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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Apology over gig 'drug' pots
Richard Davies South Devon Herald Express
Thursday 24 Jul 2003 Air Fusion organisers have apologised for "drug paraphernalia" being on sale at the three day festival at Newton Abbot. And police have admitted they were helpless to take action because of a loophole in the law. This follows an angry outburst by a mother-of-two who vowed never to set foot in the festival again after spotting a stall selling cannabis pots. Louise Darke, of Windsor Avenue Newton Abbot, said: "What is happening to youngsters today? "Do they need this to make themselves happy?" The festival might have been alcohol-free but it was "a place for drug pushers and taking drugs," she claimed. Mrs Darke took her five-year-old daughter and one-year-old son to Air Fusion and took particular interest in the stalls. "We came to this one stall and there seemed to be this one lad lingering," she said. "We carried on looking and then I realised what he was going to buy. "This one stall was full of weed pots, cannabis pots, whatever you call them, all different shapes and sizes, encouraging kids of all ages to buy these pots." Paul Stevenson, the event organiser, apologised for any offence caused. "Generally speaking there is nothing we can do about it. They are not breaking the law, they have paid and booked their space and been checked by both environmental health and the police." It was a typical kind of stall that you saw at festivals, he explained, selling bits and pieces of drug paraphernalia. "The morality may be a little debatable, but they aren't breaking any law." There were two arrests for possession of Class A drugs over the weekend and he added: "You are not going to get so many people at a festival without a bit of pot smoking going on." Det Con Mike Bradley, a drugs liaison officer with the Devon And Cornwall force, explained the legal loophole. Selling items for the distribution and taking of drugs was an offence. "But if people sell these items as ornaments because they are pretty coloured pipes they fall outside the law. "What we all have to look at is a change in the legislation of the Misuse of Drugs Act," he said. "The first thing is the problems over the past number of years with an increase in drug taking within the South West. "We need to look at why we are encouraging people to take drugs by selling things like crack cocaine pipes," he said.
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