Is Britain about to get its first CANNABIS cafe? Amsterdam-style 'coffee shop' could open in KENT after Green Party councillor spearheads campaign
Councillor Ian Driver for Thanet, Kent, is looking for venues in the county
In Holland the cannabis cafes are called 'coffee shops'
If successful, the cafe would be the first in the country
A public meeting will be held tomorrow in Broadstairs to discuss plans
Plans for a Manchester cannabis cafe were quashed earlier this year
By Emily Kent Smith
PUBLISHED: 06:33 EST, 14 March 2014 | UPDATED: 07:44 EST, 14 March 2014
Britain's first cannabis cafe could soon open its doors - if a Green Party councillor's plans to open a venue in Kent are accepted.
Ian Driver, a councillor for Thanet District Council is spearheading plans for Britain's first Amsterdam-style cannabis cafe.
Mr Driver, who has admitted to being an ex-recreational drug-user, has even started looking for possible sites for the venue in towns including Margate and Ramsgate.
Tomorrow, a public meeting will be held in Broadstairs, Kent to discuss the plans.
In Amsterdam, 'coffee shops' are cafes where cannabis users can buy and smoke cannabis.
Mr Driver now believes that there is a demand in Britain for a venue where users would be able to smoke the class-B drug.
In February, Nick Clegg said that the UK should explore alternatives to prohibition.
But Mr Driver has faced opposition from police after Anne Barnes, Kent's Police and Crime Commissioner for the area, declined an invitation to attend the tomorrow's meeting.
A number of speakers will discuss the proposal tomorrow, including professor Alex Stevens from The University of Kent.
The lecturer in Social Policy and Sociology is an expert on the subject of drugs and crime and has written several books on the topic.
Last year, Mr Stevens backed a controversial trial by Kings College London which involved 'the nasal administration of cocaine' by hundreds of students.
Other attendees will include the Kent Cannabis Consortium, a group which meets to discuss the plant and the laws surrounding it, and charity UK Cannabis Social Clubs.
Mr Driver told The Independent that he had been 'inundated with messages from local cannabis users who said they will be coming to the meeting'.
He said: 'The debate about drugs and policing is becoming much more topical.'
But Kent police commissioner Ms Barnes told the newspaper that a cannabis cafe would be illegal unless drug laws were changed.
She said: 'We live in a democracy and if people want the law changed on the use of cannabis, then they really need to lobby their local MP.'
This is not the first time the concept of a cannabis cafe has been floated in the UK.
In January, police in Manchester blocked the introduction of a cannabis 'social club' in the city's Northern Quarter.
The man behind the club was Colin Davies who once famously handed the Queen a bouquet of flowers containing cannabis.
His planned club would have been open to members only at a fee of £35 per year.
Drugs would not have been sold at the cafe unless there had been a change in the law.
But Greater Manchester Police said that the cafe would attract criminality and would be difficult to police and the concept was quashed
cof