Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jan 2010
Source: Sunday News (New Zealand)
Contact:  2010 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
Website: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5119
Author: Steve Hopkins
Cited: The Daktory http://thedaktory.org.nz/
Cited: NORML New Zealand http://www.norml.org.nz/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?251 (Cannabis - New Zealand)

POT CLUBS GO NATIONWIDE

Cannabis clubs - where users flout the law by meeting to smoke and 
buy the Class C drug - may soon open nationwide.

Next month founding members of New Zealand's first cannabis 
connoisseurs' club, Auckland's Daktory, plan to meet fellow users 
throughout the country to help set-up Daktories in other cities.

"We have demand from virtually every city in the country," Daktory 
founder Dakta Green told Sunday News.

"I would expect to see in the next 12 months Daktories in every major 
city in this country, every city should have at least one - 2010 is 
the year people within our culture are demanding changes throughout the world."

Auckland's Daktory, in New Lynn, plans to offer "degrees in 
Daktology" later this year - formalised study on all aspects of the 
cannabis industry including hands-on cultivation techniques.

For the first two-and-a-half months the Daktory was open cannabis was 
sold from the venue, and at one point almost 20 different strands of 
cannabis were available.

That was stopped, not by police, but by demand Green said: "It got 
too popular and too busy." Cannabis is again for sale from the 
Daktory, as it's planned to be at all newly established cannabis clubs.

The Daktory's nationwide plans follow more than a year of hassle-free 
law-breaking by club members.

In the 14 months since the Daktory opened - in November 2008 - there 
hadn't been a single police raid on their Delta St premises until 
Sunday News asked questions of police this week.

Police national headquarters refused to comment, as did Waitakere 
police, but yesterday four police cars swooped on the Daktory.

Officers executed a search warrant and Daktory members said they 
confiscated lighting equipment and lap-top computers.

Detective Rhys Wilson wouldn't comment on what police had seized, but 
said a number of exhibits had been taken and police had a 
considerable amount of work to do at the address. Police charged one 
man with cultivating cannabis and further charges against him were 
likely, Wilson said.

The Daktory boasts more than 2000 members who pay a monthly fee to 
smoke (mainly, their own cannabis) within the club's spacious warehouse.

Members, whose names remain confidential, must be at least 18 and 
sign up for a year's membership. Green, 59, said the oldest 
club-member was "in their late 70s", and that doctors, lawyers, court 
officials and business people were among the membership.

Schoolteachers were most highly represented, he said. Green, who 
changed his name from Ken Morgan by Deed Pole, runs the Daktory. He 
holds the company shares in trust, but plans to turn ownership over 
to a community trust in the near future.

That model is planned to be replicated nationwide: "We are a model 
for that to happen".

Dad-of-three Green, who is also a Norml - The National Organisation 
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - board member wants cannabis 
legalised. The Daktory, like Norml's aptly named Mary Jane bus which 
is parked there, is a protest vehicle.

"We wish to legalise cannabis, but we also wish to live like it's 
legal," Green said.

"So in my home [Green lives at the Daktory] we have a motto 'live 
like it's legal'. We just think it's wrong and there's no reason to 
continue with serious criminality of something that is as relatively 
harmless as cannabis."

And Green and his members certainly 'live like it's legal' at the Daktory.

Next to one coffee table, cannabis spotting knives sit on an element, 
a gas bottle connected beneath. Plastic bongs, bucket bongs and 
cannabis smoking pipes are scattered about.

When Sunday News toured the premises this week, more than a dozen 
cannabis plants were being grown on a sunny window-sill and two 
others under a heat lamp, in a metallic, heat-reflecting box, locked 
off from the lounge area.

In Green's upstairs kitchen, half a dozen cannabis bongs - plastic, 
metal and glass, small and large - were scattered about and White 
Rhino strand cannabis buds were present in a glass container.

Under the Misuse of Drug Act 1975 possession of cannabis is 
punishable by three months' jail and or a fine of up to $500 and 
possession for supply and cultivation of cannabis is punishable by up 
to seven years' jail. Possessing cannabis utensils is also illegal. 
Last month, when asked about the Daktory, New Lynn sergeant Grant 
Watson said police's position on cannabis was quite clear - it's illegal.

"It doesn't matter where you are, in a private dwelling or anywhere, 
smoking and possessing cannabis is an offence against the Misuse of 
Drugs Act and carries a fine and/or a term of imprisonment," he said.

Before busting the Daktory yesterday, police had targeted motorists 
leaving the Daktory during the new year period. Green took issue with 
this because "it's a waste of police resources" and he believes that 
type of policing is illegal.

"I refuse to be subjected to arrest, harassment by police and 
imprisonment because I am part of a culture that celebrates and 
glorifies cannabis for people within our culture," he said.

To prove Daktory members were being 'harassed", on January 2, Green 
drove around the block from his home with a Daktory member filming 
from the back seat. Green said his plan "worked beautifully". In a 
video, now posted on You Tube, and proudly shown to Sunday News, 
Green is pulled over almost immediately by police. After showing 
officers his licence he is soon let go - free of charge.

The stunt doesn't mean Green is against new legislation making it 
illegal for motorists to drive under the influence of drugs. Daktory 
members are advised to have a sober drive and to rest between smoking 
and driving. Members "farewell me with clear eyes", Green said.

Earlier this week, before the raid, Green said he wasn't surprised 
the Daktory hadn't been shutdown by authorities.

"It's my house and I've been told by police in the past, 'don't smoke 
in public, smoke in private and we will leave you alone'."

Green's issue with cannabis laws' are that ordinary people are being 
locked up for using a substance "scientifically proven to be less 
dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes". He said cannabis was part of 
popular culture and "the fact that everybody is doing it is a damn 
good reason to stop locking a few of us up". Norml claims someone is 
arrested on cannabis-related charges every 37 minutes in New Zealand, 
some 15,000 annually. Green also wants to see the cannabis industry 
"out of the hands of what are criminals by definition, and put in the 
hands of the community where it can be properly controlled."

He said at the moment the black-market cannabis trade was "out of 
control". The Daktory, Green said, was a "safe haven" for users and 
ensured they weren't put in danger while trying to buy cannabis.

Despite championing cannabis law reform, Green - who also pushed for 
Saturday trading and in the 1980s ran a casino on a boat beyond 
police jurisdiction - doesn't advocate cannabis use. He was against 
it until age 40.

"Cannabis is not for everyone. I don't advocate to anyone to take it 
up, but I do advocate that cannabis is not a dangerous product."

"Very few over-indulge" in cannabis at the Daktory - it's more 
coffee-shop than nightclub in that respect, Green said.

Visitors to the Daktory - open Wednesday to Sunday - could expect to 
see people: "Sitting around enjoying a quiet chat and a quiet toke, 
perhaps listening to the music, and generally relaxing. It's a very 
laxed out place," Green explained, quick to dispel beliefs it was a 
"stoners club".

The Daktory is a comfortable venue, like a recreation-centre. There 
are dozens of couches, armchairs and coffee tables spread around an 
open-plan space.

Coffee is available - food is planned - and there's a pool, fus and a 
table tennis table plus a projector screen, a library - which 
includes a copy of Shakespeare's complete works - and music.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake