CANNABIS CAFE ROLLS OUT CHALLENGE

The Cafe Will Allow Members to Use Cannabis

Campaigners have vowed to break the law by opening a cannabis cafe in
Scotland when the drug is reclassified.

The Scottish Cannabis Coffeeshop Movement said the Purple Haze Cafe in
Edinburgh would allow use of the drug when it is downgraded next Thursday.

The reclassification means police in England and Wales will rarely
arrest people for possession of small amounts.

However, the Scottish Executive has made it clear there will be no
change in practice in Scotland.

Paul Stewart, owner of the Purple Haze, is set to test that position
and has said he will invite members of his cafi to bring their own
cannabis and smoke it on the premises.

Mr Stewart said: "We're not glamorising drug use, or advocating drug
use.

"All we're saying is people are going to use cannabis, we have to
accept that, and if they are we're trying to give them advice and
information so that they can use it in the safest possible way.

"If I have to be criminalised for that then that's up to the
police."

But the Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police, Tom
Wood, has warned the force will take action quickly to deal with any
breach of the law at the Purple Haze.

The move to reclassify the drug will see it downgraded from class B to
class C, along with steroids and tranquillisers.

Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) drugs spokesman Kevin Williamson said
the executive's stance had left the law looking "mangled".

He said: "It's one of these laws that's dishonest and hypocritical and
like every dishonest and hypocritical law it has to be
challenged."

He added: "We want to build a network of cannabis tolerant zones
across Scotland beginning with the Purple Haze Cafi and expanding it
across the whole of Scotland with the objective of calling on the
Scottish Executive, the police forces and the local authorities to
create Scottish-wide cannabis tolerant zones until our parliament has
the powers to change the law."

He said the campaign also aimed to turn the tolerance zones into
"cannabis information centres" and monitor arrests for personal
possession of cannabis in Scotland.

Mr Williamson claimed 500,000 peopled had used cannabis in Scotland as
he launched the SCCM during a news conference inside the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Stewart said the cafe would be "tobacco free" but anyone wishing to
take cannabis could use a vaporiser machine which he said eliminates
99% of the carcinogenic substances in the drug.