POT POWER

Thirty years after the first cannabis rally, veterans and new campaigners
gathered to fight a law that has left two generations alienated and
criminalised.

They came. They saw. They sang from Bob Marley's "Legalise It". Some
smoked. Some even inhaled. It was the big day for the Cannabis Campaign and
the people came in thousands from around the country, from Europe and some
from even further afield.

There was a sense of deja-vu as the marchers gathered in Hyde Park, the
scene of the first cannabis rally in July 1967. Some people remembered
seeing Lennon and McCartney there, others, now respectable businessmen,
recalled being arrested for raining flowers on police. Many of yesterday's
marchers, however, had only seen archive footage on television. Caroline
Coon, who set up Release in response to the arrests that day, remembered
that the weather was better then.

Many things have changed in the intervening 31 years. The hippies of the
'67 press reports have been replaced by modern-day crusties and
eco-warriors. The equivalent of the flower children is a generation of
young people newly politicised over drugs in the wake of the Criminal
Justice Act, which outlawed rave parties and their repetitive rhythms. One
thing, however, has not changed: the use of cannabis remains illegal, with
more than 70,000 arrests for related offences in 1995. "It seems hard to
imagine," Ms Coon said. "Three decades later and we're still marching for
the same thing."

Hyde Park, then, where the Rolling Stones once passed a 10-foot spliff
around the crowd, and the Editor of the Independent on Sunday, Rosie
Boycott, rolled her first joint the same year, was full of the resonances
of the past. Its message, however, was very much in the present, at its
most poignant near the front of the march, where people in wheelchairs
endured a gruelling two miles because in order to buy a substance which
could ease the symptoms of MS, Aids and anorexia, and combat the
side-effects of chemotherapy, they are forced to break the law.

"I'm a criminal," said James Thornton, a 40-year-old MS sufferer from Kent.
"Cannabis eases my cramps, steadies my muscle spasms, helps me relax - but
they tell me I can't buy it."

Inevitably some of the constituents of the Cannabis Campaign would be a
little late, or may even turn up next Saturday. At 3pm stragglers were
still arriving at Trafalgar Square. Many had brought their children; prams
alongside ageing baby-boomers, young radicals and elderly smokers. One
wonders whether these children will grow up to be a post-prohibition
generation who will one day ask their parents: "Was dope really illegal
then?" or whether in 2028, they will still be holding Decriminalise
Cannabis rallies.

Walking along Piccadilly among the banners and faces painted with cannabis
leaves, with the scent of marijuana heavy in the air, it seemed incredible
that in 1998 people really need to march about cannabis, a part of millions
of people's daily lives. But then, the march wasn't just about cannabis. A
celebration of hedonism, it was also about people's freedom to enjoy
themselves and how they choose to treat their own bodies in the face of
illness, and how this law, above all laws, has alienated two generations of
people by making them criminals.

"I'm here because my son was arrested for possession of cannabis," said one
woman, who had been unsure whether to come but was having a "fantastic day
out". Another woman said her daughter, now a heroin addict, had first come
into contact with hard drugs through buying soft and she wanted to see the
drugs separated in the market place. "I'm here because ." a thin looking
man called Toby, trailed off, suddenly quite unable to remember what he was
doing in Hyde Park. "Oh yeah, cannabis," he finished eventually, to cheers
from his friends from Manchester University.

As the colourful crowd wove its way along Park Lane to the beat of drums,
blue-haired anarchists alongside true-blue libertarians and a sea of green
balloons amid placards declaring "William Straw for Home Secretary", I
thought I saw the minister's son at Reformer's Tree. It wasn't him, but it
could have been because - as Mr Straw learned to his chagrin -
well-educated middle-class boys also support the decriminalisation of
cannabis. Had Mr Straw Jr been there, he might have appreciated his
new-found hero status. Mr Straw Snr might have taken issue with the
home-made posters with the face of Dawn Alford, the Mirror journalist to
whom his son sold cannabis.

Allen Ginsberg, who was arrested at the '67 demonstration, and Malcolm X,
who addressed the same rally, are not here to see the new campaign.
Jonathan Aitken, who signed the famous '68 full-page advert in the Times in
favour of the decriminalisation of cannabis, was nowhere to be seen. Nor
was William Rees-Mogg, the former Times editor who wrote, at the time of
Mick Jagger's arrest for cannabis possession, of the sinisterness of
breaking "a butterfly on a wheel". It didn't matter. Thousands of new
people have taken their place, and thousands more will take theirs, until
the law is changed. They came. They saw. They sang from Bob Marley's
"Legalise It". Some smoked. Some even inhaled. It was the big day for the
Cannabis Campaign and the people came in thousands from around the country,
from Europe and some from even further afield.

There was a sense of deja-vu as the marchers gathered in Hyde Park, the
scene of the first cannabis rally in July 1967. Some people remembered
seeing Lennon and McCartney there, others, now respectable businessmen,
recalled being arrested for raining flowers on police. Many of yesterday's
marchers, however, had only seen archive footage on television. Caroline
Coon, who set up Release in response to the arrests that day, remembered
that the weather was better then.

Many things have changed in the intervening 31 years. The hippies of the
'67 press reports have been replaced by modern-day crusties and
eco-warriors. The equivalent of the flower children is a generation of
young people newly politicised over drugs in the wake of the Criminal
Justice Act, which outlawed rave parties and their repetitive rhythms. One
thing, however, has not changed: the use of cannabis remains illegal, with
more than 70,000 arrests for related offences in 1995. "It seems hard to
imagine," Ms Coon said. "Three decades later and we're still marching for
the same thing."

Hyde Park, then, where the Rolling Stones once passed a 10-foot spliff
around the crowd, and the Editor of the Independent on Sunday, Rosie
Boycott, rolled her first joint the same year, was full of the resonances
of the past. Its message, however, was very much in the present, at its
most poignant near the front of the march, where people in wheelchairs
endured a gruelling two miles because in order to buy a substance which
could ease the symptoms of MS, Aids and anorexia, and combat the
side-effects of chemotherapy, they are forced to break the law.

"I'm a criminal," said James Thornton, a 40-year-old MS sufferer from Kent.
"Cannabis eases my cramps, steadies my muscle spasms, helps me relax - but
they tell me I can't buy it."

Inevitably some of the constituents of the Cannabis Campaign would be a
little late, or may even turn up next Saturday. At 3pm stragglers were
still arriving at Trafalgar Square. Many had brought their children; prams
alongside ageing baby-boomers, young radicals and elderly smokers. One
wonders whether these children will grow up to be a post-prohibition
generation who will one day ask their parents: "Was dope really illegal
then?" or whether in 2028, they will still be holding Decriminalise
Cannabis rallies.

Walking along Piccadilly among the banners and faces painted with cannabis
leaves, with the scent of marijuana heavy in the air, it seemed incredible
that in 1998 people really need to march about cannabis, a part of millions
of people's daily lives. But then, the march wasn't just about cannabis. A
celebration of hedonism, it was also about people's freedom to enjoy
themselves and how they choose to treat their own bodies in the face of
illness, and how this law, above all laws, has alienated two generations of
people by making them criminals.

"I'm here because my son was arrested for possession of cannabis," said one
woman, who had been unsure whether to come but was having a "fantastic day
out". Another woman said her daughter, now a heroin addict, had first come
into contact with hard drugs through buying soft and she wanted to see the
drugs separated in the market place. "I'm here because ." a thin looking
man called Toby, trailed off, suddenly quite unable to remember what he was
doing in Hyde Park. "Oh yeah, cannabis," he finished eventually, to cheers
from his friends from Manchester University.

As the colourful crowd wove its way along Park Lane to the beat of drums,
blue-haired anarchists alongside true-blue libertarians and a sea of green
balloons amid placards declaring "William Straw for Home Secretary", I
thought I saw the minister's son at Reformer's Tree. It wasn't him, but it
could have been because - as Mr Straw learned to his chagrin -
well-educated middle-class boys also support the decriminalisation of
cannabis. Had Mr Straw Jr been there, he might have appreciated his
new-found hero status. Mr Straw Snr might have taken issue with the
home-made posters with the face of Dawn Alford, the Mirror journalist to
whom his son sold cannabis.

Allen Ginsberg, who was arrested at the '67 demonstration, and Malcolm X,
who addressed the same rally, are not here to see the new campaign.
Jonathan Aitken, who signed the famous '68 full-page advert in the Times in
favour of the decriminalisation of cannabis, was nowhere to be seen. Nor
was William Rees-Mogg, the former Times editor who wrote, at the time of
Mick Jagger's arrest for cannabis possession, of the sinisterness of
breaking "a butterfly on a wheel". It didn't matter. Thousands of new
people have taken their place, and thousands more will take theirs, until
the law is changed.