ECOSSE: MAKING A DOPE OF THE LAW

The opening last week of a cannabis cafe in Edinburgh, in the shadow of the
Scottish executive, attracted all the usual suspects, discovered Tom Lappin

It's an unlikely place to start a revolution. But then it's an unlikely
cause. The vociferous crowd gathering on a Leith street late on Thursday
afternoon wasn't interested in storming any Bastilles, merely on finding a
place where they could partake of a prohibited weed. Perhaps it's
indicative of the current level of political engagement in Scottish society
that the cravings of a small band of dedicated dope smokers could kick up
such a heady cloud.

All that seems to distinguish the purplehazecafe.com - let's just call it
the Purple Haze cafe shall we? - from any other basement greasy spoon is
the corny Jimi Hendrix reference. Otherwise the tatty decor, with its
cracked paint and sagging posters, doesn't quite convey an atmosphere of
thrilling revolt so much as snatched lunches eaten on the hoof.

Amsterdam's famous brown cafes are instantly recognisable by the narcotic
fug that defies all attempts by the air-conditioning to dispel it, and by
the pockets of American dope tourists fixing their glazed eyes at the wall
and groaning "maaan". Scotland's first cannabis cafe already has its own
telltale aroma, redolent of Scotland's drug of choice for generations: the
deep-fat fryer.

This was the week when Purple Haze attempted to make the far-from-seamless
transition from being a snack bar offering several calorie-soaked
variations on the hamburger roll, to become a testing ground for the
supposed new liberalisation of the cannabis laws.

Thanks to the keen presence of the constabulary, it didn't quite pan out
that way, but then first initiatives are rarely roaring successes. What was
remarkable, though, was the level of opposition to the project. If they
said it couldn't happen here, well they may have been right. In the event,
it looks like marijuana nirvana might still be some way in the future.

San Francisco? Sure. Amsterdam? Definitely. Edinburgh as a haven for
third-generation hippie bohemia? Unlikely. Putting aside all moral, legal
and health aspects, Scotland's capital simply doesn't seem to have the
panache to become a spliff-roller's sanctuary.

Yet Purple Haze, a short trip from the Scottish executive's offices by the
Leith shore, was hoping to make a little psychedelic history at 4pm on
Thursday. That was when the drug was reclassified as a class C narcotic and
the decreed hour for Purple Haze to offer a tentative challenge to authority.

The idea was to turn the premises into a private club where members could
bring small amounts of cannabis for their personal use. Paul Stewart, the
owner, while half expecting his own arrest, emphasised that the club would
have a "responsible attitude", placing an emphasis on providing drug
education (some leaflets) along with facilities for members to use the weed.

"We recognise people use cannabis and want to provide an environment where
they can do that as safely as possible," he said, nurturing, it seemed, a
romantic notion of the place as a cool den of cerebral relaxation. "People
will be able to bring their own cannabis here and smoke it while playing a
game of chess or sending an e-mail," he added, identifying a potential
benefit: quick access to your dealer, or lawyer, if and when required.

In a curious twist, the club has banned the use of tobacco on the premises.
In addition, pre-empting some of the complaints from health fanatics that
cannabis users can suffer the same risks as tobacco smokers, those wanting
a cannabis hit were invited to make use of vaporiser machines. These
contraptions look a little like overgrown asthma inhalers and reportedly
filter out most of the carcinogenic substances in the drug.

If some of these particulars seem surprising, events began to unfold with
grim predictably. As official spliffing-up time approached a media scrum
ensued, with hopeful users joined on the streets by three ranks of press
photographers taking drags on their cigarettes in between snatching shots
of the murky interior.

The putative members of the club seemed to have been assembled by a casting
director looking for a shiftless squad of dope fiends, with plenty of
goatees, grins and those woolly hats beloved of mountaineers and social
refuseniks. The numbers were too small to suggest a broad grassroots demand
for cannabis cafes, but numerous enough to show it wasn't just a fad among
a small clique of dope heads. The determination to register as members was
impressive given the firm presence of the authorities.

One of them, identifying himself only as "Davie, because that's not my name
like", was laughing at the inescapable comedy of the scene, but wanted to
show some support for those brave enough to defy the law.

James Duthie, a labourer from Leith, was disappointed that the police
presence prevented him lighting up a joint, but he still found solace in
the scene. "Even without smoking the place is so mellow," he said. "You
wouldn't get this atmosphere in pubs. They are far more dangerous than any
cannabis cafe."

So much for the patrons - what of the police? As the hour of freedom grew
closer, the force began to be felt. It started early on with a discouraging
picket line of three officers handing out leaflets. Issued by Douglas
Watson, a chief superintendent with the Lothian and Borders police, the
statement made the legal position fairly unequivocal. "The possession and
supply of cannabis continues to be an offence under Section 5 of the Misuse
of Drugs Act 1971," it read. "The management of premises also commit an
offence if they knowingly allow any person to smoke cannabis on their
premises, allow persons to supply cannabis on their premises, or offer to
supply any article which may be used in the administration by any person of
a controlled drug."

That clause looked an effective way of stitching up the Purple Haze
operation, outlawing those ingenious vaporisers, and delivering the message
that while the authorities in England and Wales might be relaxing the
policing of cannabis users, Scotland would remain thoroughly intolerant.

But for all their strong words, the police avoided searches and seemed
reluctant to take firm action. Nevertheless three arrests for drugs
offences were reported. The big test is likely to come in the weeks ahead,
unless the Lothian constabulary plans to have officers on permanent
assignment. Perhaps this may even call for the revival of that 1960s
archetype, the narc; an undercover officer in street attire that is just a
couple of telltale years behind the times. And an Afro.

That's the problem with cannabis, its whole image is wrapped up with a kind
of benign idiocy. As a drug it is analogous with a dumb, furry freak
brother loser ineffectualness. It's very difficult to take it
seriously,either as a threat to western civilisation or as a campaigning
issue worth getting exercised about.

At one end of the spectrum you have those who maintain cannabis is a
"gateway" drug leading inexorably to the abuse of more harmful narcotics;
at the other you have those who boast of its efficacy as an alternative
medicine. Both extremes have supporting evidence that just isn't strong
enough to win the day.

One of the first members on the Purple Haze roster was Tommy Sheridan, the
ubiquitous Scottish Socialist party leader. If his political starting
point, campaigning against the poll tax, might have been his zenith as a
public figure, standing up for the rights of dope smokers might well prove
his nadir.

"We want to take drugs off our streets," he said, slightly mysteriously,
because gangs of slack-jawed dope smokers on street corners are hardly a
constant social problem in Scotland.

Sheridan said he didn't partake himself, but he had turned up to show
solidarity with the cafe's campaign. The fact that there were numerous
camera crews and TV interviewers around wouldn't have put him off.

Those who haven't been systematically eroding their brain cells may recall
a time when the doctrine of socialism was about equality, the rights of the
working man, grim-faced marches from Jarrow, that kind of thing. Now it
seems that a pillar of the SSP's struggle is the right of the average
stoner to lounge around in a basement getting off his face without being
molested by the forces of state oppression.

Kevin Williamson, the SSP drugs spokesman, whose incoherent protest in the
Scottish parliament against George W Bush last year might as well have been
the product of an altered mind, explained that his party's aim is to
establish a network of tolerance zones across Scotland. To that end he has
launched the Scottish Cannabis Coffee-shops Movement (SCCM) alongside
Stewart and drugs researcher Neil Montgomery. The idea, Williamson
suggests, is "to bring it into the open. Let's show that cannabis users
aren't the deranged psychotics in the way the newspapers are trying to
portray them".

Williamson wants Purple Haze to be the first in a Dayglo network of such
cafes across Scotland. This, he suggests, is only a holding measure until
Holyrood has the powers to decriminalise the drug and Scotland can become
one nation under a dope haze.

Frances Curran, his party colleague, is a fellow traveller. She asked: "Why
not legalise cannabis now and stop another 100,000 young people going
through the criminal justice system? It would save a fortune in the
courts." Sure, and while you're at it why not just legalise crime?

There doesn't seem to be much sense coming from any quarter. In parliament
Margo McDonald, the Independent MSP, offered a typically idiosyncratic
view, worrying about the contents of Purple Haze's dessert trolley.

"There will be people there eating cannabis cakes," she said. "That could
mean the police have to test all the cakes in the shop, which would be a
waste of time and money."

As it turned out, the constabulary took only a cursory interest in Purple
Haze's pastries, and managed to resist the temptation to impound a tray of
doughnuts.

The problem with all this hot air, accidentally entertaining though much of
it might be, is that it is expended on such a pointless argument. In truth,
the prime selling point of cannabis cafes in Amsterdam is that they are
illegal in the rest of the world.

Hence they are full of tourists giggling at the right to get off their
faces in public without being arrested. It's not unlikely the legalisation
of cannabis use would make the cannabis cafe redundant in that it does not
encourage social interection to the level that alcohol does. Stewart and
his colleagues are guilty of a certain degree of disingenuousness in
failing to acknowledge that ultimately, the essential point of a cannabis
cafe is as a point of supply.

In the same way as there would be no future in cafes where customers came
along to consume their own coffee and steak pie suppers, the only viable
path for cannabis cafes would be to follow the Dutch pattern. There it
involves sampling every variety of the potent homegrown variants fresh from
the hydroponic producers now occupying the Dutch hinterland that used to be
devoted to innocent tulips.

This is where the plans of those who support such ventures as Purple Haze
collapse or rather come smacking up against legislation that is never going
to budge on the issue of supply or production, even if it might give the
occasional grudging inch on possession.

In any case, it is questionable whether those people who use cannabis
regularly really need to partake of it in a dingy mauve basement when it's
far more comfortable to do so in the seclusion of their own homes.

Sitting in Purple Haze last week, I was far from convinced that there was
enough going for the project to make dreary Leith a touch more colourful on
a Thursday afternoon. But hey, you can still get a hamburger and chips or a
roll and sausage.