On the night of the World Cup final, screens glow in nearly every pub across Liverpool. Yet just six bus stops from Anfield, Gary Youds has chosen not to broadcast the match at his cannabis social club and harm‑reduction center.

Within the Chillin’ Rooms on Holt Road, roughly 30 members are packed shoulder to shoulder on ageing church pews, sipping tea beneath a portrait of John Lennon and a sign proclaiming “ALCOHOL KILLS, CANNABIS CHILLS.” People inhale spliffs while a potent ventilation setup keeps the air reasonably clear. At the distant end of the hall sits a fully equipped stage where local musicians perform most evenings. There’s no television in sight.

The venue could easily be bursting with football fans. Yet Youds insists that watching live sports would spoil the already mellow atmosphere.

“I don’t want screens in here,” says the 56-year-old Liverpudlian, donning his usual white T-shirt bearing the Chinese character for cannabis. That same symbol is hard to miss outside, on the black metal gates that the police have cut through more than once. The arms of Youds’ glasses glow neon green. A Chillin’ Rooms tattoo peeks out from beneath his left sleeve. He wears green Crocs decorated with cannabis symbols, a teacup in one hand and a joint in the other. “I want people to connect and converse face to face,” he adds. “No gimmicks.”

This stance is striking given his long history of defying the U.K.’s cannabis laws. The father of two, who uses cannabis to ease his spinal arthritis, has been arrested more than 30 times, convicted 10 times, served four prison sentences, endured repeated raids by police, and even lost his home. The local paper dubbed him “The Cannabis Martyr.” He now sleeps in his elderly mother’s living room and says he lives on less than 100 pounds a week (about $135). Yet the club remains vibrant and busy.

Youds believes the Chillin’ Rooms model could be replicated nationwide, turning shrinking pubs and empty storefronts into alcohol‑free cannabis cafés. “If we had one in every town and city, this country would calm down,” he says. “It would generate jobs and bring the country back to work. This is a self‑seeded community, ready to mature for the entire U.K.”

A third of Britons admit to having used cannabis, and consumers sustain an illegal market worth billions, none of which reaches the taxman. “We’re taking cannabis off the streets,” Youds says. “That’s why I’m standing tall. There isn’t an empty building in this city that couldn’t be repurposed for this industry.”

Over four evenings at the Chillin’ Rooms in July, I meet members from Brazil, Sudan, India, and Australia; young men arriving solo; transgender and gay regulars; entrepreneurs, students, scientists, and builders; and older patrons greeted by name. Many describe cannabis as medicine. Longstanding neighbors recount that disturbances only occur when dozens of police officers descend on the building.

To the authorities, Youds remains a persistent offender. In the Chillin’ Rooms, however, he is treated as an elder statesman. “The congregation is growing,” he notes. “Jailing me again would only raise my profile further.”

How the Cannabis Café Serves the Community

Until August 3, 2024, entry to the Chillin’ Rooms required a referral. There was no Chinese character on the gates, and new members mainly arrived by word of mouth. On that day, amid anti‑immigration protests sweeping Merseyside—the county that includes Liverpool—Youds told his probation officer that “the city needs to chill out” and that his multicultural café could act as a focal point for racial unity.

It was also his first night without an ankle monitor enforcing an evening curfew. He returned to Holt Road, opened the gates, and stood outside.

No one entered that night. Yet the doors have stayed open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week, ever since. The Chillin’ Rooms welcomes hundreds of visitors each week. “Right now, it’s the best I’ve seen it,” says stuntman Eddie Sarsfield, who sustained serious arm burns while working on Gladiator II and who now has a medical cannabis prescription. He has visited the club since it reopened after the COVID‑19 shutdown.

Recently, two visitors from Portugal arrived after asking an AI chatbot where they could smoke cannabis in Liverpool.

“This is a beacon of light for the neighborhood,” Sarsfield adds. “Gary has become a quasi‑messianic figure. For almost 25 years, he’s been consistently good and fighting the same battle. He deserves a break. Everyone knows that.”

The contrast with the surrounding back streets can be startling. Holt Road is in a deprived district where bike‑riding dealers sell crack to fund their addictions and where women sell sex on nearby Shiel Road. Territorial feuds between Liverpool gangs are common. Yet rivals who might clash elsewhere have found peace inside the Chillin’ Rooms. “People are coming here from across Liverpool,” says Lee, who works at the club but doesn’t want to use his real name because of cannabis laws. “In any other place, you wouldn’t see this. I’ve worked in bars for years—there’d be fights here.”

A few months earlier, Lee explains, members of two rival gangs showed up on the same night and tensions began to rise. Youds persuaded them to sit down and talk things through. “They hashed it out and settled their beef,” Lee says. “He’s a total legend. He’s out litter-picking every day. People come from all corners of the country to visit and share a joint with Gary.”

People describe the venue as an urban sanctuary: a café, a community center, and a makeshift clinic rolled into one. Those with epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and chronic pain visit its doors. Some arrive with medical cannabis prescriptions; others remain shut out of the costly system that relies mostly on private clinics rather than the National Health Service. “They arrive shaking,” explains Lisa, a Chillin’ Rooms employee who declines to use her surname. “But after a smoke, the tremors fade.”

Dave, a disabled member with complex regional pain syndrome, was among the first in the country to legally obtain medicinal cannabis flowers and has driven more than an hour from Cheshire to visit the Chillin’ Rooms. “People would medicate alone at home, but here we can connect,” he says. Before discovering cannabis helped his pain, he recalls being a “morphine zombie.”

“I was a drooling wreck,” Dave continues. “I had to be kept entirely, all the time. I relied on morphine and fentanyl and could barely string a sentence together. Now I can contribute.” He spends roughly 1,000 pounds a month (about $1,350) on enough cannabis to manage his condition, using the plant four times daily. Yet even with legal access, patients nationwide still face police harassment, arrest, and courtroom proceedings.

Neighbors have complained about the odor, and police have repeatedly visited Dave’s home, once arriving in three cars. “I was in the kitchen taking my medication, and the copper shoved his foot in the door, trying to walk into our house,” he says. “My son asked him, ‘Do you think fentanyl and morphine are safe just because your GP prescribed them?’ The officer had no answer.”

Others say the club has helped them cut down on drinking. A lifelong alcoholic in his early 70s says he gradually lost the urge to frequent pubs after spending time here. For many, the Chillin’ Rooms offers the familiarity and camaraderie of a local bar minus the alcohol, aggression, and the pressure to keep spending. “This is my pub now,” he proclaims.

During busy evenings, the Chillin’ Rooms morphs into a neighborhood music venue with up to 100 people filling the pews. Youds says one of his greatest pleasures is watching musicians rehearse during the week, gradually refining their performances, often drawing on the café’s caretaker for inspiration. “He isn’t a criminal or a gangster / He’s simply a cannabis martyr / To be free, in what will be,” roars a local artist in a song.

“We hate the raids, but they pull us closer,” Lisa explains. She helped organize protests outside court where musicians performed beneath banners reading “Free Gary.” “He’s giving us a community,” she adds. “You can just come here and play. You never know what might unfold.” She likens it to The Cavern Club, the Liverpool venue famed for launching the Beatles.

The party was interrupted on February 18, when police raided the Chillin’ Rooms on a crowded night, just as a band was about to take the stage. Members were ordered to place their hands on the tables as officers searched the building. Youds was carted off to prison, and the evening ended abruptly. “About 30 officers flooded into the place,” Youds recalls. “I told them in the interview that medical cannabis is legal and I look forward to presenting my case to a jury.” A police report notes that he told officers, “Cannabis isn’t a drug; it’s a flower.”

After pleading guilty to permitting his premises to be used for smoking cannabis, Youds was released on April 28. He reopened the Chillin’ Rooms a month later.

The Story of U.K. Weed Legalization—and Youds’ First Arrest

Back in 2004, when Youds first sought to open the Chillin’ Rooms legally, a police officer appeared at the licensing hearing to oppose his application. Youds had remortgaged his home to invest 60,000 pounds (nearly $81,800) to transform a derelict former taxi office on Holt Road into a private members’ club for cannabis enthusiasts. Inspired by a 2002 cannabis conference in Liverpool titled “Shaping a New Agenda,” held shortly after the government had moved to downgrade cannabis from Class B to Class C, Youds installed a ventilation system, fire alarms, a kitchen, and toilets.

Youds hoped the shift in the law, which reduced penalties for cannabis possession, would soften police enforcement. Around the same period, Britain’s first cannabis social clubs—Quantum Leaf in Worthing and the Dutch Experience in Stockport—began to appear elsewhere.

He applied to the local council for a license, hoping Britain’s then‑tolerant stance toward cannabis would give him room to maneuver. He passed a fire inspection and his premises were deemed structurally sound, but officials rejected the application. His prospective members even petitioned the mayor, signaling Youds’ desire to pay taxes, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

In March, however, a police officer stumbled upon the establishment during his rounds. “It was just a beat officer who wandered in,” says Youds. “He was astounded. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing—like it was a coffeeshop.”

A conditional discharge did not stop Youds from continuing to operate the Chillin’ Rooms. That April, a police Land Rover allegedly ripped the metal gates away; scores of officers from the Matrix Unit—formed to tackle gun crime—poured into the cafe, shouting for everyone to freeze. Youds maintains that all complied.

In a front-page Liverpool Echo feature following that raid, Youds insisted: “We are doing nothing wrong. All we want is tolerance.” Police claimed he was supplying cannabis, but Youds argued that his premises were used solely for consuming the plant, emphasizing his zero‑tolerance policy toward alcohol and other drugs. “I simply want the freedom to run a business,” he told the BBC. “And if the police don’t throw me in prison, I’ll come here and open every day.”

Merseyside police took that threat seriously, issuing a 33-page operational guide to officers on how to handle cannabis cafés. It noted that it’s essential to prevent a cannabis café from opening or to police, close, and prosecute one if it does—advising disruption tactics, including visits by council and fire officials to check for health, hygiene, or safety violations.

A year later, in April 2006, Youds received a 12‑month prison sentence after pleading guilty to two cannabis cultivation offences. A cafe account containing more than 13,000 pounds (over $17,500) was subsequently frozen. “Were you trying to martyr yourself for the pro‑cannabis lobby, or were you attempting to operate a café—a deliberate and brazen defiance of the law?” Judge Brian Lewis asked before sentencing him to prison.

The judge’s rebuke, for Youds, carried a more personal ring—it felt like a calling.

Gary Youds Waits a Decade Before Reopening the Cafe

Youds spent three uneventful months behind bars, partly in Walton, a notoriously dilapidated Victorian‑era penitentiary. Missing pivotal family moments hurt most. “I missed my oldest son’s first step,” he recalls. “I feel deeply guilty.”

Yet upon release in July 2006, he wasn’t ready to restart the Chillin’ Rooms immediately. For almost ten years, the cannabis martyr faded from view. He took a low‑paying job in hotel maintenance, spent much of his time tending a garden, and focused on raising his young son.

In those years, Britain’s brief liberalisation of cannabis gave way to a crackdown. In 2009, the government reclassified cannabis back to Class B, despite the advice of its chief drug adviser, David Nutt, who was later dismissed. Police also raided other cannabis cafés.

Nevertheless, legalization began to move from rhetoric to policy in other parts of the world. When Colorado and Washington state legalised recreational cannabis in 2012, Youds began to recontemplate a return. “I felt it was the right moment,” he says.

He rebuilt the space and reopened in early 2015. “I didn’t blow a trumpet about it,” he remembers. “I invited a few friends, and before long it was fully functional and we were enjoying life.” Patrons could again “stay medicated and live the dream,” as one poster proclaimed. But in June 2015, the police returned.

“There were all these police cars clustering the streets,” Youds says. “It was surreal.” He stood outside the gates as dozens of officers charged in. “Around 30 officers dressed like Robocops sprang from the back of a van,” he recalls. “Go, go, go. They sprinted in with helmets and axes, smashing all my doors. I asked, ‘Why are you smashing doors when there’s nobody inside?”

The police claimed they had found 11,000 pounds worth of cannabis (nearly $15,000), plus grinders and bongs. In a January 2017 court hearing, Youds argued that the assessed value was wildly inflated: “I said it would fit in a seven‑inch square margarine tub, so don’t tell me about ‘11,000 pounds worth of weed.'” Nevertheless, he received a nine‑month sentence, separating him from his two children, then aged six and 12.

Walton prison proved harsher than he anticipated. Routine drug testing had reduced cannabis use in prison, but more dangerous synthetic cannabinoids proliferated. “Spice” dealers knocked on his door daily, and inmates overdosed across the wing. Because batches varied in quality, dealers forced vulnerable inmates to test them to gauge their potency.

The conditions at Walton sparked a national scandal during Youds’ five‑month stay. He filled gaps in his windowless cell with sponge, and his toilet routinely broke. “It was the worst period of my life,” he says. “I feared for my life every day. I was afraid to leave my cell. There was so much violence and so many overdoses.”

Gary Youds Gets Arrested Again—and Again and Again and Again and

Prison was not the end of his campaign; it hardened his conviction that his compass pointed in the right direction. “The people here are my jury,” he tells me at the café one evening. “There are always at least 12 members, and not one of them stands up to say this isn’t acceptable.” And unlike many pubs, “nobody is snorting lines in the toilets.”

After reopening in late 2017, Youds sought backing from UK Cannabis Social Clubs, an advocacy network that was publicly challenging how cannabis growers were treated. At a Leicester meeting, he met James Tisdale, a terminally ill cancer patient, and his wife, Joanna Drinkwater.

Youds soon ferried cannabis oil to Tisdale in Birmingham, making the journey by train at least three times—and refusing any payment, Drinkwater later testified at court. But police kept targeting Youds, and he estimates nine arrests in 2019 alone.

One raid still lingers in the memories of his clientele. “We were here, and Gary said, ‘This place, I’ll never be raided again,’” recalls J.J., a musician who has been a member since 2015. “And then, literally as he finished the word raided, two officers burst in through the fire exit, grabbed him by the head, and threw him to the floor. They began punching him and more.”

Undeterred, Youds kept supplying oil to Tisdale. “I provided it to him three or four times,” Youds tells me outside Liverpool Lime Street station. “He was getting better. He regained his appetite and was sleeping better.”

On October 24, 2020, Youds boarded Liverpool Lime Street with the oil, but undercover officers intercepted him before he could board a train. That confrontation added new charges to his record.

After reopening the Chillin’ Rooms in 2021 following a pandemic pause—and still facing charges related to the oil—he endured the most violent raid yet: “They carried me out, shattered my glasses, scraped my face on the floor, and pepper‑sprayed me at the same time. It genuinely terrified me, honestly.”

When police searched his home, they found six cannabis plants, each six feet tall and three feet wide, described by them as among the largest they had ever seen. Youds maintained that he was growing the plants for medicinal purposes and to serve his community.

Drinkwater testified that Youds’ cannabis oil is widely regarded as among the best in the U.K. and has helped many people, adding that there was never any money exchanged; Youds simply wanted to help. Even after Britain legalized prescribed medical cannabis in November 2018, Youds received a three‑year prison sentence in February 2023. “I didn’t even have my bag packed,” he recalls. “I spent the first three weeks in prison in total shock.”

Will the U.K. Ever Legalize Weed?

Youds was released after serving his longest stretch, but prison time did little to reform him. “All revolutionaries end up in jail,” he told Vice upon his release. He reopened the Chillin’ Rooms on April 20, 2024—an auspicious date on the stoner calendar—just months before he opened the gates to the public again during the riots. He says his incarceration strengthened his resolve to fight for those inside: “Hopefully I’ll be the one to bring about change and set things right.”

Youds recently returned to court, stubbornly seeking the return of 1,000 pounds in cash that police had seized during the February raid, which he says accumulated from the 5‑pound entrance fees charged to members (about $6.75). His next court date is November 25. “The officer was shocked to see me show up after just being released,” Youds notes. “I told him this is a legitimate business.”

Youds believes his criminal record cost him the home he bought across from Anfield in 2000. Unable to secure a loan to cover the mortgage, he was forced to sell it in March. “No one lent me the money,” he says outside his old house, where former neighbors greet him warmly beneath a towering palm tree he planted in 2005. “I was on some kind of list. They flagged the convictions. I went to court at least ten times to cancel or suspend the repossession order. I was devastated. I had planned to live in that house for the rest of my life.” He maintains that cannabis convictions continue to hold many people back.

When Youds was released earlier this year, he moved in with his 80‑year‑old mother, Joan Youds, who had a stroke four years earlier and now requires care. “He’s totally consumed by that cannabis club,” she tells me in her living room, opposite her son’s single bed as he prepares her lunch. “They’ll smash it, pull it all apart—they’ll start again.”

Her son calls him “a son in a million,” and she adds that potheads are typically calm and composed, wanting only to be left alone. Will he ever quit? “He’ll never stop,” she answers.

Back at the club on my last afternoon, a musician performs Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” as Youds explains that his defiance feels quintessentially Liverpudlian. His family has lived for generations in a port city shaped by Irish migration, deindustrialization, and suspicion of distant authority. “We stand up to tyranny,” he declares. “If good men do nothing, tyranny prospers.”

Youds hopes the new prime minister, Labour’s Andy Burnham—another 56-year-old Merseysider—will be the figure to liberate him once and for all, as advocates like Virgin founder Richard Branson push for cannabis reform. “The community needs this right now,” Youds says. “There are millions of us who want change. They should leave it be. The Chillin’ Rooms is what the future looks like the day after the drug war. This is where the drug war ended. I believe Andy is the man.”

A Labour insider recently told me he isn’t sure drug policy reform will be a Burnham priority. Yet Youds has found support from the Green Party, which captured more than 6% of the vote in the 2024 general election. “We have long supported the social club model championed by Gary Youds,” a spokesman for the Green Party’s drug policy working group states, “and believe this framework can engage all community stakeholders from the ground up.”

The cannabis social club model Youds operates aligns with a growing European trend, notably in Barcelona, says Kojo Koram, a professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University and author of The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs. “A key value for lawmakers is that membership in a social club creates a more supportive environment if someone struggles with cannabis use or other life issues.”

Youds takes me on his daily litter‑picking rounds. “I’m not anti‑establishment,” he says, filling a trash bag. “I’m a model citizen. I pick up litter, I ride the bus, I don’t break the law, but these laws themselves are wrong. I’m harmonizing with nature.” He spots a discarded Red Bull can in a flower bed and deposits it in his sack. “The revolution will be cultivated,” he declares, dropping the can into the bag. “I’m sowing the seeds.”

Will he worry about returning to prison and again leaving his ailing mother and his two sons, now 21 and 16? “I think the war is over,” he says. “You can’t be extinguished if you’re working with nature.”

With that, he dumps his second sack into a refuse bin and returns to the Chillin’ Rooms, where he rolls a joint.