TWO policemen flanked the doors of the Purple Haze cafe in Leith at 4pm, as Scotland’s first ever cannabis cafe prepared to open its doors.

The cafe had earlier been swamped with camera crews, photographers and reporters as owner Paul Stewart outlined his proposal for the cafe.

As the doors opened, around 30 prospective punters, who had gathered outside in the freezing cold, began filing in.æ The police handed each one a letter explaining that the possession of cannabis was still an offence.

So began the first day in the UK of cannabis downgraded to Class C, as reported by the Edinburgh Evening News. Although the classification provides for a fair amount of decriminalization, marijuana is still illegal, and people can be arrested for possession. This is somewhat dependent on the philosophy of the local police.

After a few hours a distinctive smell began to come from the cafe doors.

After nearly three hours of business, police officers moved into the cafe and began charging customers, many of whom had been there since it opened.

Insp Phillip later said three people had been charged and added their details would be passed on to the procurator fiscal.æ He said he was satisfied the “appropriate” action had been taken.

Among those caught was Mr Stewart, who will now face charges of allowing people to take drugs on his premises.

He vowed to fight the charges, saying that human rights lawyers had already contacted him offering to represent him.

“It was a good night, although with the glare of the media and all the police attention there were bound to be a few teething problems,” he said afterwards.

“We will be challenging these charges, as I feel they are totally illegal.æ I was very happy with the way the Police handled the event, though, and there was no trouble when they charged people.

It’ll be interesting to see how things settle. That’s what will matter. The greatest fear of the drug warrior is that marijuana will be used commonly and the sky won’t fall. (Much like this summer in parts of Canada when it was temporarily legal to possess cannabis.) Then the slumbering masses of matrix population may just wake up and wonder why we’ve been spending so much of our resources incarcerating people for smoking pot.

I was very honored to have been nominated at Wampum for Koufax Awards for Best Single Issue Blog and Best New Blog. I didn’t make the finals in either category, but no matter — there’s some really great blogs to check out and vote for. Do so here. However, all that pales in comparison […]

In Wednesday’s Gazette:

58 year-old Streamwood man Robert Kennigil was shot four times Tuesday night by federal agents serving an internal revenue service audit at his home office. He was pronounced dead at Mercy Hospital two hours later. Mr. Kennigil was the owner of a mail-order sports clothing company. Treasury spokesman Mark Connell […]

Over at What happens when you tell a lie? (Marijo Cook’s Salonblog), there is an interesting post: Drug Court and the War on Drugs, about a pretty amazing judge named Seth Norman.

Judge Norman, along with probably every other criminal court judge in the country, was fed up with the War on Drugs by 1995. From his point of view, the War was causing overcrowding in the jails, a massive increase in the number of cases on his docket, and little in the way of improvements in the situation on the streets. Statistics showed that 80% of the cases he was hearing involved drugs or alcohol in some way, and 60% of the people in those cases had a chemical dependency. Most of them were repeat offenders.

The piece goes on to explain how the judge set up a valuable and unique treatment program despite enormous obstacles.
However, Marijo then talks about some of the “necessary” coercive elements of the program, including “fall in love — go to jail” rules, and other methods of force to get the addicts to focus on their treatment.

This may sound heartless or patronizing, but remember that if the addicts were left to do what they wanted, they would eventually die.

And she concludes:

So, the War on Drugs may not be a total loss after all, if more Judges around the country can follow Judge Norman‰s example with DC4. Providing treatment instead of simply locking addicts up is showing good early results in managing the drug problem and proving to be cost effective as well. The DC4 treatment program is only a part of a Drug Court system which includes education for first-time offenders and outpatient treatment for those on probation, but for the hardest addicts, this residential program sponsored by a judge and the jails is providing the best chance out there for a return to normal life.

Here I have to take major exception.
The War on Drugs is a total loss.
Coerced treatment is only positive to the extent that you view it as a lesser evil within the failed drug war.
I know there is a lot of support in portions of the drug reform community for coerced treatment, but once you take away the drug war (which we need to), then coerced treatment makes no sense, whether for drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or obesity.
Take away the black market — the dealers looking to hook someone, the fear of admitting addiction, the legal consequences, the full time occupation of the addict to find the money for their next fix, and you can handle treatment of those addicts who need it through a combination of voluntary methods ranging from counseling to maintenance programs without coercion (see Free Heroin).
I admire the fact that Judge Norman cares. That he’s trying to do something for addicts. But I don’t accept coerced treatment as even a partial justification for the war on drugs.
In his North Carolina Law Review article, Judge Morris Hoffman wrote

“The moral authority of our most cherished institutions comes from their voluntary nature: the value of advice from a priest, a teacher or a loved one depends in large part on the fact that we are free to ignore it. But judges’ pieces of ‘advice’ are court orders, enforceable ultimately by the raw physical power of imprisonment. It is precisely because of the awesomely enforceable nature of our powers that we must be so circumspect in exercising them. It is one thing for a co-worker, family member, doctor, or clergyman to confront someone about a perceived drug problem; it is quite another thing for a judge to compel drug treatment. Drug courts not only fail to recognize this important institutional distinction, but their very purpose is to obliterate it.”

[More from Judge Hoffman at Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform]

Update: Corrected Marijo’s gender. Sorry about that!

Libby at Last One Speaks points out a good article at alternet: States Rights vs. Federal Tyranny by David Morris

So here we are. Conservatives dominate all three branches of government. They are using their control of the legislative and executive branches to assert their authority to police individual behavior.

Read through the recent […]