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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: It's a joint enterprise!
Simeon Brody Kingston Borough Guardian
Friday 09 Aug 2002 A shop in Kingston is openly selling cannabis seeds that are being used to grow the illegal narcotic plants and it is all completely legal. For five years Gypsy Nirvana in Surbiton Road has been selling bags of seeds, starting at 7 pounds for 10, knowing its customers will be growing them at home. In fact the owner, Glyn, who has served time for importing the drug and insists on being called Mr Nirvana, helpfully runs another shop a few doors down, Indoor Jungle Supplies, where customers can buy everything they need to fertilise and grow the plants. But far from being closed down by the police, the business is flourishing undisturbed right under their noses. On Wednesday a police spokesman told the Comet it was not an offence to own or sell the seeds and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. This is because while growing cannabis plants is an offence, the seeds themselves contain no narcotic properties and are not defined as a drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Unlike some suppliers who maintain that the seeds are only used as bird feed or as collectors' items, Mr Nirvana is quite open about the fact that people buy the seeds to grow the plants. He argued that it was better for people to grow their own rather than have to go to dealers who may attempt to sell them harder drugs. Mr Nirvana said he used the drug himself for medicinal purposes to help him with hyperactivity and back problems. He was convicted of illegally importing 100 grams of cannabis into the country in 1985 and after refusing to pay a fine or do community service, spent four weeks in prison. Mr Nirvana dubs himself a "cannabusinessman" who works on the legitimate side of the cannabis trade. A firm believer in the benefits of the drug, Mr Nirvana sells the seeds worldwide and even claims to give them away to people who cannot afford to buy them. He said: "If you grow this plant you could medicate yourself, clothe yourself, feed yourself, run your car and make your own paper with it. It should be an industry, just like the tea or coffee industry." Mr Nirvana said it was wrong to try to police a naturally growing plant, saying: "You can't ban nature. Nature put it there for a reason. There are more than 200 known things you can make from the hemp plant." He said he would not sell the seeds to children, and said people would need a certain amount of horticultural expertise to grow the plants anyway. Opponents of the drug point out that it can lead to short-term memory problems, confusion, anxiety and panic attacks, and can also lead to long term changes in the brain. An official report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, issued in March, recommended downgrading cannabis to a class C drug, but also said it posed significant dangers for those with heart and circulation problems or schizophrenia. National drugs charity Drugscope said the reason the seeds were legal was that there was no THC (the narcotic element in cannabis) in them, they were very difficult to identify and a lot of people used them to grow hemp plants to make clothing.
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