cannabisnews.com: Cannabis Cafe Plan





Cannabis Cafe Plan
Posted by FoM on October 29, 2001 at 07:17:59 PT
A cafe where people can smoke cannabis is proposed
Source: BBC News
A Somerset man wants to open a cannabis coffee shop in Taunton. Entrepreneur Mike Cottee believes the town would benefit from a venue where like-minded people can meet to smoke a joint. He thinks the venture could be possible following the announcement by the Home Secretary of plans to relax some of the regulations governing the drug. Mike Cottee said: "We felt that in the light of the announcement we would definitely go ahead with the plan. 
"It is time to make it public in the hope that people come forward who want to support it and get involved." Under reclassification as a Class C drug, it would still be an offence to buy and sell cannabis, so he has no plans for it to be available over the counter. "The intention is to provide a safe, comfortable environment for people who enjoy smoking cannabis to come and socialise without fear of being arrested," said Mr Cottee. If a venue goes ahead in the Somerset town it will follow a similar short-lived scheme in Greater Manchester. The Dutch Experience - an Amsterdam-style marijuana cafe - opened in Stockport in September. But it was immediately shut down by police, and several people were arrested for possession with intent to supply the drug. The cafe reopened but cannabis is no longer sold or smoked on the premises. Mr Cottee and the Taunton cafe's other financial backers are hoping that the authorities in Somerset will turn a blind eye to a marijuana cafe in the town. "We see no reason why they should waste resources raiding the premises when they won't be able to arrest anyone," he said. They are now looking for a suitable venue in Taunton. "We want somewhere fairly central but not on one of the main shopping streets," said Mr Cottee. "Once we find premises we can move quite quickly and be open in a matter of two or three weeks." "The intention is to provide a safe, comfortable environment for people that enjoy smoking cannabis" -- Mike Cottee, EntrepreneurSource: BBC News (UK Web)Published: Monday, October 29, 2001Copyright: 2001 BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/Related Article & Web Site:The Dutch Experiencehttp://www.dutchexperience.org/Why Britain is Going Dutch http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11175.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - U.K.http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=UK
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Comment #12 posted by Dan B on October 30, 2001 at 19:15:33 PT
My favorite DEA Watch Quote: 10/29
Here is the winner:"The Geneva Convention just went out the window:Several years ago I worked a case where the perp asked me directly if I was a narc. I replied, no (using typical street language of the day.) The perp then threatened to rip my clothes off to see if I was wearing a wire. I replied, "you do what you gotta do." Upon which, the perp began tearing at my clothes. To make a long story short, when I testified about this in court I was ripped up one side and down the other by the perp's defense attorney who claimed that because I gave his client permission to "rip my clothes off" the charge of assaulting a police officer should be dropped. The DF further argued that when someone on medication (drugs) receives a verbal command or permission he hears that statement differently than the person who made the statement had intended. Meaning, even though I didn't really intend to give my permission to be bodily assaulted, the perp -- in his depleted or irrational condition -- may have interpreted my "permission" as completely rational. Okay, so the DA had to drop that count but we still got him on possession. So why am I telling you about something you are probably well familiar with?... Well, today President Bush made a statement that no American president has ever made in any American war. President Bush stated: "Every American is a soldier. Every American is in this fight.". Big deal, you ask? This is a VERY big deal. The president has already labeled our response to Sept 11th as being "a war". Now, in violation of every United Nations and Geneva Convention Treaty he has involuntarily enlisted civilians into a milita and declared them as official military targets. This means, legally speaking, that any terrorist or hostile country who attacks an American civilian, wherever he or she might be, will not be in violation of the above mentioned rules against specifically targeting civilians.When viewing the president's unthinking statements in their usual, irrational way of looking at things, Osama bin Laden, Sadaam Hussein and other anti-American leaders will now see all Americans (women, children, infants, the elderly) as prime military targets, since, in our presidents own words: "Every American is a soldier. Every American is in this fight.".This is the problem when we elect a moron for president. George Bush does not think before he opens his mouth. He lacks a filter between brain and mouth. It is imperative, now, that someone in the Administration retract the president's statement IMMEDIATELY. There must be NO OFFICIAL recognition on the part of our country that all Americans are "soldiers".All Americans who do not serve in our military are civilians and must be considered as civilians by our enemies. Also, we must not provide any possible defense shelter from those terrorists we capture when we charge them with committing acts of aggression against a civilian or civilian population. The last thing we want a terrorist's lawyer to argue is that his client was involved in a war against opposing military personnel, as declared president George Bush.Mr. Bush was, obviously, trying to be 'cute', just as I was trying to be cute with my perp. But you can't be cute when you are dealing with subhumans who don't see things the way we see them. Subhumans take things you say literally, and their attorneys use their client's belief that they were given tacit permission to commit a crime in their defense.My wife, my children, my parents, my co-workers are not soldiers. They are civilians! The president needs to retract his statement which will be used by Osama bin Laden who, already, has stated that he feels all Americans are his enemy. Without giving serious thought to his words, President Bush just bought into everything Osama has been saying by throwing the Geneva Convention out the window. Geez... what a dork!"From DEA Watch, 10/29Dan B
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Comment #11 posted by freedom fighter on October 30, 2001 at 17:22:15 PT
Kap..
it is also interesting to note how many words they keep repeatingDrug war is a failure..
Failed drug war...One even mentioned that their paycheck is drug paycheck..Bunch of losers down there.. Sigh!ff
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on October 30, 2001 at 09:00:01 PT:
A week, now...
And still no screams from DEAWatchhttp://members.aol.com/deawatch/daily.htmabout the developments in the UK. there has been exactly one thing posted there about the matter, and that was a link to a newspaper article. No commentary about it at all. This is really intriguing; you think the higher ups in DEA would have come up with a position on this by now. They haven't been shy about condemning allies for changing their drug laws before.More proof about the old saw that politics makes for strange bedfellows. 
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Comment #9 posted by freedom fighter on October 29, 2001 at 18:13:17 PT
Oh, Help!
I have fallen in love with E.Johnson! ;)ff
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on October 29, 2001 at 14:56:10 PT
Cherry 2000
We owned a video store for many years and watched many, many movies and I can still remember how good Cherry 2000 was. I didn't remember the name of Melanie Griffith's character though but remember the movie and really liked it.
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Comment #7 posted by E_Johnson on October 29, 2001 at 14:35:00 PT
I am a wimmin too!
E. Johnson is the character Melanie Griffith played in Cherry 2000.She wears a sweat shirt with DIGNITY printed on the front and drives a badass Camaro.Some guy's blond vapid subservient girlfriend-robot goes on the blink. Cherry 2000 is the model of the girl-friendbot's chassis. Her chassis goes on the blink, but he saves her brain chip. Since Western civlization has decayed, the only Cherry 2000 spare bodies left in the world are located in a lawless territory in the desert of Southern California run by a gang of crazed fascist retirees in loud shirts and Bermuda shorts armed with machine guns and grenade launchers.So the guy hires E. Johnson to take him into the lawless territory and fight the retirees to find a Cherry 2000 body so that he can put the brain chip in and have his girlfriend-bot back.I highly recommend this film. 
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on October 29, 2001 at 14:19:45 PT
Thank You p4me
I know how important rescheduling is. I agree. Thank you for the heads up on the article.Arrest Suffering, Not Medical Marijuana Patients 
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11217.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on October 29, 2001 at 13:42:27 PT:
more stuff
Am I reading right- that FoM is a woman? Learn something new all along I guess.I just wanted to respond to your question about http://www.dutchexperience.org I think that the DE opened on SEptember 15th and I started keeping up with it probably about a week before it opened. They were going to have webcams because for some of us it was a(n) historic event. It was kind of like when the British sent their fleet to fight Argentina over the Fauklands if you happen to be old enough to remember that. The British had to get their ships together and it took a week or so to cross the Atlantic. With each passing day the media told us where the fleet was and covered the military abilities of both sides like it was a pregame show for the Superbowl. The opening of the Dutch Experience was like that. Everyone knew the showdown was coming and the big question was "Will the police shut the place down?" Most people thought that they had to and they did. They arrested the 5 Dutch people involved including the computer man that was to hook up webcast. Of course this was a basis for a lawsuit that followed because of some Europen Union law about discrimination. So maybe you would not be overwelmed by the website unless you kept up with it. You would have to realize the chance that the owners took in even trying such a venture. While everyone here is sitting on the sidelines waiting for change, Nol and Colin were putting themselves in harms way mainly to help the sufferring people who needed medical marijuana. So you have to understand that many people regard them as heroes and when they post to the site telling about their ailments and the appreciation they have, they are truly thankful for their efforts. That is what I say about it having stories of human interest. Maybe you are into it or you are not. At least I learned MP was a Member of Parliament.Maybe some people think that this medical marijuana thing is some kind of joke. It is not. Look at all the people in Africa and across the world whose pain could helped by planting a seed. The western world wants to sell them pills that they cannot afford and at the same time tell them that marijuana cannot help them. This is inhumanity.Since I got started I want to talk about an article at the MAP Project. I hope this link works as I have not figured out how to copy two things to the clipboard at the same time. I cannot suggest this reading this article strong enough. That goes for you lazy overpaid DEA agents sitting at the computer and monitoring this site trying to figure out how to continue fighting "The Lost War."http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1830/a01.html?999The title of this piece is "Arrest Suffering, Not Medical Marijuana Patients." It raises issues concerning states rights and has a comment going back to a high ranking medical official that said back in 1988, that MJ should not be a Schedule 1 Narcotic.The importance of The schedule 1 classification is behind the government authority to seize plants and continue the crackdown on medical marijuana patients in California. From the article:Marijuana was improperly classified by the Federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 as a
   schedule I substance-the most restrictive of five categories. A schedule I substance is
   defined as having a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use in treatment in the
   United States. Schedule I substances may not be prescribed by physicians.    Opponents of medical marijuana often support their opposition by claiming a lack of
   scientific evidence proving its medicinal value. But the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based
   Marijuana Policy Project ( www.mpp.org ) reports there are more than seventy modern
   studies published in peer-- reviewed journals or by government agencies verifying that
   marijuana does have medicinal value. Moreover, in 1988 the Drug Enforcement
   Administration's own chief administrative law judge, Francis Young, ruled, "Marijuana, in its
   natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known.... It would be
   unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers
   and the benefits of this substance. That is why I have said here that our political system and our legal system have failed us. Marijuana is improperly classified and no one has changed it, including NORML. There are two bills in Congress that could change this. Of course a version of only one would pass if the politicians could wire their heads together and get one good brain out of doing so. There is a website that lets you search for bills in Congress and get the text for each bill. You can do a search for marijuana and you should get about 30 bills on MJ. There will be a brief description beside each bill. Here goes- http://thomas.loc.gov/Vote against all incumbents down to dog catcher. Out with the old and in with the new.
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Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on October 29, 2001 at 09:38:29 PT
Let's make a deal for political asylum
I'm ready to start a campaign to get political asylum for American medical marijuana users in Britain.It's clear that we have a lawless system in America, as regards medical marijuana. Voters have expressed very clear preferences on this issue and the leadership in both political parties is determined to ignore that.The DEA raid on the Los Angeles club proves that the DEA is an orgnaization beyond democratic control. The LA club was fully integrated into the local and state political system. All of their t's were crossed and all of their i's were dotted. They had the state Attorney General and county sheriff on their side. If the DEA does not respect that -- then what exactly DO those people respect??????So maybe there is a real case to be made for seeking protection from a less repressive country.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on October 29, 2001 at 09:08:27 PT
Just a Note
After I asked about a woman's forum I realized that would be almost impossible becaue how would anyone know if a person is a woman? I'm slow in some areas. Duh! LOL!
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on October 29, 2001 at 08:39:29 PT
p4me 
Do they have a good forum? I sure would like a place to talk sometimes. I'll bookmark the forum and read it when I have a little free time. Many times I have wanted to be able to talk but when I see such anger on forums I've checked out I just won't even think about it. Me and anger just don't get a long very well. Life's just too short I think. Maybe forums need a place for woman if there are enough woman on line that would like a woman's only forum. I just don't know. 
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Comment #1 posted by p4me on October 29, 2001 at 08:21:11 PT:
Correction
I take exception to this line in the article.
   The cafe reopened but cannabis is no longer sold or smoked on the premises.Cannabisnews has furnished you a link to the Dutch Experience. This is site that anyone concerned with what is going on with MJ reform across the world should read. You can not go to the counter and choose from strains like you can in Amsterdam. It is very clear that they smoke MJ on the premises if you read many threads at all. I hope to go to the Dutch Experience as kind of a pilgramage within the next year and am not worried about finding our favorite herb. A lot of average Joe's post to the site and the site has a community type feel to it. I read it everyday right after cannabisnews. I just wanted to mention a story about a fellow last week that had looked foward to going to the Dutch Experience for some time and caught a ride with a friend. On the way they rear-ended a car and could not complete the trip. He talked about how he was looking for another ride to end his disappointment. It is an excellent site for these human interest stories.Vote against all incumbents down to dog catcher. Out with the old and in with the new.
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