cSporting T-shirts and caps printed with marijuana leaves and with joints hanging from their lips, hundreds of people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday as part of a world march calling for the legalisation of cannabis.<\/p>\n
Crowds of protesters, many dressed in Jamaican colours, made their way through the streets of the French capital from the Place de la Republique to Bastille calling for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do we want? Legalisation,\u201d chanted the crowd, wreathed in clouds of hashish smoke and gathered behind a banner reading \u201cAnother drug policy is possible\u201d and placards calling for \u201cGanga for all\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some, like 16-year-old Julien, came because they wanted to \u201csmoke in peace\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegalisation would mean less trafficking, better products and perhaps less crime,\u201d he explained, between puffs.<\/p>\n
But for others, the Global Marijuana March \u2013 which also held events in Brazil, Greece, Costa Rica, the US, Germany and South Africa among others this month \u2013 was about calling for a better life for the terminally ill.<\/p>\n
Beatrice, 52, has AIDS and a disorder of the nervous system that confined her to a wheelchair 20 years ago. \u201cBut since I started smoking marijuana, I have felt better,\u201d she said. \u201cI am walking again, it helps my therapy and it helps me to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 15 years she has consumed between 0.8 and one gram of cannabis per day and, encouraged by her doctor, she now grows it in her garden. \u201cI try to be discreet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n