Plans by drugs campaigner Colin Davies for a 'cannabis club' on Tib Street in the Northern Quarter - revealed by the MEN today - have sparked a huge debate online.

Here, we invited two commentators to give their view.

FOR Loz Kaye, Manchester Pirate Party

(Image: Loz Kaye)

The proposal is really welcome for opening up a public debate on the issue. This is about what we can legally do in terms of our personal freedom.

Though the New Way Cafe is a provocative idea, it's not going to be doing anything illegal as a business.

When you look at the issue around recreational drug use, the evidence has traditionally been thrown out of the window in favour of hysteria.

But things are changing - only this week Uruguay has legalised marijuana.

What anyone who has spent time working in the community in Manchester knows is that there's a lot of harmful drug use because the law, as it stands, draws it into the margins. You only need to go litter picking in Ancoats - there's so many needles showing people are taking drugs in unsafe circumstances.

Far better that it happens in a healthy and sane environment.

We have to take the issue of drug use out of the sphere of policing and into the realm of public health. There's huge pressure on police time and I think Mancunians would prefer officers to concentrate on the issues they really care about, like violent crime or domestic abuse for example.

Police will need to think long and hard about their approach to this - look how much recreational drug use happens in Manchester city centre already.

AGAINST Joan Davies, Councillor for Manchester city centre

(Image: Councillor Joan Davies)

The law is quite clear that cannabis is illegal.

If this cafe is being set up to blatantly flout the law, then the police will have no choice but to deal with illegal activity in a straightforward and reasonable way.

Colin Davies says that drugs are on show in Piccadilly Gardens, but when members of the public complain, officers have gone in and dealt with the dealing, much of it cannabis dealing.

Clearly policing resources are stretched and it's down to them how they tackle crime. Personally my main concerns lie elsewhere, like tackling illegal trafficking of women for sex work and dealing with the crime and disorder caused by a tiny minority of visitors to the city centre.

If people think the law is wrong, they should set about changing it in a democratic way and lobbying law-makers to change the law.

There's also the argument that tolerating low-level crime like cannabis smoking might lead to a wider atmosphere of disrespect for the law on more serious matters.

Other business owners in the Northern Quarter also might not take kindly to the cafe tolerating marijuana - the surrounding area would reek if stronger strains of skunk are being smoked.

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