holland. 'Keep on toking at 68 years!' reads one. There is something ever so slightly incongruous about the Dutch Experience. It does not seem to make sense that after mobilising half the police force on the day it opened, the cops have subsequently pretended that the place does not exist. Is it being allowed to stay open as part of an unannounced Home Office pilot scheme? The Dutch have calculated that it is better to keep the coffee shops operating so police can keep an eye on them and prevent them being used to distribute other drugs. Officers raid coffee shops regularly in Holland to check for minors and hard drugs. The Home Office insists, though, that even if police now look away from actual tokers, severe penalties will remain on anyone cultivating cannabis. What is it about dope that makes governments behave so irrationally? It appears that the government is determined that all cannabis consumed in Britain should be imported from central Asian warlords through a distribution network of criminal gangs. Meanwhile, hard-pressed British farmers - like me - are being prevented from diversifying into a crop that could soon be in demand at every Coffee Republic. Daz handed me joint number six, claiming it was Mancunian home-grown. I dubbed it Stockport skunk. Other than giving me the munchies it had no discernible effect. These guys need some professionals.
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