'Pusher Street' in the 'Freetown Christiania' closed

war against drugs part X

Author: ENCOD
Date: May 23, 2003
Views: 5771

Last week we informed you about the situation in Christiania, Denmark, where the government threatens to start eliminating 'Pusher Street' in the 'Freetown Christiania' - an 'alternative village inside the city centre of Copenhagen where people carry out 'another policy on drugs' already for 30 years. Pusher street is an alley inside the village with an open market in cannabis derivatives.
The Danish government seems to be willing to 'clean' Christiania of pusherstreet, and afterwards slowly destroy the freetown and sell the area to businessmen who want to convert it into an area for expensive appartments. In short, a war on drugs in the interest of money makers...
In the following, Gert from Denmark informs about the situation in Christiania at the moment:
You´ll be informed, when something happens, But untill now there´s been more talk than action, cannabis is in the news somewhere allmost everyday, though,


The police surrounded Christiania last friday and searched everyone. but only for one day, resulting in 10 people being charged with possion. They´ll come back for shure, probably tear down the boothes and all, but leading policemen have declared it an impossible task unless they get more men and more funding.
As I may alredy have told you, The pushers at C. have, as an answar to the demand of closing down the "too open dealing ", clad all their boothes in military cammouflage, a clear mockery.
The goverment tried to bribe part of the Cristianianites by offering 300 Mil. d.kr. to shine up some of the buildings, and in spite of some succes in dividing the Christianites into differents groups of interests, the Faellesmoede have resisted giving in because of the unanimity-clause.
I´ll let you know when / if the shit hits the vent, sure.
The last couple of days I´ve been very busy organizing a cultural event namely the production of a double LP/CD with danish bands supporting: A FREE CHOICE, and some of the most popular and best bands are positive. It´ll be in the shops in 90 days I hope, also..
We´ve had a delegation, led by a former minister of justice,  in the danish parliment trying to spell the case for the health department, by chance the canadian minister of justice were around and helped our delegation, to deliver the canadian 2002, 700 pages thick rapport recommending lagalization, to the danish minister of justice. 
So the reason for our apparent silence is the size of our workforce.
I / we ar trying to work three different angles at once:
The lobby-thing, trying to influnce press and politicians.
The cultural way through events and cultural manifestations
The international collaboration efforts, where you guys are it, but you know, our in a corner possition, makes it a litle hard to overcome too much in this area. Personally I hope that there´s still room in the group making strategic considerations, when this Christiania thing blows over.

Best wishes and love
Gert



EUROPEAN NGO COUNCIL ON DRUGS
Lange Lozanastraat 14
2018 Antwerpen
Belgium
Tel. 00 32 (0)3 237 7436
Fax. 00 32 (0)3 237 0225
E-mail:
Website: www.encod.org

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