Note: Shame on TF1 for blocking the YouTube video!Journal de 20h de TF1 (27 décembre 2012)Le Cannabis social club, un nom qui sonne comme un club d'amateurs decigares. Sauf qu'il s'agit de cannabis, une drogue interdite en France.Et c’est justement pour faire changer la législation, l'une des plusrépressives d'Europe, que ces consommateurs se réunissent.Full translation for non-francophones:Host:After the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, another cultivation,forbidden in France, that of cannabis. There are 200,000 estimatedconsumers that grow their own, and some of them have gathered to ask,without hiding their faces, that this practice be legalized. RabahAït-Hamadouche met with one of the founders of these cannabis socialclubs.Narrator: Somewherein Indre-et-Loire, Dominique claims his freedom to grow hemp. He is theinitiator of an unusual co-op, a cannabis social club.Dominique: Cannabis social clubs are private clubs where cannabis consumers get together collectively to produce for their own consumption.Narrator:Already imprisoned in the past for cannabis possession, thisprofessional gardener (we can’t make this up) has decided three yearsago to dive into collective self-production.Dominique: So here is the production space of my club.Narrator:In this improvised greenhouse located in his home, he produces about 23kilos (50 lbs) of herb per year, which he shares with the 16 members ofhis club. If he is willing to bear witness without hiding his face,despite being an outlaw, it is to defend non-profit self-productionwhich he says would slow down drug-related crime.Dominique: Our idea is to stop drug traffickers, and we accomplish that by beating them to the punch.Narrator:There are about 150 cannabis social clubs in France, amounting toalmost 2,500 members. For the police unions, this initiative is heresy.Jean-Claude Delage:Cultivating narcotics is illegal, it’s forbidden. Provoking society tochange the law does not seem to me to be a good idea, and in any case itexposes one to police questioning.Narrator:Cannabis is the most consumed drug in France. Over 10% of 18-64 yearolds admitted to smoking cannabis in 1992, versus almost 33% in 2010.Drug production is punished by a 20 year prison sentence.