Judge Smails
07-31-2006, 04:51 AM
<p><font size="1">This could be the greatest/funniest Opera performance ever:</font></p><p><strong><font size="4"><a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1935247.html" target="_self">Opera house encourages audience to smoke pot</a></font></strong></p><strong><font size="4"><font size="1">A Berlin opera house is encouraging audience members to smoke cannabis joints during its latest production.</font></font></strong><strong><font size="4"> <p><font size="1">The Neuköllner Opera House says it wants to enhance the psychedelic experience of Camille Saint-Saens' drug opera The Oriental Princess.</font></p><p><font size="1">The actors themselves will also smoke pot onstage while the audience mellow out in the stalls, reports DW-Worldl.</font></p><p><font size="1">Artistic director Bernhard Glocksin maintains that the opera experience will be "improved with a few joints" while the opera house asserts that artistic license will protect it from drug laws.</font></p><p><font size="1">"It's a test to see just what we can get away with," Glocksin said.</font></p><p><font size="1">In Berlin, possession of anything up to 10 grams of cannabis is considered to be "for personal use" and is often overlooked.</font></p><p><font size="1">But smoking it in public places can be interpreted by law as an offence against the German constitution.</font></p></font></strong>