Sporting T-shirts and caps printed with marijuana leaves, and with joints hanging from their lips, hundreds of people on Saturday demonstrated in Paris as part of a world march calling for the legalization of cannabis.
Crowds of protesters, many dressed in Jamaican colors, made their way through the streets of the French capital from the Place de la Republique to Bastille calling for the legalization of recreational marijuana use.
“What do we want? Legalization,” chanted the crowd, wreathed in clouds of hashish smoke and gathered behind a banner that read: “Another drug policy is possible.”
Photo: AFP
Signs called for “Ganja for all.”
Some, like 16-year-old Julien, came because they wanted to “smoke in peace.”
“Legalization would mean less trafficking, better products and perhaps less crime,” he said.
However, for others, the Global Marijuana March — which also held events in Brazil, Greece, Costa Rica, the US, Germany and South Africa among others this month — was about calling for a better life for the terminally ill.
Beatrice, 52, said she has AIDS and a nervous system disorder that first required her to use a wheelchair 20 years ago.
“[However,] since I started smoking marijuana, I have felt better,” she said. “I am walking again; it helps my therapy and it helps me to eat.”
For 15 years, she has consumed about 1 gram of cannabis per day and, encouraged by her doctor, she now grows it in her garden.
“I try to be discreet,” she said. “It is proven that consumption tumbles, violence tumbles, if it is legalized,” she said, adding that thousands of jobs would be created if the “oppressive” laws prohibiting cannabis were scrapped.
Cannabis use has been illegal in France since 1970, punishable by a year in prison and a 3,750 euro (US$4,200) fine.
In practice, imprisonment is rare, although fines continue to be levied.
For Alain, a supporter of recreational marijuana use in his 50s, the “demonization” of cannabis has been supported by the pharmaceutical industry, because “cannabis could be an affordable antidepressant.”
According to French Senator Esther Benbassa, who was behind a bill proposing the state-controlled sale and use of cannabis that was shot down last month, most objections boil down to morality.
“There is still the idea that the cannabis smoker is on the wrong track. He smokes every day, it is an addiction,” she said, calling for fresh legislation on what she sees as a “public health problem.”
A young transvestite member of LGBT advocacy group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who was wearing a colored religious outfit, said smoking marijuana can be a “vital” lifeline for severely ill people.
Rejecting the cliche that only “old hippies” smoke weed, he said cannabis “is the only thing that allows some epileptic children to live.”
“You do not make them smoke joints, but give it to them in milk, biscuits or in capsules. That way they can go to school, they don’t become vegetables like with other medications,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in