15 May Amsterdam on your doorstep…
For years, countries around the world have sold legal weed to consumers and some people in the UK wanted to take matters into their own hands…
Whether you are a fan of weed or not, you cannot deny its blatant popularity amongst people in todays day and age. According to studies, more than 1 million people are regularly consuming cannabis and from that the black market for the cannabis industry makes over a whopping £1billion per annum. Cannabis has been considered a class B drug here in the United Kingdom since 2009 and any type of consumption or sale could land you time in prison or a hefty fine.
A large amount of people across the world are partial to smoking or ingesting cannabis at one point in their lives whether it be for medicinal purposes, to get high or just to try it and see what they think about the psychoactive recreational drug for their own opinion.. Here in the United Kingdom, cannabis is still very much illegal for recreational and medicinal use whereas some countries have legalised and regulated cannabis growth, sales and use and have appeared to be met with warm reception from governments and the general public. In a study conducted in the Guardian on April 20th (International Weed day) in 2017, it showed that the UK is the 26th highest using country of marijuana in the entire world.
Cannabis coffee shops in countries where recreational weed use is legal have been running for years and they allow customers to purchase and smoke on site without any worry of trouble from the law or the police and it helps avoid the risk of using street dealers. One country that this concept works exceptionally well is Amsterdam. Recreational use is legal and celebrated there and there are laws put into place to allow people to smoke at home and to smoke in designated places and areas. The sales over the counter are legitimate and regulated so people can buy and consume at ease.
One group of people in London are changing the way that people consume cannabis and that is by following the trends of Amsterdam, Spain and the United States of America and that is by opening up a fully functional cannabis coffee shop. The London Cannabis Club (also referred to as Adams Den) has been open in this particular location since early 2017 (other locations in the past had been raided and even 1 of the original creators of these places is doing time in prison right now as I type this. The discreet coffee shop is completely hidden with clever use of CCTV, security guards and special marijuana odour masking. Before setting up shop in this secret location on Whitechapel Road in Whitechapel, East London, the cannabis entrepreneurs had a number of different ‘pop-up ‘smoking hot spots across the capital but due to troubles with the law and the risk of being caught at the moment it is just in the one prime location set up in Whitechapel.
Located directly above a jewellery shop that is completely unconnected to the establishment, unless you are in the know or have been investigating into this weed coffee shop it would be hard to pinpoint out. You must enter the vicinity in groups of no more than 2 people as the people that run the establishment insist on their guests following their rules on security and privacy to be able to stay open and afloat without worry of prosecution or a raid from police officers. Once through the first set of doors, you must go through a few more set of doors before even reaching the Coffee shop itself. In addition to the number of entrances you must pass on your way in, you can’t help but notice the numerous amounts of CCTV cameras plotted around the building and I found it amusing to see a member of the staff glued to a monitor with all of the different CCTV camera angles when inside the coffee shop itself obviously making sure they had no uninvited guests, or the police show up. It is a very secure building I would say and you do feel safe but I did find that there was a feeling of anxiety in the air as at any moment the police could barge through the doors and raid the place. Without their elaborate surveillance system, I do not think anyone could comfortably visit the ‘cannabis club’.
Open 7 days a week, 1pm to 1am,The coffee shop is advertised solely from word of mouth and private social media pages online that you have to be accepted into before being able to access their content, so the people behind the coffee shop are aware of the precautions they need to take to avoid trouble with the law.
Obviously due to the nature of my investigation I had to remain incognito and inconspicuous when I carried out my visits to the coffee shop as I wanted to find out as much information and facts without a second-hand source and I was shocked to find that when I spoke to one of the members of ‘staff’ at the coffee shop about the setup and how they ran the place they seemed very comfortable with the fact that I was inquisitive about the whole place. I discreetly asked about the kind of clientele they have come into the secret coffee shop and what kind of clientele they would like to appeal to and the clerk said “we usually get mainly students in here, you can get some older people but that is rarer. My boss wants to appeal to a wide age range but the way he sets out his stock and prices seems to me like he is angling for that younger crowd to keep us steady and afloat”. Another question I tried to put forward to the coffee shop staff member was about his own personal views on cannabis and if the job he is in is worth the legal risk and he responded positively and by saying “it is scary thinking that I could get busted any second but I allow my love for cannabis to override that. Before this place me and my mates would go around all night in our car delivering weed that wasn’t the best quality of quantity to people and I found myself constantly in trouble with the law whereas here I haven’t had any trouble with police personally”. It was clear to see that the worker seemed like he had to try and keep custom at ease and he seemed as if he had rehearsed answers or like he expects people to be curious about the trade and general running of the establishment.
Regardless, the staff all had knowledge on cannabis, spoke in depth about all products and they even had advice for people that might not be enjoying their high or feeling anxious whilst in the coffee shop. From my own personal visits, I can see why some people push so hard for the drug to be legalised and I think that if it was ever done properly then it would help stop street dealers selling sprayed(the process when home grown cannabis is altered to make people more addicted and to bulk out the quantity of the weed itself) weed to people thus making people feel a bit more safer when they do ingest. Is this the right thing to do? Should the legislation of cannabis be moved forward in the UK?
I was going through all their different products with the salesman and tried to slip in discreet ways of asking if they make good profit and sell a good amount of their stock to which he responded more or less with “if we wasn’t making profit then we wouldn’t run because the risk would not be worth it. We always have peop
IMAGE FROM VICE
le in whether it be to smoke or just to purchase and what we are doing is regulating weed sales and we never would supply to someone who was not in the right state. We run the place like a normal bar would the only difference is we sell weed”.
When conducting this investigation, I set out to try and find out in depth the legal issues that comes with the consumption or selling of the drug and I myself personally know a superintendent of the Metropolitan police based in Finsbury Park so I arranged to meet them so I could hear a police officers perspective on the situation. They asked for me to not name them as they did not want any repercussions coming back to them at work. I asked what police officers would do if they found someone smoking weed or with weed on their person and she told me that “there are bigger fish to fry and in all honestly we are told to just keep a look out for dealers so if I was to find a group of friends smoking a spliff I would confiscate all drugs, and depending on the circumstances I would either issue on the spot warnings, or make arrests if need be but that is not something we tend to do often”. We spoke in depth about the laws regarding weed and it is clear to see that despite it is illegal, the police seem as if consumption isn’t a major issue that needs to be dealt with. I asked if she believed that our country or our generation has a problem with consuming weed and she said “there will always be problems with any kind of drug taking but there is a balanced argument with weed in my opinion, there is the obvious pros to ingesting weed but all in all it is an addictive substance that can lead into worse things or just completely ruin your life”.
Image from VICE. Some of the products sold in the secret weed coffee shop
Whether or not the government does move towards the route of legalising the substance, it was interesting to visit and look into the countries first known coffee shop of its sort and to get a perspective from a police officer and one of the staff members in the establishment. There is obviously pros and cons to this establishment, if its worked well overseas, would it be the right thing to do here? Would weed legislation, regulation and establishments such as the cannabis club change people’s views and opinions on the drug?
Only time will tell…
