Hundreds of pro-cannabis campaigners descend on Hyde Park to light up on National Pot Smoking Day  

National Pot Smoking Day, or Weed Day, is marked on April 20

Thousands of youngsters openly smoked cannabis in a Central London park this weekend.

As they lounged on the grass amid a fog of marijuana smoke, it resembled a scene from the Woodstock music festival.

Up to 2,000 gathered in Hyde Park on Saturday to campaign for the legalisation of cannabis.

Groups of teenagers smoked what appeared to be cannabis joints as parents with young children played nearby.

A handful of police officers made no obvious attempt to arrest anyone for drug offences.

Yesterday Scotland Yard said just two arrests had been made in Hyde Park for possession of cannabis.

A 16-year-old boy was stabbed in the leg at 5.20pm close to the pro-cannabis gathering. Officers are trying to establish if the stabbing was linked to the rally. Yesterday a regular jogger in Hyde Park said: ‘I think it's outrageous that people are allowed to come to the park and take illegal drugs.

‘It felt like the small number of police who were there were turning a blind eye.

‘As far as I'm concerned they should have been arrested. They are drug takers, not people making a serious political point.'

The gathering was organised by a group called the London Cannabis Club, which invited almost 17,000 via Facebook. The organiser wrote: ‘This event is going to be the largest public cannabis rally and smoke up in the UK.'

Pictures of teenagers posing in Hyde Park with what appeared to be cannabis plants were published on the club's Facebook page. Others images show young men inhaling smoke from devices used for smoking cannabis. Before the event Peter Corcoran wrote on Facebook: ‘Basically... if I don't see you in Hyde Park today you're not a real stoner!'

The event, known as the 4/20 Rally, was one of hundreds held across the world in support of cannabis use.

Gunfire disrupted a pro-cannabis event on Saturday in Denver, Colorado, leaving two people injured.

Earlier this month, two major research studies found Labour's liberalisation of the cannabis laws was a disaster that pushed up drug use and crime.

They found that after police were told to go easy on cannabis smokers, there were increases in assaults, theft and car theft, burglaries, vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

The chance that a young person who had never smoked cannabis would try the drug went up by a quarter after it became unlikely they would get more than a warning if caught by police, one project found.

The likelihood that they would smoke it on a regular basis went up by 8 per cent

According to a second study, an experiment in relaxing cannabis laws on the streets of South London led to a rise of 40 to 100 per cent in the numbers of men admitted to hospital due to their use of harder drugs.

That report, by researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: ‘We find the depenalisation of cannabis had significant longer-term impacts on hospital admissions related to the use of hard drugs.'

Brian Paddick, the police commander responsible for the experiment, ran for office as Mayor of London last year with posters declaring, with deliberate double-meaning: ‘Police are wasted on cannabis.'

After a flirtation with drug liberalisation when he first became an MP, David Cameron has said he is opposed to the legalisation of drugs.

Supt Jon Morgan, Westminster and Royal Parks, said: 'In anticipation of increased numbers of visitors we had extra officers in place, including Special Constables on patrol in the area.

'In previous years we have had a couple of hundred people attending the park, wanting to support this event, on this occasion numbers in the park were far greater but it is difficult to tell who was there to mark the event and who was just enjoying the sunshine.

'However, regardless of their reason for being in the park, anyone seen by officers openly smoking cannabis in Hyde Park or elsewhere in Westminster would be dealt with in the same way, either by means of a cannabis warning or an arrest.

'In Hyde Park on Saturday, 14 cannabis warnings were issued, two arrests were made for possession of cannabis and one arrest for robbery.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk 21/04/2013