Pubdate: Fri, 23 Nov 2001
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Copyright: 2001 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

BRITISH PUB A BASTION OF POT SMOKERS' RIGHTS

Owner Of 'Cannabis Cafe' Directs Profits From Recreational Users To Help 
Buy Marijuana For Medicinal Users.

STOCKPORT, England -- Until the Dutch Experience cafe opened here earlier 
this fall, providing marijuana by the bag instead of beer by the pint, 
Stockport never loomed particularly large in the greater British imagination.

"I read in the newspaper that the only thing Stockport is famous for is the 
hat museum," said Darren Ince, 32, a retail manager, on his way to secure a 
joint at the cafe recently. "I didn't know we were even famous for that."

All that changed this fall, when the cafe opened its doors, let the 
distinctive smoke waft out and instantly turned this unremarkable suburb of 
Manchester into a battleground for Britain's growing pot- smokers' rights 
movement.

The Dutch Experience, modeled on the pot-purveying coffee shops of 
Amsterdam, may well prove to be the thin end of the wedge in Britain, where 
the government is signaling that it might relax laws on the use of "soft" 
drugs in the name of creating a workable drug policy.

British drug laws are strict, and police spend an inordinate amount of time 
dealing with minor drug offenses, the government says. Sixty-five percent 
of the 120,000 drug-related arrests in Britain last year were for 
possession of marijuana.

Saying that police should direct their efforts at eradicating "hard" drugs 
like heroin and LSD, Home Secretary David Blunkett last month proposed 
downgrading marijuana to a Class C drug from its current Class B status. 
That would make possession of pot no longer an arrestable offense.

A pilot project in Brixton, a drug-infested neighborhood in south London 
where police spent six months focusing on hard drugs instead of marijuana, 
has proved effective, the police say.

But Blunkett's proposals have not yet taken effect, and law- enforcement 
officials across the country are not exactly sure what to do in this 
interim period.

It is unclear, for instance, what the Stockport police really think of the 
Dutch Experience. After raiding it in September on the day it opened, they 
seemed to have adopted a live-and-let-smoke policy, acknowledging, they 
said in a statement, that there is an "ongoing debate about the medical 
benefits, or otherwise, of cannabis."

But it appears the cafe has been attracting too much attention and too 
boldly flouting the law.

On Tuesday, as the BBC was inside filming the cafe for a program about drug 
policy, police arrived, threw everyone out and charged the owner, Colin 
Davies, and several others with offenses including selling marijuana.

"The police in appropriate cases exercise discretion and judgment with 
regard to certain offenses of simple possession of cannabis, and each case 
is taken on merit," said Superintendent Richard Crawshaw of the Greater 
Manchester Police Stockport division.

"However, in the face of overt and challenging behavior which amounts to 
intention to break the law, our stance will be one of enforcement."

It is hard to know how far such enforcement goes. Even as Davies, one of 
Britain's best-known campaigners for legalizing marijuana, remained in 
custody overnight, his cafe reopened. The patrons came back, sipping 
coffee, rolling joints, discussing nothing and everything.

The cafe has proved highly popular with its neighbors. They applaud its 
strict no- alcohol, no-violence policy, saying they much prefer happy, 
peaceful druggies to aggressive drunks.

"They always look so pleased, and they're really friendly," said Becky 
Lees, who works at the front desk of the Outline health club, just across 
the walkway, speaking of the pot smokers at the Dutch Experience.

She does not smoke, she said, but welcomes customers who come in from the 
Dutch Experience, which sells little in the way of food to vanquish the 
sudden appetites of its often ravenous clientele.

"We get a lot of business out of it, because they get the munchies and come 
and eat in our cafe," Lees said.

Davies, who uses the profits from recreational patrons at the Dutch 
Experience to help pay for pot for medicinal users, says he started smoking 
marijuana to quell crippling back pains from the vertebrae he broke after a 
fall in 1995.

Shortly afterward, he founded the Medical Marijuana Cooperative, a 
mail-order service that discreetly provides pot to people with a variety of 
illnesses, from cancer to multiple sclerosis. Davies, 44, jokingly calls 
the cafe the MHS, or the Marijuana Health Service. The National Health 
Service, or NHS, runs Britain's system of socialized medicine.

It is not uncommon to see wheelchair users rolling down the path in front 
of the cafe, seeking drugs inside.

"People in wheelchairs shouldn't have to pay for their medicine," said 
Davies, who hopes to open a chain of cannabis cafes around Britain. "They 
should get it free, and that's what we're doing."

Mark Chadwick, 39, who hurt his arm in a motorcycle accident, does not care 
if he can get it free or not, as long as he can get it. For the last month 
or so he has been paying 10 pounds (about $14) or so per bag of pot, enough 
to roll a half-dozen joints that help keep him off his prescribed 
painkillers and make it easier to sleep at night.

Chadwick loves the smoky, sleepy atmosphere inside the cafe, with its green 
tables imported from Amsterdam and its air of festively illicit camaraderie.

"It's nothing like going to a pub," he said. "It's like going to the 
theater instead of going to a movie. In a pub you spend all your time 
worrying about who's looking at you, who's going to throw a bottle at you."

At the cannabis cafe, no one throws anything. Because no hard drugs are 
allowed, there are no dealers trying to introduce patrons to the 
attractions of drugs like heroin and cocaine.

"If I couldn't buy here, I would have to go to a dealer, which is something 
I don't want to do," Chadwick said.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl