 | NORML News: UK coffeeshop founder jailed |
 Dutch Experience still open; Protesting MP fined £3,500 for 1 gram hash
By Harry Cording.
British coffeeshop pioneer Colin Davies has been jailed for three years, but cannabis cafes have continued to open across the country.
Together with Dutch coffeeshop guru Nol van Schaik, Davies opened Britain’s first cannabis cafe in Stockport in September last year. The Dutch Experience was raided on opening day but despite subsequent raids, they have stayed open and become an inspiration to cannabis activists around the world.
Nol van Schaik said “I am in shock. With all that’s been going on around cannabis for the last year, you would have expected some understanding from the justice system.”
In July the British government reduced penalties for cannabis possession but at the same time increased penalties for dealing to on a par with rape and aggravated robbery. People caught with small amounts should no longer be arrested, but the government stopped short of decriminalisation, and constables have retained the right to arrest people if they want to.
Despite the government’s slow pace of change, or perhaps because of it, cannabis cafes have continued to open across Britain. One of the latest is the Hemp Cafe in Camden, joining about a dozen others that openly flout the law.
Colin Davies, who also founded Britain’s Medical Marijuana Cooperative, has twice been acquitted on cannabis charges when juries refused to convict him. This time, a Manchester jury found him guilty of possessing cannabis for supply, importation of cannabis, and permitting his premises to be used for smoking. Prosecutors claimed he was using a “medical facade” while “supplying cannabis to anybody who wanted it.” In handing down the sentence, Judge Stuart Fish said Davies “persistently flouted the law.”
Davies, who is a medical cannabis user, had spent 180 days locked up on remand before his trial. His lawyers said he had “put his head on the line” to allow those who need marijuana to buy it safely rather than from street dealers. He charged 25 pounds for 7-14 grams which would have cost up to 80 pounds on the street.
Greater Manchester Police, who arrested Davies, said they would continue to enforce existing drug laws. They conducted yet another raid on the Dutch Experience on the day Davies was sentenced. His friends and supporters have vowed to keep the Dutch Experience open, and so far they have succeeded.
One of the many supporters of the Dutch Experience is Chris Davies (no relation to Colin), a Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament. He was convicted of possession of cannabis after defying the law at a demonstration where he held up a small lump of hash stuck to the back of a postage stamp. Judge Fish fined him 100 pounds and ordered him to pay costs of 3500 pounds. His own legal bill is expected to amount to 5000 pounds.
Chris Davies said “I have never used cannabis in my life, but I am passionate in my belief that the law must be changed. The Dutch policy of permitting cannabis coffee shops has been hugely successful.
“My objective has been to stimulate public debate, promote a change in the law, and cut the amount of police time that is wasted on making criminals out of cannabis users who have done no harm to anyone else. If my action in any way helps achieve these objectives then the costs I have incurred will have been money well spent.”
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