Subj: Cannabis Campaign - Pot power

Date: Mar 29, 1998

Source: Independent on Sunday

Pot power

Thirty years after the first cannabis rally, veterans and new
campaigners gathered to fight a law that has left two
generations alienated and criminalised. By Ros Wynne-Jones

They came. They saw. They sang from Bob Marley's "Legalise It".
Some smoked. Some even inhaled. It was the big day for the Cannabis
Campaign and the people came in thousands from around the country, from
Europe and some from even further afield.

There was a sense of deja-vu as the marchers gathered in
Hyde Park, the scene of the first cannabis rally in July 1967.
Some people remembered seeing Lennon and McCartney
there, others, now respectable businessmen, recalled being
arrested for raining flowers on police. Many of yesterday's
marchers, however, had only seen archive footage on
television. Caroline Coon, who set up Release in response to
the arrests that day, remembered that the weather was better
then.

Many things have changed in the intervening 31 years. The
hippies of the '67 press reports have been replaced by
modern-day crusties and eco-warriors. The equivalent of the
flower children is a generation of young people newly
politicised over drugs in the wake of the Criminal Justice Act,
which outlawed rave parties and their repetitive rhythms. One
thing, however, has not changed: the use of cannabis remains
illegal, with more than 70,000 arrests for related offences in
1995. "It seems hard to imagine," Ms Coon said. "Three
decades later and we're still marching for the same thing."

Hyde Park, then, where the Rolling Stones once passed a
10-foot spliff around the crowd, and the Editor of the
Independent on Sunday, Rosie Boycott, rolled her first joint
the same year, was full of the resonances of the past. Its
message, however, was very much in the present, at its most
poignant near the front of the march, where people in
wheelchairs endured a gruelling two miles because in order to
buy a substance which could ease the symptoms of MS, Aids
and anorexia, and combat the side-effects of chemotherapy,
they are forced to break the law.

"I'm a criminal," said James Thornton, a 40-year-old MS
sufferer from Kent. "Cannabis eases my cramps, steadies my
muscle spasms, helps me relax - but they tell me I can't buy
it."

Inevitably some of the constituents of the Cannabis Campaign
would be a little late, or may even turn up next Saturday. At
3pm stragglers were still arriving at Trafalgar Square. Many
had brought their children; prams alongside ageing
baby-boomers, young radicals and elderly smokers. One
wonders whether these children will grow up to be a
post-prohibition generation who will one day ask their parents:
"Was dope really illegal then?" or whether in 2028, they will
still be holding Decriminalise Cannabis rallies.

Walking along Piccadilly among the banners and faces
painted with cannabis leaves, with the scent of marijuana
heavy in the air, it seemed incredible that in 1998 people
really need to march about cannabis, a part of millions of
people's daily lives. But then, the march wasn't just about
cannabis. A celebration of hedonism, it was also about
people's freedom to enjoy themselves and how they choose to
treat their own bodies in the face of illness, and how this law,
above all laws, has alienated two generations of people by
making them criminals.

"I'm here because my son was arrested for possession of
cannabis," said one woman, who had been unsure whether to
come but was having a "fantastic day out". Another woman
said her daughter, now a heroin addict, had first come into
contact with hard drugs through buying soft and she wanted to
see the drugs separated in the market place. "I'm here
because ." a thin looking man called Toby, trailed off,
suddenly quite unable to remember what he was doing in
Hyde Park. "Oh yeah, cannabis," he finished eventually, to
cheers from his friends from Manchester University.

As the colourful crowd wove its way along Park Lane to the
beat of drums, blue-haired anarchists alongside true-blue
libertarians and a sea of green balloons amid placards
declaring "William Straw for Home Secretary", I thought I saw
the minister's son at Reformer's Tree. It wasn't him, but it
could have been because - as Mr Straw learned to his chagrin
- well-educated middle-class boys also support the
decriminalisation of cannabis. Had Mr Straw Jr been there, he
might have appreciated his new-found hero status. Mr Straw
Snr might have taken issue with the home-made posters with
the face of Dawn Alford, the Mirror journalist to whom his son
sold cannabis.

Allen Ginsberg, who was arrested at the '67 demonstration,
and Malcolm X, who addressed the same rally, are not here to
see the new campaign. Jonathan Aitken, who signed the
famous '68 full-page advert in the Times in favour of the
decriminalisation of cannabis, was nowhere to be seen. Nor
was William Rees-Mogg, the former Times editor who wrote,
at the time of Mick Jagger's arrest for cannabis possession, of
the sinisterness of breaking "a butterfly on a wheel". It didn't
matter. Thousands of new people have taken their place, and
thousands more will take theirs, until the law is changed.
They came. They saw. They sang from Bob Marley's
"Legalise It". Some smoked. Some even inhaled. It was the
big day for the Cannabis Campaign and the people came in
thousands from around the country, from Europe and some
from even further afield.

There was a sense of deja-vu as the marchers gathered in
Hyde Park, the scene of the first cannabis rally in July 1967.
Some people remembered seeing Lennon and McCartney
there, others, now respectable businessmen, recalled being
arrested for raining flowers on police. Many of yesterday's
marchers, however, had only seen archive footage on
television. Caroline Coon, who set up Release in response to
the arrests that day, remembered that the weather was better
then.

Many things have changed in the intervening 31 years. The
hippies of the '67 press reports have been replaced by
modern-day crusties and eco-warriors. The equivalent of the
flower children is a generation of young people newly
politicised over drugs in the wake of the Criminal Justice Act,
which outlawed rave parties and their repetitive rhythms. One
thing, however, has not changed: the use of cannabis remains
illegal, with more than 70,000 arrests for related offences in
1995. "It seems hard to imagine," Ms Coon said. "Three
decades later and we're still marching for the same thing."

Hyde Park, then, where the Rolling Stones once passed a
10-foot spliff around the crowd, and the Editor of the
Independent on Sunday, Rosie Boycott, rolled her first joint
the same year, was full of the resonances of the past. Its
message, however, was very much in the present, at its most
poignant near the front of the march, where people in
wheelchairs endured a gruelling two miles because in order to
buy a substance which could ease the symptoms of MS, Aids
and anorexia, and combat the side-effects of chemotherapy,
they are forced to break the law.

"I'm a criminal," said James Thornton, a 40-year-old MS
sufferer from Kent. "Cannabis eases my cramps, steadies my
muscle spasms, helps me relax - but they tell me I can't buy
it."

Inevitably some of the constituents of the Cannabis Campaign
would be a little late, or may even turn up next Saturday. At
3pm stragglers were still arriving at Trafalgar Square. Many
had brought their children; prams alongside ageing
baby-boomers, young radicals and elderly smokers. One
wonders whether these children will grow up to be a
post-prohibition generation who will one day ask their parents:
"Was dope really illegal then?" or whether in 2028, they will
still be holding Decriminalise Cannabis rallies.

Walking along Piccadilly among the banners and faces
painted with cannabis leaves, with the scent of marijuana
heavy in the air, it seemed incredible that in 1998 people
really need to march about cannabis, a part of millions of
people's daily lives. But then, the march wasn't just about
cannabis. A celebration of hedonism, it was also about
people's freedom to enjoy themselves and how they choose to
treat their own bodies in the face of illness, and how this law,
above all laws, has alienated two generations of people by
making them criminals.

"I'm here because my son was arrested for possession of
cannabis," said one woman, who had been unsure whether to
come but was having a "fantastic day out". Another woman
said her daughter, now a heroin addict, had first come into
contact with hard drugs through buying soft and she wanted to
see the drugs separated in the market place. "I'm here
because ." a thin looking man called Toby, trailed off,
suddenly quite unable to remember what he was doing in
Hyde Park. "Oh yeah, cannabis," he finished eventually, to
cheers from his friends from Manchester University.

As the colourful crowd wove its way along Park Lane to the
beat of drums, blue-haired anarchists alongside true-blue
libertarians and a sea of green balloons amid placards
declaring "William Straw for Home Secretary", I thought I saw
the minister's son at Reformer's Tree. It wasn't him, but it
could have been because - as Mr Straw learned to his chagrin
- well-educated middle-class boys also support the
decriminalisation of cannabis. Had Mr Straw Jr been there, he
might have appreciated his new-found hero status. Mr Straw
Snr might have taken issue with the home-made posters with
the face of Dawn Alford, the Mirror journalist to whom his son
sold cannabis.

Allen Ginsberg, who was arrested at the '67 demonstration,
and Malcolm X, who addressed the same rally, are not here to
see the new campaign. Jonathan Aitken, who signed the
famous '68 full-page advert in the Times in favour of the
decriminalisation of cannabis, was nowhere to be seen. Nor
was William Rees-Mogg, the former Times editor who wrote,
at the time of Mick Jagger's arrest for cannabis possession, of
the sinisterness of breaking "a butterfly on a wheel". It didn't
matter. Thousands of new people have taken their place, and
thousands more will take theirs, until the law is changed.