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England, One step forward....Two steps back


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try and go figure out all this hot air about pot being lossened upon, I can't....

 

Police shut down Britain's first cannabis cafe

Posted by ajones -- September 16, 2001

 

LONDON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Police shut down Britain's first Dutch-style marijuana cafe on Saturday just minutes after it had opened for the first time.

 

Officers closed down "The Dutch Experience" cafe in Stockport, northern England, and arrested a 44-year-old man on suspicion of possessing cannabis with intent to supply a controlled drug, a Greater Manchester police spokeswoman told Reuters.

 

The cafe had been launched by Colin Davies, 44, a leading British campaigner for the legalisation of cannabis who once presented Queen Elizabeth with a bouquet of marijuana plants.

 

Davies, a founder of the Medical Marijuana Co-operative, a non-profit organisation that provides cannabis to people who suffer from multiple sclerosis and arthritis, said he had wanted to give sufferers of debilitating diseases a safe place to buy the drug.

 

"I believe the cafe was opened and then we went in and arrested him," the police spokeswoman said. "The premises have now been closed and the shop is being boarded up."

 

Officers also arrested five other people, a British man, three Dutch men and a Dutch woman, on suspicion of being concerned with the supply of controlled drugs, she added.

 

The debate on whether cannabis should be legalised has been raging in Britain in recent months.

 

Millions of Britons are thought to regularly use the illicit drug, and a recent government survey found that almost a third of young people had taken it in the past year.

 

Some senior police officers, politicians and campaign groups have said police should be freed to concentrate on tackling the trade in harder drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin.

 

London's Metropolitan police force, with government backing, announced in June that it was launching a pilot scheme in the Lambeth area whereby offenders caught with the drug would be given no more than a verbal warning.

 

In July, Home Secretary (interior minister) David Blunkett signalled that the government would at least consider the arguments for changing the law, calling for "adult, intelligent debate" specifically on cannabis.

 

Loads of hot air on the debate, and very little cool change.

 

rob

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