Pubdate: Fri, 23 Nov 2001
Source: State, The (SC)
Copyright: 2001 The State
Contact:  http://www.thestate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/426
Author: Sarah Lyall (New York Times)

ENGLISH POT PUB MAY PROVE A MODEL

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 or two 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 
marijuana-friendly Amsterdam, might 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 the 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 the 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 officers 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, generously 
acknowledging, they said in a statement, that there is an "ongoing debate 
about the medical benefits, or otherwise, of cannabis."

But it appears that the cafe has been attracting too much attention and too 
boldly flouting the law, no matter how mellow its activities might seem.

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

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.

Despite the occasional police raids, the cannabis cafe, as it is generally 
known, 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, unpleasant 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 -- "I'm addicted to coffee, not cannabis," she said -- but always 
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.

Eating, yes. But no weightlifting. "We don't let people use the gym if 
they've been smoking weed," she said. "It's not a good idea, for safety 
reasons, to let people who are stoned use the machines."

A spokeswoman, who in keeping with tourist office policy insisted that her 
name not be used, declined to say whether she, or any other council 
employees, had patronized the cafe themselves. "It's certainly put us on 
the map," she said, "though whether that's a positive thing or a negative 
thing I couldn't say."
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MAP posted-by: Beth