cannabisnews.com: Thousands March in Britain for Legal Cannabis Thousands March in Britain for Legal Cannabis Posted by CN Staff on May 04, 2002 at 17:27:56 PT By Reuters Source: Reuters Thousands of pro-cannabis demonstrators held peaceful marches in Britain's largest cities on Saturday before letting their hair down at a series of outdoor parties, picnics and festivals. The marches in London, Manchester and Birmingham to push for the legalisation of cannabis were part of almost 200 similar events planned around the world this weekend under the name of the ''Million Marijuana March.'' ''The march is to protest for legalisation and the festival is a celebration of cannabis,'' said Shane Collins, licensee for the Cannabis Carnival in Brixton, south London. Collins estimated the British cannabis trade to be worth six billion pounds a year, adding it provided thousands of Britons with jobs. ''We want to put the profits from that into where they are needed -- youth services and residential rehab,'' he told the BBC. A police spokeswoman said they did not have a estimate of crowd numbers but said the marches were trouble free and the crowds had dispersed by early evening. The marches came as the government contemplated downgrading cannabis to class C, the least serious drug category, and as police around the country review their approach to the drug. The ''softly, softly'' approach to cannabis was this week endorsed by Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers. The London march ended up in the suburb of Brixton, which is the scene of a police experiment on cautioning rather than arresting cannabis smokers, an approach pioneered by controversial police chief Brian Paddick. Paddick -- Britain's highest ranking openly gay officer -- is being investigated by the Police Complaints Authority over allegations he regularly smoked cannabis with former lover James Renolleau. A poll last month for Britain's Observer newspaper said 51 percent of the nation's 16- to 24-year-olds had taken banned drugs, while five million people regularly use cannabis. Before the march, Collins said the protest was not aimed at promoting the drug to teenagers. ''We don't want more youths smoking it,'' he said. ''It's good for writing, but it's not conducive to studying. And anyway, smoking too much of it can turn you into a very boring person.'' Source: ReutersPublished: May 4, 2002Copyright 2002 Reuters LimitedRelated Articles & Web Site:Million Marijuana March 2002http://freedomtoexhale.com/million.htmThousands Expected at Cannabis Marches http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12728.shtmlCannabisNews - Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #4 posted by FoM on May 05, 2002 at 17:59:10 PT eco I wasn't sure if you knew I was putting all the articles on my MMM page. I have 21 news articles posted so far. I'm not putting more on the front page because of other good but non related articles being pushed off. Here they are if you're interested.Keep up the good work.http://freedomtoexhale.com/million.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by eco-man on May 05, 2002 at 06:43:15 PT More UK reports, links, video. MMM links worldwide MMM World Cannabis Action Day May 4 2002. 197+ cities worldwide and counting!!! Here is a BBC News UK article with video links. Don't forget to check out the latest MMM links after the BBC info below.Source: BBC News UK Webpage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1967000/1967690.stmThe BBC videos are linked in the right column on the side of the BBC article. They use the free Real Player. Manchester UK rally. Video. The BBC's Lucy Atherton "The event passed off peacefully" http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1965000/video/_1968119_cannabis18_atherton_vi.ramManchester Cannabis Coalition Jonjo Nally. Video. "I have been really overwhelmed by the amount of support" http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1965000/video/_1968119_march12_nally_vi.ramNote: There are many other great links on the BBC page, too. About cannabis reform that has been happening in the UK and around the world. *Reuters article. Thousands March in Britain for Legal Cannabis. http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12733.shtml----------------MMM Cannabis 2002 cities, links, reports, etc.----- 197+ cities worldwide and counting!!! Cannabis Liberation Day. May 4 2002. 4th annual Million Marijuana March (MMM). Against the global drug war. No Global Police State. Free the Prisoners of Drug War. *MMM 2002 EVENT NAVIGATOR. Cannabis Liberation Day. It lists the names of nearly all of the MMM cities worldwide on one page. In alphabetical order. With the state and country names also. Click any city in the alphabetical list to see the contact and rally info for that city: This is a great new web page: http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.org/navigator.php *The main page for the continually-updated, clickable, all-on-one-page, alphabetical city list for MMM 2002, Cannabis Liberation Day, is at the page here: http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/mmm2002.htm and http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2002.htm and http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2002.htm Email address for sending in MMM reports, photos. Anybody can use this address. There is no need to subscribe to anything first. cannabisaction yahoogroups.com Messages sent to this email address will end up in this Public MMM archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction/messages Please also send in personal or published MMM rally reports to Dana Beal dana cures-not-wars.org and to Cannabis News at submissions cannabisnews.com where they will be posted at: http://www.cannabisnews.com *FoM of Cannabis News has a compilation of links to MMM 2002 rally reports: http://freedomtoexhale.com/million.htm *CannabisNews - Cannabis Archives. MMM rally reports may show up here first before showing up in the FoM compilation page above. http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml For now, MMM is one of the top features at New York City Indymedia and Italy Indymedia. http://nyc.indymedia.org/ and http://italy.indymedia.org/ There is a rough translation of the Italy feature here: http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/message.shtml?1x41080 [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on May 04, 2002 at 22:10:31 PT The Times did cover it http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/nyregion/05POT.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on May 04, 2002 at 22:02:29 PT Well isn't this cute Reuter reports the UK marches but not the American ones?Simplicio: But there's no marijuana liberation movement in America! If there were such a thing, we would have read about it in the New York Times!Salviati: One cannot believe everything one doesn't read in the New York Times.Sagredo: Party on, dudes, and be excellent to one another! 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