Police took presidential candidate Zurab Japaridze from a cannabis-legalization festival in a central Tbilisi park to a police station.[1] Three Girchi members had been taken to police stations before the event began.[1] Japaridze was released a few hours later after being searched and questioned in detail in an opened criminal case.[1] Police said Japaridze went with officers voluntarily to take part in investigative actions.[1] The investigation concerns alleged illegal acquisition, storage and distribution of marijuana following Girchi’s announcement of the festival.[1]
Officers led Japaridze away after he demonstratively handed participants what he called joints, marijuana cigarettes, to applause.[1] He said he had distributed three cigarettes and called the act distribution for which people are jailed in Georgia.[1] He urged supporters not to resist police if he was detained.[1] He did not resist himself, although some people tried to hinder officers.[1] Police had cordoned off the park where the festival was to be held.[1] Many people and many police were present at the festival.[1] A small counter-protest opposed the event, carrying a poster reading Drug addiction is death.[1]
Organizers said the festival was to be a place where people could buy hemp-related items and spend time pleasantly.[1] Japaridze called the handover an act of civil disobedience, saying Georgia needed a lawful way to acquire cannabis.[1] The Interior Ministry had twice warned that it viewed Girchi’s festival announcement as intent to organize a crime and incitement to offences.[1] Georgia’s Constitutional Court had cancelled administrative penalties for marijuana use in July after a claim by Japaridze and Vakhtang Megrelishvili.[1] That ruling covered only consumption, while storage and especially distribution of marijuana remained punishable in Georgia.[1]