| Subject: LGL-GBL: Marching for cannabis Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 15:39:13 +0100 From: Derek Williams (derek@paston.co.uk) To: UK-dance@paston.co.uk
Saturday morning and I'm fighting a hangover as I head down to London for
the Cannabis demo, its an overcast, not too hopefull looking day. Drink a
coffee then decide to try to sleep again.
London, during the day, not something I often see and the tube is packed
full of sweaty ppl, but not a lot of signs of ppl making thier way to the demo.
Hyde Park at about midday and there is a small gaggle of ppl standing around
holding gren balloons. It all looks a bit sad, a grey day, not many ppl. Oh
dear.
I wander around, meet several ppl from various mailing lists - including
Neil and Stuey from UKCIA, of course Alun and the CLCIA crew from Norwich,
not to mention several ppl from UK-d.
12.30 gets close and the numbers have grown a bit. Looking over Hyde park
there seems to be this wave of humanity walking our way and suddenly the
crowd has grown and I realise I cant find anyone I was with.
A little late, it turns in to a huge demo as we set off toward Trafalgar
Square. I enjoy a good demo, it has to be said, and this was a very good one.
The air was scented by the smoke from hundreds of joints and pipes as ppl
flaunted the ban on smoking cannabis, the police stood by and did nothing,
well, what could they do?
It was a huge tide of humanity which filled the road as far into the
distance as I could see. A couple of times I was able to climb on a wall and
get a veiw over ppls heads, it really was a sight, flags, banners, big
"joints" and cut out cannabis leaves.
The ppl watching seemed amused, some were not too happy but I would say most
were enjoying the spectacle, a bus drove past with the conductor hanging out
of the doorway waving at us, even some of the police were smiling.
The West end must have been brought to a halt as we rounded Picadilly circus
and as we made our way down to Trav square, I began to realise just how
stoned I, and I guess everyone else, had got. Very, very stoned indeed.
The square was packed by the time I got there and the speaches were well
underway. Of those I heard Howard Marks gets my vote, but the classmate of
William Straw (the home secretary's son) came a close second.
Alun and co can be proud of the CLCIAs contribution to events and the event
has done them no harm at all, getting a front page mention in the
Independent as well as a mention from Rosy Boycott, the Editor of the IoS.
The rally finished, but by now the grey day had given way to warm sunshine
and ppl were happy enough where they were, so Trav square hosted a smoke-in
which was still going on some two hours after the march finished.
The visual aid of the demo has to be the big phat one stuck in the Lions
mouth at the base of Nelsons column, cannabis humour at its best.
I made it over to the Interface Pirate radio and we played my video of the
event out on their real video, and thats where I stayed for the night.
I really can't believe that Jack Straw will try to ignore this, let alone
try and further restrict cannabis. If there's another cannabis march, its a
dead cert to be bigger, they will lose this fight.
On the whole, I am very tired, but very, very happy.
Derek |