UPPERS AND DOWNERS OF UK'S DUTCH EXPERIENCE

Until 15 September last year, it had only been famous for its hat museum.
But on that day, Stockport, on the outskirts of Manchester, suddenly
featured in news stories around the world: in a quiet industrial area,
Britain's first cannabis cafe, the Dutch Experience, had opened. It was
raided by police on its first day, but supporters immediately reopened it.
Seven months later, it has been raided four times but has remained open
every day. Cannabis campaigners - including two MEPs - marched on Stockport
police station carrying cannabis, and demanding to be arrested. After 28
arrests, the police gave up, ignored anyone else possessing the drug, and
campaigners declared that it had in effect been legalised. The Dutch
Experience continues to attract hundreds of people from across the country
every day, but its co-founder Colin Davis has been remanded in Strangeways
Prison since December for breaking bail conditions on drugs charges.

The Dutch Experience has inspired other cannabis activists to open coffee
shops in a planned programme of civil disobedience that effectively forced
a change of law in Holland thirty years earlier. Many have taken a special
'Cannabizziness' course set up by the Dutch co-founder of the second
British cannabis cafe. The Dutch Experience 2 opened earlier this month in
Bournemouth, and has been raided twice by police but immediately reopened
each time. More than a dozen other cannabis cafes are planned, in Brighton,
Liverpool, London and Edinburgh and elsewhere.