Police investigate cannabis club

A new club which opens today and offers prospective members the chance to taste "cannabis food" is to be investigated by the police.

The Cannabis Hemp Information Club (CHIC), based at "The House of Hemp" in Redchurch Street, East London, includes a museum and information centre.

A press releases reveals the chance for members to "view the exhibition and sample a selection of cannabis foods". Drug-runner Howard Marks, sentenced to 25 years in a US jail in 1988 for smuggling marijuana and released last year, is billed as a special guest.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We are aware of the club and will be making further inquiries to establish whether any criminal offence has taken place." But Rob Christopher, the CHIC director, said: "There is nothing illegal in the food. I have a Home Office licence to grow cannabis for the seed, which is the most nutritious food known to man.

"It does not give you a high, and for the opening we are offering hemp cake, hemp bagels and other confectionery. No-one will be smoking joints."

Mr Christopher said the aim was to educate people about the benefits of cannabis and to dismiss the "myth" about the drug. "It can be used for clothing, in pharmaceuticals, as an environmentally friendly fuel and in food," he added.

Mr Christopher hopes to enlist the support of prominent individuals in campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis. "I am organising a National Turn Yourself In Day on 14 September when everyone across the country will show how unworkable the law is by going to police stations and admitting to smoking pot."