Hempfest’s massive crowds last weekend spurred Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells and former state Rep. Toby Nixon to pen a bipartisan letter in the Seattle Times on the need for Washington State to join the other 13 states that have ‘decriminalized’ possession of cannabis–as well as the state’s largest population center, King County (Seattle), which effectively decriminalized possession by popular vote in 2003. Checkout this CNN iReport about this year’s Hempfest here (and kudos for the closing shot on the wrap).

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.

By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board Member, medical marijuana patient

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

Well, some of the much vaunted and promised ‘change’ under a President Obama appears to be coming true in the formal nomination yesterday of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, and the mainstream media certainly seems to be picking up on all of the positive and salient points about Chief Kerlikowske that drug policy reform advocates have been touting since his name was first floated almost a month ago. Listen to the coverage of the announcement at National Public Radio.

Unlike the prior Drug Czar, John ‘Unicorn’ Walters, a moral crusader (aptly dubbed Bill Bennett’s ‘Mini-Me’ by the DPA’s Ethan Nadelmann), Chief Kerlikowske crafted pragmatic public policies and law enforcement practices that immediately distinguish him from his predecessors such as Bennett, Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Walters.

To wit:

-200,000 pro-reform cannabis law supporters converge on the waterfront in Seattle in mid-August for the world famous Hempfest, where adults openly consume cannabis and the hundreds of police present make few to no arrests (and where, ironically, alcohol use is strictly forbidden).

-Local law enforcement in Seattle apparently does not harass the artisans who craft and market the remarkable glass paraphernalia (AKA, medical delivery devices) for which Seattle is famous.

Compare that with Walters’ and former Attorney General Ashcroft’s zealous pursuit and culture-smashing symbolism of arresting, prosecuting and actually incarcerating NORML Advisory Board member Tommy Chong for nine months in a federal prison for the ‘crime’ of selling high-end artisan, Chong Bongs.

-Seattle police have a generally good track record working with medical cannabis providers, physicians and patients—including Chief Kerlikowske meeting with medical cannabis stakeholders about how to best implement Washington State’s 2000 medical cannabis laws. Compare this with Walters and McCaffrey who collectively spent 14 years insisting that there is no such thing at all as medical cannabis (often comparing it to crack cocaine), patients who claim efficacy or relief from cannabis as ‘fakers’, recommending physicians as ‘kooks’ and the majority of citizens who’ve voted for medical cannabis law reform as ‘easily duped by legalizers’.

-Rumor has it that Chief Kerlikowske has actually employed the term ‘harm reduction‘ in a sentence without employing foul language! In fact, under his leadership (and that of former Seattle Police Chief and NORML Advisory Board member Norm Stamper before him) Seattle police both recognize and practice the increasingly popular, European-inspired police/public health doctrine known as harm reduction. Two of the important tenets of harm reduction are concentrating police resources on so-called ‘hard’ drugs rather than cannabis consumers and needle exchange to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases–both championed by Chief Kerlikowske, and totally dismissed as ‘tools for legalization’ by McCaffrey and Walters.

-Despite publicly opposing a reform effort in 2003 in Seattle to make adult cannabis possession a low law enforcement priority, once I-75 was passed by a majority of voters, Chief Kerlikowske shrugged off the lost, embraced the public-health centric arguments advanced by reform advocates, and met with law reformers in the Seattle-area like I-75 campaigner and NORML board member Dominic Holden, defense attorney and NORML Board member Jeff Steinborn, popular travel author/TV host and NORML advisory board member Rick Steves.

John Walters on the otherhand would not even appear in the same green room with me backstage on TV news show, let alone debate live on the same sound stage.

Looks to me like Chief Kerlikowske is a real man…not a moralistic, lie-to-beat-the-band bureaucrat.

-Chief Kerlikowske’s former colleagues on the police force, cannabis law reform activists, medical patients, civil rights lawyers and public health officials all seem to recognize that science and ‘smart on crime’ (as compared to ‘tough on crime’ and ineffective platitudes like ‘just say no’ or ‘drug-free America’) drive his policing—not ideology and a twisted sense of personal morality.

With the recent report from a pair of WA researchers affirming that the ONDCP under McCaffrey and Walters obsessed too much on cannabis prohibition, and not enough on meth, crack, heroin…a decided change in leadership at ONDCP can’t happen fast enough.

Lastly, it was also announced yesterday by the 1980s congressional author of the ONDCP charter, no less and with sweet karmic irony, Vice President Joe Biden, that despite the best intentions of placing the ONDCP into the President’s cabinet in 1988, from this point forward the ONDCP is no longer going to be a cabinet-level office.

Whoa. Now that is change NORML and taxpayers can believe in!

Update!!! Update!!! Update!!! 

Please tune in to NORML’s podcast tonight at 4:20pst when host Russ Belville will interview former Seattle Police Chief and NORML Advisory Board Member Norm Stamper regarding the selection of colleague Gil Kerlikowke as Drug Czar.

According to just published news reports, President Barack Obama has tapped Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s next ‘Drug Czar.’

From Seattle’s top cop to ‘drug czar’
via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[excerpt]

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has been appointed to a law enforcement post within the Obama administration, which would return him to Washington, D.C., after almost a decade as Seattle’s top cop, sources said Tuesday.

… Kerlikowske came to Seattle in 2000 after serving as deputy director in the Justice Department, overseeing the Community Oriented Policing Services grant program. A military veteran with 36 years in law enforcement, he spent four years as Buffalo’s police commissioner after starting his career in Florida.

On the positive side, Kerlikowske hails from Seattle — a city that has elected to make the enforcement marijuana crimes cops’ lowest priority. And although the police chief spoke out against the initiative effort — which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2003 — he’s abided by the will of the people since then. As a result, there are now fewer marijuana-related arrests in Seattle than in virtually any other major city in the United States.

On the negative side, Kerlikowske is first and foremost a cop. He’s served 36 years in law enforcement, and it is foolish to assume that he will in any way embrace our issue with open arms. That said, I find myself in cautious agreement with NORML Board Member (and longtime Seattle resident) Dominic Holden, who believes that Kerlikowske may bring a “progressive” approach to an agency that has, almost since its inception, operated in the ‘Dark Ages.’

The day the U.S. government finally — and properly — recognizes that drug use is a public health problem and not solely a criminal justice issue will be the day that the President appoints a White House ‘Drug Czar’ who possesses a professional background in public health, addiction, and treatment rather than in law enforcement.

But until that day arrives, perhaps the best we reformers can hope for is a cop who appreciates that pot poses less of a danger to the public than alcohol, and who recognizes that from a practical and fiscal standpoint, targeting and arresting adults who engage in the responsible use of cannabis doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. At first glance, Obama’s pick — unlike his predecessor John Walters — appears to possess both of these common sense qualities.

NORML Advisory Board Member and travel author Rick Steves addresses 100,000 @ 2008 Seattle Hempfest

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.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, in collaboration with noted travel author and NORML Advisory Board Member Rick Steves, is launching a multimedia public-education campaign to encourage communities take part in an “honest, candid discussion” regarding America’s marijuana policies.

ACLU Washington head Kathleen Taylor kicks off this new campaign with a heartfelt plea in today’s Seattle Times.

Let’s Talk About Marijuana
by Kathleen Taylor

As parents, we want to shield our children from harm and reserve certain choices for when they are old enough to understand the risks and repercussions. Certainly, this is as true of marijuana as it is of alcohol and tobacco. But just as certainly, and as most teenagers will tell you, it is easier for them to buy marijuana than beer or cigarettes. Our marijuana laws don’t work. I know it. You know it. Scores of our neighbors know it.

But no one is talking. Most of us have our own ideas about what should be done, but this has to be a decision that we make as a community. Too much is riding on this issue not to have an honest, candid discussion. Please join us in the conversation.

Read the full story here.