The Purple Haze cafe was opened in a blaze of publicity
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The man behind Scotland's first cannabis cafe has pleaded guilty to a charge of permitting the drug to be smoked on his premises.
Paul Stewart, 37, opened the Purple Haze cafe in Edinburgh in January when cannabis was reclassified from a class B to a class C drug.
The cafe, in the Leith area, opened in a blaze of publicity and was raided by police several hours later.
Stewart was fined �500 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
Licensed cafes
The court heard that during the day
the cafe had operated as a normal take-away serving hot and cold food.
However, Stewart had declared his intention through the internet and other media of operating it as a cannabis cafe between the hours of 1600 and 2000.
He said that he wanted to encourage the setting up in Scotland of licensed cafes similar to those operating in Holland.
Defence agent, Matthew Berlow, said Stewart accepted he had broken the
law, but he had been trying to highlight the hypocrisy of the drug laws.
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You are entitled to your point of
view whether it is a good law or a bad law, but you are not entitled to
campaign against it by breaking the law itself
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He said that Stewart was now "a broken man".
He had had to lay off staff and was trying to sell the cafe.
Mr Berlow said his client had been carried away by the euphoria of the publicity at the time and the support of politicians.
Sheriff Noel McPartlin told him: "It was a deliberate act on
your part. I am told you were encouraged by others, but I think you
are old enough to make up your own mind.
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