Andrew Kavasilas, Donald Fuggle and Allen Moore were arrested on 14 May 2001 when 35 police officers and two sniffer dogs swooped on three Nimbin cafes in a raid over cannabis offences.[1] More than 100 residents reacted angrily, following the police to the local station and chanting outside.[1] The MardiGrass organisers’ own history records that police raided all of the village’s cannabis cafes in one day in 2001 and put an end to the cafe experiment begun the year before.[2]
Less than two weeks before the raid, thousands of people had attended the annual MardiGrass festival in Nimbin, where police declined to act on the open trade in and use of cannabis; the festival included a 5,000-strong rally demanding drug law reform.[1] Lisa Yeates of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy blamed the raid on pressure from conservative forces after the festival’s success, naming the local newspaper editor and the state MP’s calls for zero tolerance.[1]
On 4 June, about 200 people gathered outside Lismore courthouse in solidarity with the three arrested, with speakers denouncing cannabis laws and warning that sniffer dogs were part of wider moves to increase police powers.[1]
