Pubdate: Wed, 21 Aug 2013
Source: New York Post (NY)
Copyright: 2013 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
Contact: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/letters_editor.htm
Website: http://www.nypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/296
Author: Jacob Sullum
Page: 19

HEMPFEST: GIVING POT PEACE A CHANCE

CROSSING the West Thomas Street Overpass into Seattle's Myrtle Edwards
Park on Friday afternoon, I hear a guy remark, "Next year, I'll be
turning 23, and so will Hempfest!"

His companion seems unimpressed by this discovery. "That's because
Hempfest started the same year we were born," he says. The first guy
persists, undaunted by his friend's lack of enthusiasm. "I know," he
says with a broad smile. "Crazy, right?"

It is pretty crazy, actually, that Hempfest, the world's largest
marijuana "protestival," has been around longer than many of its
participants.

The three-day event, which features music, food, drug policy speeches
and hundreds of cannabis-related vendors, attracts about 250,000
people, a good portion of whom can be seen (and smelled) smoking pot
at any given moment. Yet the Seattle Police Department has learned to
live with this annual affront to prohibitionist sensibilities,
providing a lesson in tolerance for other cities.

Under I-502, the legalization initiative that Washington voters
approved last November, adults 21 and older may possess up to an ounce
of marijuana. Consuming it publicly, however, is a civil infraction
punishable by a $103 fine. Yet no tickets were issued to the blatant
tokers at Hempfest last weekend. "You could be cited," the cops
explained, "but we'd rather give you a warning."

That message was on stickers affixed to 1,000 1-ounce bags of Doritos
that police distributed at Hempfest on Saturday - a publicity stunt
that attracted international attention while conveying the Seattle
PD's laid-back approach to marijuana consumers. Speaking from the
festival's main stage, the department's chief spokesman emphasized
"leniency, education and patience," rather than "a heavy hand."

The SPD's hand was considerably heavier in the early years of
Hempfest, when there were a lot more arrests for drug offenses.
Longtime festival director Vivian McPeak says it took years of
engagement to convince the police that Hempfest attendees should be
viewed not as invaders but as fellow citizens delivering "our message
of freedom, responsibility and peaceful reform."

It helped that in 2003 Seattle voters approved I-75, which declared
simple marijuana possession the city's lowest law-enforcement
priority. And also that McPeak and his friends put together their own
security, first-aid and cleanup crews, which allow the festival to
function smoothly with a minimal police presence in and around the 1.5
miles of picturesque waterfront parks it now occupies.

Wandering Hempfest amid the least furtive pot smokers in America, it
is easy to forget that outside this oasis of freedom police continue
to treat cannabis consumers as criminals. In 2011, the most recent
year for which data are available, there were about 758,000 marijuana
arrests in the United States, the vast majority for possession.

Even in supposedly enlightened and cosmopolitan places such as New
York City, police continue to bust people for carrying small amounts
of marijuana. The NYPD made more than 50,000 such arrests in 2011, up
from less than 10,000 in 1996.

That crackdown is especially impressive because the state Legislature
decriminalized possession of up to 25 grams in 1977. Cops manage to
arrest pot smokers anyway by charging them with "public display" of
any marijuana turned up during street stops.

No wonder the ordinarily even-tempered McPeak gets hot when he
contemplates the injustice of marijuana prohibition. "We are not
criminals!" he declares from the Hempfest stage. "We are Americans,
and we're proud and we're loud!"

By punishing people for their consumption decisions, marijuana
prohibition makes the personal political, which is why simply lighting
up at Hempfest is an act of dissent. McPeak and his fellow activists
are fighting for the day when a joint is just a joint.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt