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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Drugs cafe boss jailed for three years
Manchester Online
Thursday 03 Oct 2002 THE boss of Britain's first cannabis cafe has been jailed for three years. Judge Stuart Fish said 44-year-old Colin Davies was a man who "flouted the law" and had opened people up to the possibility of "medical harm". The jury at Manchester Crown Court was earlier told that the Dutch Experience cafe in Stockport was an elaborate "smokescreen" for the commercial trafficking of narcotics from Holland to Dover. Davies claimed he was providing cannabis for medicinal purposes. Davies, 44, of Romney Towers, Stockport, was sentenced on six drug charges after being convicted of running the cafe. Outside court, Colin Davies' father, Colin senior, and his wife Elsie slammed the verdicts and predicted that their son would continue his campaign. Smokescreen Mr Davies said: "He put his head on the line, but it has not happened the way he wanted. I'm sure it's something he would do again." Colin Davies' business partner, Dutchman Arnoldus Van Schaik - a convicted bank robber - said Davies had been "hammered" as an example to others and that his "patients" will now suffer. He said: "I could hardly believe it when I heard the news, I am in shock. With all that's been going on around cannabis for the last year you would have expected some understanding from the justice system. "Colin has been made an example of." Davies had claimed the cafe was for use by people who wanted to buy cannabis to relieve pain and symptoms of conditions such as MS. But the three-week trial heard it was operating for pure profit behind a "facade of moral legitimacy". A spokesman for GMP said police would continue to enforce existing laws. "No one has yet suggested that drug dealers who sell illegal substances for substantial revenues, as Colin Davies has been convicted of, are exempt from the law."
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