Cannabis cafe rolls out challenge

The cafe will allow members to use cannabis

Campaigners have vowed to break the law by opening a cannabis cafe in Scotland when the drug is reclassified.

The Scottish Cannabis Coffeeshop Movement said the Purple Haze Cafe in Edinburgh would allow use of the drug when it is downgraded next Thursday.

The reclassification means police in England and Wales will rarely arrest people for possession of small amounts.

However, the Scottish Executive has made it clear there will be no change in practice in Scotland.

Paul Stewart, owner of the Purple Haze, is set to test that position and has said he will invite members of his café to bring their own cannabis and smoke it on the premises.

We want to build a network of cannabis tolerant zones across Scotland beginning with the Purple Haze Café Kevin Williamson SSP drugs spokesman Test your knowledge of the law

Mr Stewart said: "We're not glamorising drug use, or advocating drug use.

"All we're saying is people are going to use cannabis, we have to accept that, and if they are we're trying to give them advice and information so that they can use it in the safest possible way.

"If I have to be criminalised for that then that's up to the police."

But the Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police, Tom Wood, has warned the force will take action quickly to deal with any breach of the law at the Purple Haze.

The move to reclassify the drug will see it downgraded from class B to class C, along with steroids and tranquillisers.

Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) drugs spokesman Kevin Williamson said the executive's stance had left the law looking "mangled".

Mr Stewart said he was not advocating drug use

He said: "It's one of these laws that's dishonest and hypocritical and like every dishonest and hypocritical law it has to be challenged."

He added: "We want to build a network of cannabis tolerant zones across Scotland beginning with the Purple Haze Café and expanding it across the whole of Scotland with the objective of calling on the Scottish Executive, the police forces and the local authorities to create Scottish-wide cannabis tolerant zones until our parliament has the powers to change the law."

He said the campaign also aimed to turn the tolerance zones into "cannabis information centres" and monitor arrests for personal possession of cannabis in Scotland.

Mr Williamson claimed 500,000 peopled had used cannabis in Scotland as he launched the SCCM during a news conference inside the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Stewart said the cafe would be "tobacco free" but anyone wishing to take cannabis could use a vaporiser machine which he said eliminates 99% of the carcinogenic substances in the drug.