“[T]o me, high is a place … and when I want to go there I don’t need the government to give me a passport.”

You can also listen to Rick Steve’s keynote address from the 2009 national NORML conference here.

In exactly one week an amazing annual event in the long struggle to reform cannabis laws comes to the fore.

NORML Advisory Board Member and Best-Selling Travel Author Rick Steves Addresses Hempfest's 100,000 @ 4:20

Below is an important message from the Seattle Hempfest. You can either donate via Hempfest.org, or participate in their new ‘Fundraising Crew’.

There is no hyperbole when one states that the now 19-year-old Seattle Hempfest is the largest pro-cannabis rally on the face of our good green earth. Over 200,000 anti-prohibitionists pour into a beautiful, mile-long park that faces Puget Sound for two days of speeches, education and music in support of ending America’s longest war–the US government’s 73-year-old war against cannabis consumers and the plant itself.

(To place this in some perspective: I grew up in a small town on Cape Cod that has a population under 6,000…to see over 200,000 citizens peacefully gather in protest annually has been truly an awesome and informative experience I encourage others to have as well.)

Over 850,000 Americans will likely be arrested this year on cannabis-related charges in America–90% for possession only. How many people will likely be arrested at the Seattle Hempfest despite massive, protest-driven and open cannabis consumption? Likely, not a single adult.

The Hempfest has helped pave the way for medical cannabis laws in Washington State, the virtual decriminalization of cannabis under one ounce in Seattle and is setting the stage once again for big changes in cannabis laws: a state-wide legalization ballot initiative, as well as legislation to both decriminalize and legalize.

What does it cost to see over 30 bands on three stages, get educated and motivated by the most active cannabis law reformers from around the world, have access to over 200 booths that sell glass and hemp products, eat great food and use cannabis without fear of arrest?

Zilch. Zip. Nothing. Nada. Free.

That’s right. No kidding. Free!

This entire massive two-day ‘protestival’ is put on entirely by volunteers–hundreds and hundreds of volunteers.

Does it cost money to lawfully, safely and responsibly stage a small city for nearly a week?

You bet it does!

Well over $100,000 for all of the leased staging, lighting, sound equipment, tents, booths, over one hundred ‘Port-o-Johns’, security, communication equipment fencing, event insurance, police overtime and even t-shirts for the hundreds of volunteers who manage the entrances, security and stages.

Take it from someone who has convened large concerts, conferences and protests–The Seattle Hempfest does it right and they need our support to make this AMAZING event in the history of cannabis law reform continue to happen until cannabis has been effectively legalized.

Then, after over 20 years of self-sacrifice and hard work, when cannabis is legal, there will be one last Seattle Hempfest…to celebrate the hard fought battle for personal freedom, autonomy and freedom. I’m really, really looking forward to that notable Hempfest celebration!

But until that soon-to-come day occurs, please join NORML and me in lending support to the great all-volunteer effort that it will take to stage next week’s 19th annual Seattle Hempfest.

National NORML along with numerous NORML chapters from around the country have booths , so come on by and say ‘high!’

As always, thanks for caring and sharing.

Cannabem liberemus!!

* * * * *

An Important Request From Seattle Hempfest Organizers:

Please join our new Hempfest Fundraising Crew this year to help raise a million bucks for cannabis. 250,000+ enthusiasts will be at Hempfest

August 21-22. We have a plan to ask each of them to donate to the Hempfest organization. If they give an average of $4, we’ll raise a million bucks for cannabis! All we need is your help building a team big enough to reach them all.

There will be an orientation party the Wednesday before Hempfest and we graciously and urgently request your attendance.

What: Volunteer orientation party for Hempfest Fundraising Crew

When: Wednesday, Aug 18, 7PM

Where: Myrtle Edwards Park, south entrance near the fountain, Seattle

waterfront

And…: Snacks and refreshments provided

Contact: Ezra Eickmeyer, 360-301-1842, ezra@olypen.com

If you can’t attend the Wednesday orientation party, please let us know which days you can volunteer at Hempfest (Aug. 21-22, 10AM – 8PM) and at which times. 4-5 hour shifts are requested.

Finally, please recruit friends and family to come help as well. We’ll need as many as 60 volunteers per shift to make these efforts work, which means 240+ volunteers rallying together for the cause over one weekend. We still need over 100 volunteer shifts to be filled, so e-mail and call everyone. Thank you!!!

In Solidarity,

-Ezra Eickmeyer, Coordinator Hempfest Fundraising Crew ezra@olypen.com

Time for Washington state to decriminalize marijuana

By Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Toby Nixon
Special to The Times

Once again, the Seattle Hempfest drew tens of thousands to parks along the waterfront this weekend. In its mission statement, the all-volunteer organization that produces the event says, “The public is better served when citizens and public officials work cooperatively in order to successfully accomplish common goals.”

We agree. That is why we, as a Democratic state senator and former Republican state representative, support state Senate Bill 5615. This bill would reclassify adult possession of marijuana from a crime carrying a mandatory day in jail to a civil infraction imposing a $100 penalty payable by mail. The bill was voted out of committee with a bipartisan “do pass” recommendation and will be considered by legislators in 2010.

The bill makes a lot of sense, especially in this time of severely strapped budgets. Our state Office of Financial Management reported annual savings of $16 million and $1 million in new revenue if SB 5615 passes. Of that $1 million, $590,000 would be earmarked for the Washington State Criminal Justice Treatment Account to increase support of our underfunded drug-treatment and drug-prevention services.

The idea of decriminalizing marijuana is far from new. In 1970, Congress created the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. A bipartisan body with 13 members — nine appointed by President Nixon and four by Congress — the commission was tasked with conducting a yearlong, authoritative study of marijuana. When the commission issued its report, “Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding,” in1972, it surprised many by recommending decriminalization:

Possession of marijuana in private for personal use would no longer be an offense; and distribution of small amounts of marijuana for no remuneration or insignificant remuneration not involving profit would no longer be an offense.

Twelve states took action and decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s. Nevada decriminalized in 2001, and Massachusetts did so in 2008. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, states where marijuana possession is decriminalized represent more than 35 percent of our nation’s population.

These states have not seen a corresponding increase in use. Nor have the 14 states that have adopted legal protections for patients whose doctors recommend the medical use of marijuana. Nor the several cities and counties that have adopted “lowest law enforcement priority” ordinances like Seattle’s Initiative 75, which made adult marijuana use the city’s lowest law enforcement priority in 2003.

On the flip side of the coin, escalating law enforcement against marijuana users has not achieved its intended goals. From 1991 to 2007, marijuana arrests nationwide tripled from 287,900 to a record 872,720, comprising 47 percent of all drug arrests combined. Of those, 89 percent were for possession only. Nevertheless, according to a study released earlier this year by two University of Washington faculty members:

• The price of marijuana has dropped;

• Its average potency has increased;

• It has become more readily available; and

• Use rates have often increased during times of escalating enforcement.

We now have decades of proof that treating marijuana use as a crime is a failed strategy. It continues to damage the credibility of our public health officials and compromise our public safety. At a fundamental level, it has eroded our respect for the law and what it means to be charged with a criminal offense: 40 percent of Americans have tried marijuana at some point in their lives. It cannot be that 40 percent of Americans truly are criminals.

We hope that the citizens of this state will work with us to help pass SB 5615, the right step for Washington to take toward a more effective, less costly and fairer approach to marijuana use.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Seattle, left, chairs the Senate Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee. Toby Nixon was state representative for the 45th legislative district, 2002-2006, and served as vice-chair of the House Republican Caucus and ranking member of the House Committee on State Government Operations and Accountability.

WOW! The glorious Seattle waterfront at Myrtle Edwards Park was wearing its mid-August best! Saturday was broken clouds with sun in the high 70’s, Sunday, it was clear and 82. Sweeeet. Every tattoo, piercing and cleavage in the tri-state area that needed an airing, got one at Hempfest along the Emerald City waterfront this past weekend. Who knows how many hundreds of thousands hempsters were there? The park was packed beyond belief on Saturday. Over the night, the Hempfest staff changed the routing at over a dozen different foot-traffic choke points, so on Sunday, the crowd flowed so well it seemed the numbers were down…but, never fear, by 4:20 Sunday afternoon the 2-mile long city park was packed to capacity, like one huge happy sausage, all 5 stages rocking at once in a vast sea of people, all of whom who have assembled because they want to free a plant.

Yes We Cannabis.

As the potent Seattle Fog emanating from the Hempfest crowd slowly rolled out to sea each day to meet the stunning beauty of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond, the scene  made me proud to be an American. Good golly, Miss Molly, Hempfest really rocked last weekend!

Hempfest! America’s greatest all-volunteer event.  It takes over a thousand volunteers to bring this wonderful beast to life each year. With love and devotion those volunteers blow life into this dream, just as they have every year for the past 18 years—some giving only a few hours of their time picking up trash after Hempfest is done, or some like the late Share Parker who a few years back mortgaged her home just to keep Hempfest going. Hempfest has grown and grown to the point that this year, even though the event was barely promoted, this was the biggest Hempfest, EVER.

HEMPFEST—the third weekend in August, on the Seattle waterfront, it’s fun, it’s free, it’s clean, it’s safe, no ticket required! Hempfest has become the goal of an annual summer migration of thousands and thousands of Americans. Seattle Hempfest has become an organic force like a salmon run….

So much to see and do at Hempfest—a few things that stood out to me this year:

*Hempfest expanded north of the Grain Elevators with great effect, adding about ¾ of a mile of new territory that was filled to the brim with hempsters. The Seely Memorial Stage’s new location created a great new venue for speakers and bands, a place you can get eye-to-eye contact with about 3-4,000 people, a very intimate experience compared with the Main stage’s audience of the ten’s of thousands.

*I listened to a Hemposium panel of marijuana activists that included Tonya Davis, a wheelchair-bound woman from Ohio.

As Tonya spoke of the horrible physical and sexual abuse she endured as a child, it brought me to tears. Tonya had been told to “Shut up” more often than she’d been called her own name, but now that she’d become a marijuana activist, Tonya refused to, “Shut up”, one minute longer. Such bravery, such heart. Thank you, Tonya.

*The medical research on cannabis continues to open new horizons. If you want to get seriously excited about the science behind why cannabis is so good for you, Google Dr. Bob Melamede, prof., Univ. of Colo, Colorado Springs.

*O’Shaughnessy’s The Journal of Cannabis in Clinical Practice, their Summer ‘09 issue is out! Get a copy! Perfect for any doctor wanting solid clinical information about the use of cannabis in their practice, or for the informed patient wanting to be more informed or get their doctor more informed about cannabis as a medicine. Editor Fred Gardner may be contacted to distribute or contribute to O’Shaughnessy’s.

And, of course, there was so much good music I don’t know where to begin.

Hempfest. Huge, happy, helpful, harmonic. You all made America proud of itself last weekend.

——————

WHAT A YEAR FOR CANNABIS!!
YES WE CANNABIS!!

George Rohrbacher, NORML Board of Directors
Speech for Hempfest ‘09

What a year for cannabis, since we last talked here at Seattle Hempfest…Hempfest, the greatest all-volunteer event in America…also the largest pro-cannabis rally in the world, a protest-ival of grand proportions! Give a loud round of applause to the Hempfest volunteers; the people who truly make this happen! And, Help ‘em out, all of you need to volunteer and pick up a little trash on your way out of here tonight. And say, Why don’t you become an official Seattle Hempfest volunteer and earn one of those cool t-shirts!!? What a powerful thing that would be, 100,000 new cannabis volunteers!

And talking about numbers, last October, America arrested its 20-millionth person on marijuana charges! That’s 20-million people arrested for pot from Tricky Dick Nixon to today!! Sickening!!! Well, in November, We the People, by a big margin, elected ourselves a brand-new president, a President pledged for Change! The November elections also gave the people of Michigan medical marijuana by a 63% to 37%, a landslide vote! America’s very first tax and regulate cannabis bill was introduced in the California State Legislature.

New Years brought in the “Michael Phelps bong hit heard ‘round the world”…What???? The planet’s greatest athlete is using pot???? Oh my God!!!?? You mean, Michael Phelps, the Internet/tabloid pothead-posterboy? He didn’t become a couch-potato-slacker/loser like our government has been telling us was going to happen to all pot users. They’ve been telling us those lies for decades. With Michael Phelps, exactly the opposite happened, for the love of water, that ‘bong-hittin’ pothead-loser’ became the most decorated champion in the history of Olympic sports!! A Paradigm shift of monumental proportions is going on here! Maybe our government hasn’t been telling us the truth about POT, after all? What do you think?

February brought the great good news from Obama’s new Attorney General that President Obama’s campaign promises were now Federal policy, that the Federal Government would stop raiding marijuana dispensaries in states with laws that made medical pot legal. That means us…right here in Washington State…the Feds have called off their dope dogs from our medical marijuana!

In April, on 420, NORML launched America’s first ever TV pro-marijuana ad campaign…NORML’s TV ad message: “It’s time to legalize marijuana” played in millions of homes across America, and was mentioned in The New York Times front-page story on 4/20, the pot enthusiast’s organic holiday.

In June, Rhode Island’s state legislature over-rode their governor’s veto by a vote of 102-to-3, what a political Ass-Kicking…passing medical marijuana dispensary legislation.

California’s Board of Tax Equalization, mid-summer, released the findings that by their calculations, taxed and regulated, legal marijuana would bring California’s governments an estimated $1.4 BILLION dollars of NEW taxes every year…billions in tax revenue that are desperately needed to keep their neighborhood parks and libraries open. For years, NORML has been asking the government to tax us cannabis users like normal citizens…And, that of course, doesn’t take into account the $15 BILLION spent every year on marijuana prohibition enforcement, money that would be much better spent protecting battered women, finding lost children and solving crimes. The message about how expensive marijuana prohibition is, and the nasty ramifications of the War on Drugs is finally getting through to the American public for the very first time in our lifetimes!

Then…something unbelievably important happened a couple weeks ago: on July 23rd,for the first time in the history of their publication, The Wall Street Journal did a front-page article on the pot business! They said essentially: Now that the Federal raids have ended, medical cannabis is becoming a normal business. Woa, Nellie, bar the doors, when the WSJ says that there is “gold in them thar ills”, look out!!!

I want you to think about this for a second: about three weeks ago, the world’s premier economic newspaper declared that medical marijuana is: “OPEN FOR BUSINESS”. This story was read by millions and millions of the world’s biggest economic movers and shakers, everyone of whom are on the lookout for what is going to be the “next new thing”, and you can bet thousands and thousands of those well-heeled entrepreneurs have already started making their own cannabis business plans, potentially effecting the future of marijuana’s economic and legal landscape. The Wall Street Journal declared it loud and clear: the legal marijuana gold rush has begun! With this kind of attention, it won’t be long before there is a medical cannabis dispensary in your neighborhood shopping mall!! Now, that’s what I call progress!

It is your job and my job to keep up the pressure, to keep to keep this CHANGE rolling on.

Well, how are we going do it???

The Answer: Get loud, get active, JOIN NORML, volunteer!   THANK YOU

By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board Member

The largest marijuana legalization rally in the world, Hempfest, is held annually on the third weekend of August at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront. This free marquee event usually attracts well over 200,000 people in attendance and Hempfest ’08, Aug. 16-17, was no exception, if not the record—because the weather on the Seattle waterfront was perfect for a mass gathering! The total number of attendees might well have topped 300,000.

Saturday was blazing hot, or as blazing hot as it can get along the shoreline of Puget Sound. The sky was clear blue and the sun was very intense. As the afternoon progressed, it increasingly reflected off the water onto the crowd, near record amounts of fund-raising “Legalize It!” water were consumed by the crowd. This day was Seattle at its very best—and at its most tattooed—and at its most skimpily dressed.

Thankfully Sunday started off slightly overcast and a notch cooler, because by 4:00pm on the second day of the event, crowds in the 2-mile-long park were so thick that the density of the people on the pathways and the open spaces was virtually the same. The music and the message of marijuana legalization rocked continually all weekend long from the four stages set-up about a ¼- mile apart along the linear waterfront park. At each stage after each band finished playing, and as the next band was setting up, activists, such as myself, Rick Steves, Allen St. Pierre, Keith Stroup, and several other NORML board members, along with a boatload of other fine folks regaled the public about the 71 years of negative societal consequences from the prohibition of marijuana. This was the fifth Hempfest I was privileged to attend as a speaker. My speech topic this year was “America’s 20-millionth marijuana arrest is coming on 10/10/08”. I got to wail away at the bustling crowds on this topic from the three music stages over two days and I spoke at the Hemposium stage on “Abraham Lincoln, Hempster.” Hemp can now rightfully claim 3 out of 4 at Mt. Rushmore!

So, how does all this happen, how does this huge fun and glorious “protestival”, this FREE Hempfest come into being? Dozens of bands playing on 4 stages, dozens of speakers, seminars and demonstrations, put in front of hundreds of thousands people along the gorgeous Seattle waterfront, and ALL FOR FREE? How is this possible? The answer: Hempfest is one of America’s largest All-Volunteer Events! The bands play for free. The speakers speak for free. There are 54 crews, totaling about 1500 volunteers, some working year-round, that make this modern marvel called “Hempfest” happen, from permitting and planning months in advance to picking up the very last piece of paper when all the shouting’s over, it’s the Hempfest volunteers that make this incredible thing happen, and it’s been that way for all 17 years of Hempfest’s existence. The $200,000 for direct expenses, electricity, port-a-potties, etc, come from booth rentals, contributions, and water sales. But the real backbone of the enterprise, is the hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours, that is what brings this marvelous creation, Hempfest, to life each year. Virtually every volunteer I’ve ever talked to, tells me that their involvement, their participation in Hempfest, their contribution to making Hempfest happen is one of the most important things that they did that year. It’s pride. It shows. It shows everywhere at every level at Hempfest.

Three years ago while walking Hempfest, I came upon the command detail of the Seattle Police Department, four sergeants, a patrolman or two, and some important guy with scrambled eggs on his hat. As a grey beard, a former member of the state legislature, a board member of NORML, I stopped to thank them for serving and then quizzed this group on how this detail differed from patrolling the professional football or baseball stadiums with crowds of near the same size. The oldest sergeant laughed and said, “Patrolling Hempfest—a two day event—is like patrolling a Girl Scout picnic compared to dealing with the drunks at Safeco Field, 80 games plus a year.” The whole bunch nodded their heads in agreement. And the sergeant was right, because leaving the encounter only a few minutes later, in a particularly tight clutch of people, someone bumped up against me from the side, and we, immediately, almost instinctively, both apologized, and then moved on, both our good buzz and good nature still intact. Stoners get along, go figure. In the three years since then, I’ve talked to dozens of cops at Hempfest and they have all told me pretty much the same thing—the 200,000 plus stoners are so peaceful, that patrolling Hempfest, as a police detail, is seen by most police as almost a vacation day.

Saturday evening, after I’d gotten done speaking on the mainstage, my son, a family friend, and I were leaving the backstage enclosure. As we walked along the fence near the stage, there in our path was a blue-jeaned butt facing us, and as we passed, the owner straightened up slightly, it was Vivian McPeak, the Hempfest Director. He was picking up trash. Vivian, who had coordinated this huge army of 1,500 volunteers, working non-stop for weeks, was also in charge of the mainstage and had just introduced the band that was playing, had run outside with a trashbag on his free moment. As we walked by, I grabbed my son’s arm, pointed to Vivian, and said, “See, that’s the biggest boss of Hempfest there, picking up trash in the middle of his main stage shift. There’s true Leadership. He leads by example. Hempfest is not only one of America’s largest but one of its finest all-volunteer events.”

So, how many great bands and speakers can you take in the cause of cannabis legalization? How many semi-naked sun worshipers could one watch in two beautiful sun-drenched days? Hempfest is the best place I know of to come find the answer to these kinds of questions. So set your calendar, third weekend in August and I’ll see you at Hempfest ’09, and help us end marijuana prohibition. Come to Hempfest next year and volunteer, or just pick up a sack of trash on our way out, either way, the very act of volunteering warms that spot in your body just above your stomach and just below your heart, the seat of contentment, the seat of real happiness.

Thank you Hempfest for showing the way.