Report from Darwin
Spirits were high and chants rang out during today's Global Marijuana March in Darwin.Dozens of people waved placards and banners and traffic was halted as the procession wended its way from Raintree Park to Darwin Police Station, and then to the site of the Northern Territory's first ''hippie commune'', at Lameroo Beach.
Speakers covered a range of topics, including the continued rise of the police state in Australia, draconian sentencing regimes faced by non-violent drug offenders, and the trials ofSchapelle Corby and the so-called Bali Nine.
Event MC Robert Inder-Smith, an active member of the Darwin-based Network Against Prohibition (NAP), reminded the assembled crowd that Darwin's entry in the global protest was physically the closest to the ten young Australians currently suffering in Bali's Kerokoban prison.
Local writer Gary Meyerhoff, also a NAP member, told the crowd about two ''forgotten'' Australians: Nguyen Tuong Van, 24, and Trangh Van Than, 39.
Nguyen Tuong Van is currently in jail in , and Tranh Van Tan is in jail in . Both have been found guilty for non-violent drug offences and are on death row desperately awaiting responses to their clemency requests.