Over three days, close to 300,000 people will attend the largest continuous political rally in the world, Seattle Hempfest!

This weekend, NORML Board, Staff, and Activists from both coasts and everywhere in-between will converge on the waterfront between Centennial and Olympic Sculpture Parks in Seattle, Washington, for the twentieth anniversary Seattle Hempfest.

Visit our NORML / HIGH TIMES Booth! We are next to the rocky Puget Sound waters in the Stone Village south of the Share Parker Main Stage.  You won’t have trouble finding us – this year we have a seven-foot green helium balloon with the NORML logo to guide you to our booth.

Can't find Hempfest? Go to the Space Needle and follow your nose southwest...

We will be bringing you exclusive VIP coverage of Hempfest live on The NORML Network.  Next week we’ll bring you recorded video on NORMLtv and audio on our NORML SHOW LIVE podcast.  Features will include Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Washington Representatives Roger Goodman and Mary Lou Dickerson, PBS travel guru Rick Steves, federal medical marijuana patient Elvy Musikka, legendary grower Ed Rosenthal, Weed Wars star and Harborside director Steve DeAngelo, among many of the interviews and speeches we will bring to you.  We’ll also be backstage with the Kottonmouth Kings, The Accused, the Herbivores, and all the great bands than make Hempfest rock, with exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews.

NORML Board, Staff, and Activists Schedule (UPDATED Thu) (click for complete schedule, subject to change, see Hempfest for final schedule).  Our NORML Activists will be speaking on all four main stages to over 300,000 attendees over three days to educate the public and the politicians about the urgent need to legalize cannabis hemp in America.  (Click “Full Story” below to get more details…)

• We will have backstage live coverage at the Share Parker Main Stage through our NORML SHOW LIVE Stickam feed.  Visit http://live.norml.org to watch the feed.  Create an account on Stickam and join our live chat.  Follow @NORMLNet on Twitter to get the latest live stream updates of guests and features.
• We will have roaming coverage of the vendors, stages, speakers, and panels recorded on video that will be uploaded later to NORMLtv.  Visit http://youtube.com/natlnorml to see the final edited versions of the videos.  Our Outreach Coordinator, Russ Belville, will also be posting raw cell-phone video in real-time.  Visit http://www.twitvid.com/videos/radicalruss to see the videos and follow @RadicalRuss on Twitter for video updates.
• We will also be recording many of the speakers and panels for replay next week on the NORML SHOW LIVE podcast.  You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and find all the recordings available for download through the Stash Blog at http://stash.norml.org.

FRIDAY

• 12:30pm – NORML Outreach Coordinator Russ Belville @ Hemposium (Media Panel)
• 2:45pm – NORML Legal Committee’s Doug Hiatt @ McWilliams Stage
• 3:40pm – Miami Valley NORML Director Tonya Davis
• 3:40pm – NORML Legal Committee’s Leland Berger @ Seeley Stage
• 3:45pm – NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre @ McWilliams Stage
• 3:50pm – NORML Advisory Board’s Rick Steves @ Main Stage
• 4:05pm – NORML Legal Counsel Keith Stroup @ Seeley Stage
• 4:10pm – NORML Board & Oregon NORML’s Madeline Martinez @ Seeley Stage
• 4:35pm – NORML Board’s William Panzer @ McWilliams Stage
• 5:00pm – Doug Hiatt @ Seeley Stage
• 5:35pm – Leland Berger @ McWilliams Stage
• 5:40pm – MassCann/NORML’s Keith Saunders @ Main Stage
• 5:45pm – Washington NORML’s Kevin Oliver @ Main Stage
• 6:35pm – Russ Belville @ Main Stage
• 8:00pm – All of the above and more at the VIP Speaker’s Social @ Hemposium (ticket required)

SATURDAY

• 12:40pm – NORML Legal Committee’s Jeff Steinborn and Leland Berger @ Hemposum (Know Your Rights Panel)
• 12:45pm – Tonya Davis @ McWilliams Stage
• 1:30pm – Doug Hiatt @ Hemposium (Patients out of Patience Panel)
• 1:50pm – Jeff Steinborn @ Main Stage
• 3:40pm – Rick Steves @ Main Stage
• 3:40pm – Keith Saunders @ Seeley Stage
• 3:45pm – Keith Stroup @ McWilliams Stage
• 4:00pm – Madeline Martinez @ McWilliams Stage
• 4:45pm – Doug Hiatt @ Main Stage
• 5:35pm – Keith Saunders @ McWilliams Stage
• 6:35pm – Madeline Martinez @ Main Stage
• 6:45pm – Allen St. Pierre @ Main Stage

SUNDAY

• 12:40pm – California NORML’s Dale Gieringer @ Hemposium (Beyond Prohibition Panel)
• 1:30pm – Rick Steves @ Hemposium (extended remarks)
• 1:40pm – William Panzer @ Main Stage
• 2:10pm – Madeline Martinez and Tonya Davis @ Hemposium (National Activism Panel)
• 3:35pm – Jeff Steinborn @ Seeley Stage
• 3:40pm – Keith Stroup @ Main Stage
• 3:40pm – Kevin Oliver @ Seeley Stage
• 3:45pm – Russ Belville @ Seeley Stage
• 3:50pm – Rick Steves @ Main Stage
• 3:55pm – Allen St. Pierre @ Seeley Stage
• 4:45pm – Dale Gieringer @ Main Stage
• 5:40pm – Kevin Oliver @ McWilliams Stage
• 6:40pm – Russ Belville @ McWilliams Stage

HEMPFEST 2011

It would set limits on how much cannabis people can have: an ounce of dried bud, 16 ounces of marijuana-infused foods in solid form, and 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids, or all three, Holcomb said. Limits are necessary to help ensure that people don’t buy large amounts for resale in other states, she said.

The Seattle Times breaks the news below and highlights some of the proposed initiative’s early and key supporters–including the former US Attorney, the current Seattle prosecutor and NORML Advisory board member Rick Steves.

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

The 20th annual Seattle Hempfest will have two important reform projects for the hundreds of thousands to truly rally around this year: a state legalization initiative (the ACLU’s or Sensible Washington’s) and the first ever federal legalization bill expected to be introduced at any moment here in the decidedly less hip and green Washington, D.C.

Will 2012 be the year of mass marijuana legalization initiatives in America? It appears that way now with Washington, California and Colorado on track for such; Oregon, Massachusetts and Ohio may follow suit.

A coalition that includes former U.S. Attorney John McKay, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes and travel guide Rick Steves is launching an initiative that would legalize marijuana in Washington state.

The group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, decided to push the initiative this spring after Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed most of a medical-marijuana bill that had passed the state Legislature.

“We did some more public-opinion research, looked at the numbers and said, ‘Yeah, this is the time,’ ” said Alison Holcomb, campaign manager for the initiative and drug-policy director of the ACLU of Washington.

The initiative would regulate the recreational use of marijuana in a way similar to how the state regulates alcohol..

It would legalize marijuana for people older than 21, authorize the state Liquor Control Board to regulate and tax marijuana for sale in “stand-alone stores” and extend drunken-driving laws to marijuana, with blood tests to determine how much of the substance’s active ingredient is present in a driver’s blood.

Taxing sales would bring the state $215 million a year, conservatively estimated, Holmes said.

McKay, who spent five years enforcing federal drug laws as the U.S. attorney in Seattle before he was fired by the Bush administration in early 2007, said he hopes the initiative will help “shame Congress” into ending pot prohibition.

He said laws criminalizing marijuana are wrongheaded because they create an enormous black market exploited by international cartels and crime rings.

“That’s what drives my concern: The black market fuels the cartels, and that’s what allows them to buy the guns they use to kill people,” McKay said. “A lot of Americans smoke pot, and they’re willing to pay for it. I think prohibition is a dumb policy, and there are a lot of line federal prosecutors who share the view that the policy is suspect.”

Supporters would have until the end of this year to gather more than 240,000 signatures to get the initiative before the Legislature. Lawmakers could approve or allow it to go to the ballot next year.

Read the rest of the article here.

On Friday, February 18, the Seattle Times editorial board opined in favor of House Bill 1550, which legalizes and regulates the “production, distribution, and sale” of marijuana to adults. (You can contact your state elected officials in support of the measure here.) The editorial, titled “The Washington Legislature should legalize marijuana” did not mince words.

Marijuana should be legalized, regulated and taxed. The push to repeal federal prohibition should come from the states, and it should begin with the state of Washington.

… Some drugs have such horrible effects on the human body that the costs of prohibition may be worth it. Not marijuana. This state’s experience with medical marijuana and Seattle’s tolerance policy suggest that with cannabis, legalization will work — and surprisingly well.

Not only will it work, but it is coming.

According to Seattle Times editorial page editor Ryan Blethen, the public’s reaction to the paper’s pot-friendly position was overwhelming.

“It is rare we publish an editorial on a hot topic and receive near universal praise. But that is what happened last week when we came out in support of Washington state legalizing cannabis,” Bethen wrote in February 25 commentary. “When people take the time to e-mail or call me about an editorial, it is usually because they do not agree with the editorial page. This editorial was different. The compliments rolled in, the discussion in the comments section of the editorial is nearing 600 and is interesting and thoughtful — which is not always the case — and so far the editorial has been recommended by about 3,000 people on Facebook.”

Yet there was is one prominent, former Seattle resident who is clearly not amused by the Times call for “a sober discussion about marijuana.” That person is the Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske.

The Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger has the details — and they aren’t pretty.

White House Requests Meeting with Seattle Times to Bully Against Pro-Pot Editorials
via The Stranger

The Stranger has learned that immediately after the Seattle Times ran an editorial last week supporting a bill to tax and regulate marijuana, the newspaper got a phone call from Washington, D.C. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy director Gil Kerlikowske wanted to fly to Seattle to speak personally with the paper’s full editorial board.

The meeting is scheduled for next Friday, an apparent attempt by the federal government to pressure the state’s largest newspaper to oppose marijuana legalization. Or at least turn down the volume on its new-found bullhorn to legalize pot.

Bruce Ramsey, the Seattle Times editorial writer who wrote the unbylined piece, says the White House called right “right after our editorial ran, so I drew the obvious conclusion… he didn’t like our editorial.”

… This isn’t the first time the Obama Administration has campaigned to keep pot illegal. Kerlikowske, who is also Seattle’s former police chief, also traveled to California last fall to campaign against Prop 19, a measure to decriminalize marijuana and authorize jurisdictions to tax and regulate it.

NORML Has long argued that pot prohibition can not withstand careful and consistent scrutiny from the mainstream media. The Drug Czar knows this to be true better than anyone; hence the White House’s need to try and squelch any media-led ‘legitimate debate.’ Fortunately, the genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back — at least not in Seattle. In fact, just days after The Drug Czar’s phone call, the Seattle Times reiterated their editorial support for legalization, stating “the costs of prohibition in police, courts, jails, gang warfare, civil liberties and blighted lives are too high, especially for a product that lends itself so well to be handled like alcohol.”

Like it or not President Obama, you are going to get your debate. We’re ready; are you?

Seattle City Attorney Peter Holmes

Peter Holmes is the City Attorney for Seattle, Washington.  In this op-ed for the Seattle Times, Holmes makes good on his campaign promises to not prosecute user-level marijuana crimes and joins the growing chorus of current (Rep. Jared Polis) and former elected officials (Gov. Gary Johnson) calling for an end to adult marijuana prohibition.

Marijuana is far more like alcohol than it is like hard drugs, and we should treat it as such. We address alcohol abuse primarily as a public-health issue, and we should do the same with marijuana abuse. Inebriation only becomes a crime for those who choose to get behind the wheel, whether the intoxicant is alcohol, prescription pain killers or cannabis.

I support tightening laws against driving while stoned, preventing the sale of marijuana to minors, and ensuring that anything other than small-scale noncommercial marijuana production takes place in regulated agricultural facilities — and not residential basements.

Ending marijuana prohibition and focusing on rational regulation and taxation is a pro-public safety, pro-public health, pro-limited government policy. I urge the state Legislature to move down this road.

Even if marijuana remains illegal under federal law, it is still time for Washington state to act. As with alcohol prohibition, collective action by the states will help us end the federal marijuana prohibition and transition to a rational and functional system for regulating and taxing marijuana.

Pete Holmes is serving his first term as Seattle city attorney.  Click here to read the entire op-ed.

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

“[The city of Seattle] is no longer going to prosecute marijuana possession cases anymore,” said Holmes.  The Times reports that Holmes has already begun dismissing cases that were filed by the previous city attorney, Tom Carr.

Holmes defeated Carr in the November 2009 election.

In 2003, Seattle voters approved Initiative 75, which requires that “the Seattle Police Department and City Attorney’s Office shall make the investigation, arrest and prosecution of marijuana offenses, when the marijuana was intended for adult personal use, the city’s lowest law enforcement priority.”

A 2008 citywide review of the ordinance reported “no evidence of any adverse effects of the implementation of I-75, including specifically: 1. No evident increase in marijuana use among youth and young adults; 2. No evident increase in crime; and 3. No adverse impact on public health.”

Tomorrow, Washington state lawmakers on the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness will vote on two pending marijuana law reform proposals, House Bill 1177 and House Bill 2401. House Bill 1177 seeks to reclassify the possession of forty grams or less of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a class 2 civil infraction punishable by a $100 fine. House Bill 2401 seeks to “remove all existing civil and criminal penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.”

The Committee is scheduled to vote at 1:30pm pst. You can watch this vote live here.

[UPDATE!!! If you live in Washington and have not yet contacted the Committee, you may wish to do so now, while you still can.

House panel to snuff out marijuana bills
via The Herald

[Excerpt]

Rep. Chris Hurst, chairman of the public safety panel, told me there are not enough votes to move either bill out of committee.

There are five Democrats and three Republicans on the committee. The Republicans will unite against the bills. Hurst and Rep. Al O’Brien, D-Mountlake Terrace, both former cops, each said they will oppose the bills.]

A strong social indicator of governmental laws that do not enjoy mass public support–along with jury nullification–is when supposed ‘criminals’ are embraced and heralded as heroes.

NORML salutes the activists who not only slavishly work for cannabis law reforms but who also never forget about the tens of thousands of cannabis consumers, cultivators and sellers incarcerated in the United States.

Our brothers and sisters.

Christmas protest targets marijuana laws

SEATTLE – Protesters outside the King County Jail say non-violent drug offenders should be home this Christmas.

Vivian McPeak organized the pro-marijuana vigil.

“Hopefully it lets them know that they’re not languishing in there without attention,” said McPeak.

The past nine years on Christmas day, 5th Avenue and James Street in Seattle has been at the crossroads of marijuana legalization controversy.

Check out the video here.

Protestors held signs and waved down traffic. They say those staring down from county jail cells serving time for non-violent marijuana offenses should be with family.

“We just think that otherwise law abiding American should find alternatives to incarceration for marijuana use,” said McPeak.

****************

Inspired By American Citizen Activism To Reform Marijuana Laws, Brazilians Start Publicly Protesting Prohibition

I recently met William Lantelme at the Drug Policy Alliance’s conference in New Mexico and he has a popular cannabis-related webpage in Brazil (growroom.net) that he is starting to convert to a non-governmental organization to rally Brazilians to reform their American-like cannabis laws. He acknowledged being blown away at how organized, active and funded law cannabis advocates are in the US.

Inspired upon his return to Brazil, William organized the first of many planned pro-reform protests and public rallies where fans of Growroom.net recently came out to support a cannabis consumer who was busted for cultivating 10 cannabis plants.

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
-Ben Franklin, In the Continental Congress just before signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776

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

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!