Council website hosts pro-cannabis ad

Jun 20 2007

A PRO-cannabis protest inviting people to smoke the drug in Birmingham's main park has been advertised on the city council's website, it was revealed today.

The What's On page of the council's website showed a listing for the "Healing of the Nation's Smokey Bears Picnic" to be held on Sunday in Cannon Hill Park.

Smokey Bear is an alias traditionally used by campaigners to organise mass demonstrations to flout laws by smoking cannabis in public.

The listing was removed yesterday afternoon by embarrassed council officials.

Colin Preece, the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) spokesperson for the environment, said: "I admit I submitted it to the What's on Page, but it's this character called Smokey Bear that's been spreading the event on the internet within cannabis group communities. I just put the information there."

A council spokeswoman said: "We do not consider this unauthorised gathering to be an appropriate use of a public park and have not agreed for it to take place.

"The listing was submitted to our web team and was added to the site before it became apparent what it was.

"It's now been removed. If anyone breaks the law then it will be a police matter."