STEVE EMERGES FROM THE SMOKE AS CANNABIS CANDIDATE

CAMPAIGNER calling for cannabis to be legalised is planning to stand
for the York Parliamentary seat at the next election.

Businessman Steve Clements says that if the campaign eventually
succeeds, he would apply to City of York Council for a licence to open
a cannabis cafe in the city centre.

He says he could guarantee that the behaviour of customers at such an
establishment would be far more acceptable than what can be seen
outside the city's pubs and clubs.

Steve, 39, who runs The Hemp Shop in Church Street, York, says he is
so irritated by the authorities' failure to legalise the use of the
drug that he has signed up to the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, a
registered political party.

"I intend to put myself forward for election at the next local
elections and Parliamentary elections," he said.

He claimed that thousands of otherwise law-abiding people were being
criminalised every year for using cannabis.

"The current policies are an abject failure and are letting down our
young people," he said.

"In the meantime, society's love of alcohol continues unchecked,
creating more misery, more violence and at greater cost to the taxpayer."

He said he often "wondered about the sense of it all" as he walked to
work on a Sunday morning through the "blood and vomit-stained streets
of York."

He said The Hemp Shop sold a range of legal products made from
cannabis hemp.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Cannabis will be reclassified from B
to C, but will not be decriminalised.

York MP Hugh Bayley said: "My view of cannabis is that it should be
used when prescribed by a doctor. I don't think cannabis should be
legalised."