MORE GREEN WOES

DAKTA Green - the man behind New Zealand's first cannabis-smoking club
- - plans to defend fresh drugs charges after a police raid on the club
last Saturday.

West Auckland police raided the Daktory - where about 2000 members
have met to buy and smoke cannabis for the last 14 months - after
Sunday News asked police national headquarters what they'd do about
the 59-year-old's plans to open similar clubs nationwide from next
month.

Green, who was already due to appear in court last week on other
matters, faced four fresh charges resulting from the raid on his Delta
Steet, New Lynn, home and Daktory club rooms.

Those charges were: permitting a premise to be used for cannabis
offending; cultivating cannabis; give/sell/supply/administer cannabis
and possession for supply of a Class C drug.

Green appeared at Waitakere District Court on Tuesday and entered no
plea. The long-time campaigner for cannabis law reform was bailed to
reappear in the court later this month.

As part of our story on the Daktory and Green, Sunday News asked
readers whether cannabis should be legalised.

The paper received the biggest response to a text-message question
ever, receiving over 1000 responses. Almost every one of them was in
favour of cannabis being legalised.

Meanwhile, a man who helped Green set up the Daktory, Brian Borland -
who goes by the name Dakta Grower - is currently five months through a
two-year, four-month prison term for growing and selling cannabis.

Borland, serving time at Rangipo Prison, Turangi, formed a company
called the Roaring Lion Cannabis Shoppe to sell his product before he
was busted and sentenced in August 2008.

Following the National Reform of Marijuana Reform's (Norml) national
conference, in Turangi in November, 10 members visited Borland at the
prison, arriving there in their protest bus, Mary Jane.

According to the Summer 2010 issue of Norml News, prison authorities
ordered the Norml members off the bus and conducted a thorough search.
No drugs were found.

Pictured alongside a story is a photograph of Borland dressed in
orange prison overalls and a Norml T-shirt, doing a Daktory hand signal.

The signal signifies the five strands of a cannabis leaf and how a
user's hand looks when they're smoking a joint.