Source: http://www.freehempzone.com
This month we are starting the biggest Hemp Liberation March in Polish history – Poland 2010.
In September 2010 will start 14-day culmination of marches and gatherings dedicated to our common interests. We demand legalization of hemp possession and cultivation as well as an amnesty for prisoners sentenced for the possession and cultivation of cannabis.
Action background
The Polish government presented a legislation proposal concerning cannabis in which it goes along the lines of departing from penalization for the possession of small amounts of marihuana. The whole governmental proposal looks no better than poor PR before ongoing regional government elections.
Since spring 2010 our FREE HEMP society has presented a citizen’s legislation initiative on marihuana, being a much better proposal for resolving the cannabis problem which has been unsolvable by our government during the last decade. Meanwhile, the Marshal of the Lower Chamber of Parliament blocks our citizen’s project from proceeding. On 9th September our Supreme Court will considerate our complaint against the parliament’s speaker in this respect.
However, we still have the right to gather and march where we want to. And our government is obliged to acknowledge and respect this will as well as guard our march and protect citizens. We showed this in Rybnik, where we protested for 4 days for the return of a package containing 300 grams of marihuana which was confiscated on the route from Czech to Poland. This package was designed for a sick person Tomek who heals himself with marihuana.
Despite arresting our coordinator (Gota, the general coordinator of the Million Marihuana March in Poland) and attempting to weaken our morale by extending police terror, we put 18 cannabis plants from flowerpots into the ground in front of the police station and blocked the city of Rybnik for 4 days.
We promised another similar event in the case of the lack of respect by the government to us. However, the government continues to disrespect us and arrests people for possession every day. People are even imprisoned against the current law, but under one that expired in 2005 (sic!).
Besides, the legislation proposed by our government gives no guarantee for freeing people already imprisoned for marihuana possession.
The Whole Poland Marches!
The idea is to organise 14-day marches in all towns and cities of Poland – small or large – in TRAFFIC TROUBLE SPOTS. We are going to start in Warsaw, hopefully on 22th September and to block an airport and transit roads to the city by blocking 4 bridges in the time of the highest traffic – 8-10 a.m. and 15-18 p.m.
14 days of protests and 4 marches each day! The police is going to be obliged to organise detours and protect each march. It is going to be the first of this kind of protest in our history. Volunteers across the country are joining each day. We are going to show our government how powerless they are in their efforts to eradicate marihuana.
We shall continually inform you about the schedule of the initiative. We expect participation of celebrities, politicians and media. We are open for all democratic performances related to the marihuana legalization issue. Our slogan: “We’re locked up, you’re blocked up”.
We are going to march each of the 14 days or until our government answers our questions:
how much marihuana is going to be defined as legal for possession? – If they propose such legislation, they should surely have that defined;
are we going to be allowed to cultivate our own plants? – Naturally, it should be allowed, but it is not certain if the government is conscious about that and if they are going to express it clearly to the public;
what about marihuana prisoners? – There are thousands of people imprisoned or sentenced for the possession of marihuana, there are people awaiting imprisonment and we hear no explanation from legislators about them. We are awaiting simple explanations, not propaganda.
At the end of each of the marches we will collect signatures for our appeal of agreement against prosecution for the possession and cultivation of marihuana. We are going to hand that appeal over to local authorities at the end of our protest. Our appeal is intended to reach municipality, regional prosecutor, and the chief of police.
Our appeal enables informal negotiations leading to the suspension of arrests and prosecutions for possession (based on the Dutch model) and to establish public zones for free hemp usage (freehempzones).
It is going to be an all-Polish experiment to guarantee every citizen their right to cultivate the plant for their own purpose. In case of not accomplishing our proposed negotiations to reach consensus by the government, we are prepared to bring an action in law and to further block city traffic.
Our actions are intended to find a new model of bringing a legalization process to a successful end. We hope that our model could be useful for implementation in other democratic countries. If we succeeded in bringing our action to positive results, we plan to open an EU Central Bureau for Hemp Legalization – an international centre dedicated to marihuana legalization.
With the lobbyist support and actions of Freehempzone, we could even expect establishment of legal hemp farms in special zones and EU-scale investments there in the hemp industry in the near future.
The Polish website of the initiative: www.freehempzone.com
Please donate for our actions to:
Alior Bank Spółka Akcyjna
Al. Jerozolimskie 94
00-807 Warszawa (Warsaw)/Poland
SWIFT: ALBPPLPW
Euro- PL 10 2490 0005 0000 4000 5582 0354
CHF- PL 38 2490 0005 0000 4000 2115 9228
CZK- PL 77 2490 0005 0000 4000 1344 3340
USD- PL 95 2490 0005 0000 4000 9589 0882
With annotation: freehempzone.com