CANNABIS ENTREPRENEURS GO DUTCH

ENTREPRENEURS and cannabis users recently smoked, cut and rolled hashish
and marijuana at a five-day "Cannabizness" workshop teaching participants
how to run Dutch-style coffee shops abroad.

Students at the "Coffee shop College", run by a cannabis cafe owner in the
city of Haarlem, said they hoped to be able to ply the trade in licensed
shops in their own countries as pressure to relax laws prohibiting the drug
grows across Europe.

The course aimed to give its participants experience working in Haarlema's
coffee shops serving hashish and marijuana.

It also provides information on the unique Dutch experience regulating 900
licensed coffee shops.

"I am here because I want to open a Dutch-style coffee shop in the UK,"
said Chris Baldwin, a 52-year-old veteran British campaigner for the
legalisation of cannabis.

"The best part for me is the cannabis because I love it. I have been
involved in cannabis for over 30 years - I would say somebody who is a
connoisseur of wine is no different to me."

The Government said last year it wanted to ease the laws on cannabis by no
longer making possession of the drug an arrestable offence and to allow its
use for medical purposes.

Edinburgh-based publisher Kevin Williamson has said he will open a cannabis
cafe at an undisclosed location in the city after Home Secretary David
Blunkett's plans to reclassify the drug as class C come into effect later
this year.

Successful graduates of the workshop are being told they can look forward
to a lucrative life if cannabis is legalised in their own countries.

The Dutch shops generate an annual turnover of about AUKP 250,000 a year.
Those near the borders with Germany and Belgium pull in as much in just a
month.

Some of the dozen British, French and Swiss participants rolled and smoked
joints as they received handouts for their course on coffee shop
regulations, security and health, while examining resin and leaves under
microscopes.

After testing and selling cannabis, learning how to roll joints with a
machine and hearing about cultivation methods from Morocco to Afghanistan,
the participants rounded off the course with a field trip to some of
Amsterdam's 200 coffee shops.

Participant Jerry Ham was keen to learn so he can set up a coffee shop and
medical cannabis distribution network in Britain when cannabis is legalised.

"I will need business plans and products to sell. This is about coffee shop
management. I have found this to be invaluable."