Smokey Bears 2000

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So, another interesting picnic in Southsea. Phil's obvious excitement after his eventful day out was echoed in comments I had with other activists who braved the sea of yellow luminous jackets on the common. A lot of people felt empowered after being handed the leaflet explaining their rights under the Data Protection Act anyone can obtain a copy of any police video in which they were filmes) and the two surveillance teams hardly had a moments peace all afternoon.

The Police's latest weapon, on the other hand, back fired embarrassingly with the sniffer dog failing spectacularly to sniff out any cannabis at all. All this talk of hemp clothing is not fooling anyone, if the dog really is that easily confused and can detect traces up to 48 hours after contact/consumption it was never going to be up to the job in the first place.

Call me an old cynic if you like, but a more likely explanation for those 20+ people (police estimate)being dragged off the common against their will and then to be turned over in the back of a police transit was to give them a hard time for daring to turn up. Myself and a few others have spent many hours trying to get this independent media collective working to its potential. We had trouble with uploading video when the encoding and software wouldn't talk to each other - or something.

While I'm typing this I am waiting for the second of eight stills to upload onto the site, this one has taken about 20 minutes so far. Anybody who is a bit of a techie could make a very valuable contribution to these events without going anywhere near the front line - see me for details. Three people have written articles, both news reports & features, and submitted them for publication to a number of publications. I'll let you know if and when they get accepted.

Both local TV stations, BBC South & Meridian, had crews at the picnic and both used part of an interview they did with me. The BBC led the main local evening news with the picnic (I have tapes of both Phil). I am putting together a letter for the local paper, is it possible that the letter writing posse could be asked to send a few in? The more received the more will get printed, lots to say as well. My only niggle with the whole event was the poor turnout. I'm not sure the weather offers a viable excuse and certainly not the level of pre-event promotion & publicity, it has to come down to the very high profile policing. Having no problem turning up myself and knowing many other who did likewise, I do have trouble understanding the apathy and timidness of others. After all, if you were carrying no illegal substances you couldn't get nicked for it could you? I know I should be realistic & more positive and realise that 300 people willing to turn up and be counted under these circumstances is really very good indeed. Anyway, word is the local Smokey Bears have ambitions to make it to 10 picnics before they even consider retiring.

Phil got arrested and searched for being a "hairy hippy" [tm] :)

Yesterday, Sunday 14th August, 2000, I went with three other people to Southsea Common, to see what was happening at Smokey Bear's picnic. Smokey Bear's picnic is an annual protest about the evil that is cannabis prohibition. This year was the first time I have been. I have been to every (I think) London cannabis protest since The Independent on Sunday's in 1998. We arrived in Southsea at about 13:15, so we decided to have a pint near the common, where we could see what was happening.

At 14:00 we could see a lot of people and police on the common, so we finished our drinks and walked over to the common, arriving at about 14:15. There were two police officers we passed on the way to where the majority of people were, I had a little chat with them, they seemed quite friendly. When we approached where the majority of the people where, I could see that the Police appeared to be taking a fairly heavy hand and were arresting people. I decided to get a closer look and to take some photographs. Whilst I was taking the photographs (I don't know how many yet as I haven't had the film developed) a dog ran past me. A woman police officer (whom I later found out, from a sympathetic policeman, was from British Transport Police in London) nodded towards me and said "him". I then felt a hand on my shoulder as a police officer said: "I'm arresting you on suspicion of possessing controlled substances".

I didn't quite know what was expected so I raised my arms preparing for him to search me, but he led me away to a rank of "meat wagons", where they were searching people. On my way out of the common, I seemed to be the centre of media attention as shutters were going and video cameras were pointed my way. A cameraman from the BBC chased after me and asked why I thought I was being arrested. I think I said "suspicion of possession" he then said "of what?" I said I assumed it was cannabis. Apparently, this segment was shown on the local BBC-1 news Sunday night. I was also filmed by a police officer, number 2244. The time I was arrested was 14:20. I called out to several people I know and they also videoed me being escorted away. As the police officer was leading me out of the common, I said to him that there was no need to keep hold of me, I was not going to run away, but he said he had to keep hold of me. He was very gentle and allowed me full range of movement of my arm. We also had a little chat, I was feeling quite exhilarated.

When we got to the rank of meat wagons, there was a queue for searching. There were 3 meat wagons, I think, being used for searches. When one eventually became free, I was politely asked to get inside. The police officer then asked me to empty out my pockets.

I took a lump of brownish material wrapped in cling film out of the small ticket pocket on my jeans and gave it to the arresting officer saying "This is what you're interested in". Unfortunately, Oxo doesn't look very much like cannabis resin close up. "What's this?" the police officer asked. I wasn't too sure whether to tell the truth, but he'd opened it and could smell the beef stock, so I said "it's a bit of Oxo cube".

The policeman smiled and I said "You can have it for your Sunday Joint", or some similar flippant remark. Then the search continued, the search officer went through my pockets himself, patted me down my back and legs and asked me to remove my shoes, which I did. He then stroked my feet. After that, he helped me put my property back in my pockets and the officer who arrested me took some details and unarrested me.

I have absolutely no problem with the way the police treated me after my arrest, except for the sniffer dog handler, who refused to speak to me when I was remonstrating about the dog making a false detection. Because I was dressed in a hemp T-shirt and hemp jeans I was asking whether the false detection was because of that, but she didn't even acknowledge my existence, unlike the other officers who were friendly and chatted and many of them were sympathetic to what we were trying to achieve.

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(Photo's Simon Chapman)