TF Archives

London Legalise Cannabis Festival Prunes Its Music (May 8)

Author: Jonty Skrufff
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Organisers of London's annual Legalise Cannabis Festival have reduced the number of sound systems and stages for this year's event, to refocus the event on cannabis itself.

"We're cutting back the music significantly in order to emphasise the cannabis related side of the festival," media spokesperson Shane Collins told Skrufff.

"They'll be a growing tent and lots of seed and lighting companies plus a dance tent, hip hop stage and main stage, though, they'll be four sound systems instead of 12."

Mr Collins branded the recent reclassification of cannabis from class B to Class C a 'desperately bad compromise', declaring 'we want to regulate and legalise cannabis and challenge the idea that reclassification is the be-all and end-all in any way."

His criticism of the recent law changes coincided with the publication of new data from Scotland Yard which revealed that the new supposedly more tolerant laws have so resulted in a drop of just six cannabis arrests a day (from 75 to 69 offences per day).

"We know anecdotally that many people consider cannabis is legal," Glen Smyth from the Metropolitan Police Federation told the Standard.

"Some people will argue with officers until they are blue in the face that what they have is legal- and inevitably it ends up with them being arrested."
Tags