Pubdate:  Sun, 5 April 1998
Source: Independent on Sunday 
Author: Graham Ball
Contact: Email:  
Mail: Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL
England 
Editors note: The IoS Cannabis Campaign has web pages at
http://www.independent.co.uk/sindypot/index.htm

THE MESSAGE MARCHES ON

The sun shone, the bands played and everyone had a great time on the great
Independent on Sunday decriminalise cannabis march last week.

The police estimated that 11,000 marchers gathered in Hyde Park but an
autonomous observer has calculated that 15,000 arrived for the rally in
Trafalgar Square.

There were no arrests during the two-mile march and everyone, including the
police, can congratulate themselves on the good natured, party-like
atmosphere of the whole event.

Many campaigners from Scotland and parts of Wales sent messages of support
and regret at not being able to make the long journey to London. While
others, some with unhappy previous personal experience of the law, stayed
away for fear of being arrested.

After the march the Drugs Tsar, Keith Hellawell, denounced the campaign in
a newspaper interview as a 'red herring'. "That must be proof positive that
you are getting through to him, why else would he try so hard to
marginalise the march?" wrote Brian Flowers of Brighton.

Here is a sample of the many other messages from supporters.

"It was good to see everyone using their basic human right to peaceful
protest. I believe that last week's march was just the beginning. If we can
continue with this pressure over the coming year(s) maybe we will be
criminals no longer," said Graham Powell of Cambridge.

"The rally was the nearest thing to a free festival I have been to for
years. I danced my life out down Park Lane and outside Fortnum and Mason's.
I had to get a train home at 7pm so I hope I didn't miss any of the
after-rally fun," writes Ana Heyatawin, Gloucestershire.

Yorick Brown e-mailed from Leeds to say: "It was great to be with
like-minded people last week, the backing of a national broadsheet makes a
difference . keep the pressure up and maybe some day the laws in this
country will be based on intelligent and considered opinion, rather than
knee-jerk reactions and mass hysteria."

One writer, who asked for his name to be withheld, reported: "I saw loads
of policemen laughing, joking, lazing around in vans and yawning, it just
goes to show that cannabis smokers are not a problem to the police. Can you
imagine that number of drinkers all together? What a nightmare."

* A CROWN Court jury has cleared a man who was accused of growing and
supplying cannabis to relieve his wife's acute Multiple Sclerosis symptoms.
The jury, in Warrington last Friday, accepted taxi driver Alan Blythe's
defence of "duress of circumstance" by a majority decision. In doing so
they ignored the judge's suggestion that Mr Blythe had failed to prove
duress of circumstances for the charge of cultivation. The court was told
that 10 cannabis plants, pots of cannabis bush heads and a variety of
growing equipment was found during a 7.30am raid on the Blythe's home in
Runcorn last July. In evidence Mr Blythe described how his wife could
hardly work and attacks of extreme dizziness. "After these attacks she
would be absolutely suicidal," said Mr Blythe.

After the case he said he would go to prison rather than see his wife
suffer more of the agony which had made her suicidal.