{"id":16517,"date":"2023-05-16T19:32:04","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T19:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=16517"},"modified":"2023-07-04T17:23:49","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T17:23:49","slug":"spliffing-in-the-face-of-the-law-fury-as-thousands-gather-to-smoke-cannabis-in-hyde-park-and-not-a-single-one-of-them-is-charged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2023\/05\/spliffing-in-the-face-of-the-law-fury-as-thousands-gather-to-smoke-cannabis-in-hyde-park-and-not-a-single-one-of-them-is-charged\/","title":{"rendered":"Spliffing in the face of the law: Fury as thousands gather to smoke cannabis in Hyde Park&#8230; and not a SINGLE ONE of them is charged"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\"><strong>Thousands gathered at crowded &#8216;420&#8217; rally calling for legalisation of cannabis\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\"><strong>Possession of the Class B drug carrying maximum jail sentence of five years<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\"><strong>Met Police defended lack of action saying it meant rally passed &#8216;largely without incident&#8217;<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">It\u2019s a sight that makes a mockery of Britain\u2019s drug laws.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">As families relaxed in the warm sunshine, thousands of drug users gathered in a Central\u00a0<a id=\"mol-fae1b980-45be-11e8-ae32-a7b5fdcbf8f8\" style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/london\/index.html\">London<\/a>\u00a0park to smoke cannabis \u2013 in full view of the police.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Officers stood by in\u00a0<a style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/hyde-park\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hyde Park<\/a>\u00a0and watched, smiling, as plumes of pungent smoke filled the air.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Revellers, including some teen-agers, lay sprawled on the grass, confident the police would do nothing at the crowded \u2018420\u2019 rally, an annual event which calls for the legalisation of cannabis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">One man said: \u2018I\u2019m not that bothered about being arrested. The police will just take it off us \u2013 and we\u2019ve got more anyway.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">There were no arrests at Friday\u2019s rally, even though possession of the Class B drug carries a maximum jail sentence of five years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16518 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/4B697AF100000578-5642903-image-a-35_1524354648331.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"634\" height=\"423\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The shocking failure to enforce the law comes as The Mail on Sunday today reveals nine out of ten teenagers in drug clinics are being treated for cannabis abuse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">A Met Police spokesman last night defended their lack of action, saying its approach to enforcing drug laws \u2018meant [the rally] passed off largely without incident\u2019 and was \u2018no different from any other day\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Their leniency is mirrored by new figures showing the police and courts are increasingly going soft on drugs. The number of \u2018proven drug law offenders\u2019 plummeted to 102,948 in 2016 \u2013 a fall of a quarter in two years, according to the Focal Point on Drugs report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Of these, \u2018the majority were dealt with outside court\u2019, with 41,831 sentenced in court, the rest given a warning or caution. The \u2018most common sentence was a fine\u2019, meted out to a third, while a fifth were jailed, including 1,009 for possession and 7,459 for trafficking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">The \u2018420\u2019 event is believed to have been named after a group of 1970s Californian youngsters who met after school at 4.20pm to smoke marijuana. The day April 20 has since become an informal festival to celebrate the drug.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16519 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/4B697AF100000578-5642903-image-a-35_1524354648331-1-354x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"354\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/4B697AF100000578-5642903-image-a-35_1524354648331-1-354x480.jpg 354w, https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/4B697AF100000578-5642903-image-a-35_1524354648331-1-566x768.jpg 566w, https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/4B697AF100000578-5642903-image-a-35_1524354648331-1.jpg 634w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 354px) 100vw, 354px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;font-size: 10pt;color: #0000ff\">Source: <a style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-5642903\/Fury-thousands-gather-smoke-cannabis-Hyde-Park-not-SINGLE-ONE-charged.html\">Fury as thousands gather to smoke cannabis in Hyde Park and not a SINGLE ONE of them is charged\u00a0 | Daily Mail Online<\/a> April 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands gathered at crowded &#8216;420&#8217; rally calling for legalisation of cannabis\u00a0 Possession of the Class B drug carrying maximum jail sentence of five years Met Police defended lack of action saying it meant rally passed &#8216;largely without incident&#8217; It\u2019s a sight that makes a mockery of Britain\u2019s drug laws. As families relaxed in the warm [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-crime-violence-prison","category-political-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}