http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/3226576/Cannabis-club-fo...
By JO GILBERT - The Marlborough Express

The next few years could see Blenheim become home to a cannabis club, where users flout the law by meeting to smoke and buy the class C drug.

But not if the police can stop it.

Next month, founding members of New Zealand's first cannabis connoisseurs' club, Auckland's The Daktory, plan to start a tour to meet cannabis users throughout the country and help set up venues in other cities.

Although club founder Dakta Green said the tour would stop in Blenheim in the second half of this year, the focus for establishing venues was first in major cities.

But he expected Blenheim would have its own Daktory "in the next few years".

"When we get inquiries from Blenheim people we'll look into it.

"Every community with a light industrial area should have a Daktory established there."

The last national tour stopped in Blenheim in April 2008, said Mr Green.

"We met some wonderful people there who were average, normal citizens with respectable jobs who happened to be part of the culture."

Police officer in charge of Blenheim's criminal investigation branch, Detective Sergeant John Hamilton, was not impressed by the Daktory idea.

"If there was to be such a place in Blenheim, clearly we would be looking to shut it down.

"It's highly illegal to provide premises to smoke or sell cannabis."

Mr Green said Daktories were expected to be set up in every major New Zealand city over the next 12 months.

Auckland's Daktory opened in November 2008 and boasts more than 2000 members who each pay a monthly fee to smoke (mainly their own cannabis) within the club's spacious New Lynn warehouse.

Cannabis is also sold there, as it would be at all venues the club plans to establish. Members must be at least 18 years old and sign up for a year.

Mr Green, 59, said the oldest member was "in their late 70s", and that doctors, lawyers, court officials and business people were among the membership. Schoolteachers were most highly represented, he said. Many people supported The Daktory's push to legalise cannabis, he said, but were unable to "come out" as it jeopardised their jobs and/or relationships with family and friends.

Cannabis laws meant ordinary people were being locked up for using a substance "scientifically proven to be less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes".

Legalising the drug would take the cannabis industry "out of the hands of what are criminals by definition, and put in the hands of the community where it can be properly controlled".

"This year is the year the laws will change as we the people demand it of our Parliament. A legal, regulated market is the only way to protect our families."

The club's plans follow 14 months of hassle-free law-breaking by members.

There had not been a single police raid on their venue until police carried out a search at the club on Saturday.

Mr Green, who changed his name from Ken Morgan by deed poll, said he was arrested, charged with possession and released on bail to appear in Auckland District Court today.