NORML to protest at UK Parliament

Freakbrother · July 17, 2012

A new high at parliament: pot protest on MPs' doorstep

Jerome Taylor

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Medicinal marijuana users from the Netherlands are planning to hold a smoking protest

outside the Houses of Parliament as part of a new campaign to push for the

decriminalisation of cannabis in the UK.

The publicity stunt is the brainchild of Norml, a USbased campaign group which has opened its first British chapter.

Founded more than three decades ago, the National Organisation for the Reform of

Marijuana Laws has played a key role in persuading 17 states to adopt some form of

cannabis decriminalisation – mostly for medicinal users.

The group hopes to highlight the discrepancy within European law over who can use

medicinal marijuana and who cannot.

In the Netherlands, sufferers of chronic diseases are allowed to smoke Bedrocan, a strand

of cannabis licensed by the Dutch government.

Under the Schengen Agreement, as long as a Dutch person has a certificate stating that

their cannabis is for medicinal use they can smoke it in another European country without

penalty. But a British person with an identical condition would risk arrest, even if a Dutch

doctor had prescribed them medicinal cannabis.

Norml now plans to get medicinal marijuana smokers from Britain and the Netherlands to

hold a protest that could result in the UK demonstrators being arrested while their Dutch

counterparts go free.

"It's clearly unfair that a Dutch person who uses cannabis to alleviate their symptoms is

not at risk of prosecution while a British person in an identical situation would be," Norml

UK's founding member Chris Bovey told The Independent.

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