newshawk:  Turmoil    Seattle PostIntelligencer
Contact:    Tue, 26 Aug 1997

title: Hempfest attracts crowds and clouds
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Seattle PI Monday August 26. Beautiful color Photo on the FRONT
PAGE The photo is of a drum circle  There is a Headline above the
photo which reads "Drumming up Support" underneath is the caption "
Drummers provide a backbeat at Hempfest '97. Thousands yesterday
attended the festival, aimed at advocating the legalization of
marijuana. On the front page of the local section these is another
color photo, this one of folks standing in the drenching rain. The
headline above reads "Hempfest attracts crowds and clouds". The
caption reads "Two festival goers seek cover under a cardboard box
after a quick and powerful rain storm drenched the crowd at Hempfest
"97 at Myrtle Edwards Park.

The attached article reads:

By Gordy Holt

Just as Hempfest '97 reached its stride yesterday afternoon an angry south
wind kicked up over Elliot Bay and black clouds hurled rain hard against
the crowd at Myrtle Edwards Park.

"Benny Hinn must have ordered this," growled retired carpenter Joe
Fitzgerald, referring to the faith healer who played to a packed Key
Arena last week.

"Or the police," sighed another voice from the crowd.

The festivals tiedied, organicfoodeating, hackysackkicking crowd was
not easily discouraged by a little rain, or by the overwhelming police
presence. They were there to enjoy themsleves with advocating the
legalization of marijuana.

Cops were everywhere  in twos and threes on horseback, in pairs on
bicycles and on foot in and out of uniform and in and out of the crowd.

West Precinct Capt Tag Gleason said the peak crowd at the Hempfest was
about 5,000, as the storm hit at about 2:40 PM. But the parade of people
into the park never seemed to falter once the rain quit.

Festival organizers claimed between 25,000 and 40,00 people attended the
daylong festival. Most of them, clad in rainbow colors, knit hats, and
beads and braids, were in their 20's.

There were few problems, Capt. Gleason said "about 30 to 25 individuals"
were sited for illegal marijuana use and removed from the park by minivan.

But the lowly hemp plant as a smoking product also competed with hemp
seed, hemp fiber, hemp food and hemp clothing products you wouldn't want
to smoke.

The celebration at Myrtle Edwards Park was the first since 1995, when the
first hemp festival drew about 60,000 to the waterfront park.

Hempfest '97, like Hempfest '95, climaxed a weeklong festival dedicated
to the notion that hemp, a fast growing plant that can be grown just about
anywhere, is a viable raw material for a range of profitable  and legal 
fiber products.  The weeklong selling of this message (and the history
behind it) included a film screening in Belltown, a symposium on Capitol
Hill and a fashion show in Pioneer Square.

At Myrtle Edwards Park yesterday, a woman know simply as "Ah" showed how
she could make a living from hemp. She stood vigil over a table of
hemprelated products that ranged from little brownielike cookies ("Ten
for a dollar," she cooed. "And no, they aren't THAT kind of cookie.") to a
skin lotion offered in scented and unscented mixtures.

The lotions, she said, were made from an oil pressed from hemp seeds grown
in Inner Mongolia. Why Inner Mongolia ?

"It's illegal to grow them here," she said.

Thus the festival's primary theme: Legalize the stuff!

Already heading toward November's general ballot is Initiative 685, which
would legalize the medical uses of the drug THC, produced by the hemp
plant and known popularly as marijuana.  The initiative also would loosen
restrictions on other illegal drugs and allow judges to fee nonviolent
offenders convicted of drug crimes.

Initiative proponents say smoking marijuana helps lessen nausea in cancer
patients on chemotherapy and reduce pressure within the eyes of those with
glaucoma.

Supporters of Initiative 685 have turned in enough signatures to qualify
for the ballot.

At yesterday's festival, marijuana advocates solicited signatures for a
proposed initiative to the Legislature that would regulate cultivation,
sale and use of marijuana.

Tom Hawkins of Coulee City and Mark Greer of Porterville, Calif. preached
the gospel of wholesale legalization for the growing of hemp.

Greer said hemp is a good cash crop beyond medicine and recreation. "It
grows like a weed," he said, and is able to provide fiber of a quality
good enough for a range of products from clothing to paper.

The two men are associated with a taxexempt national organization, Drug
Sense, which has launched an assault on the war on drugs.  Greer and
Hawkins believe the Internet will help them in their reform effort by
allowing a free flow of information about the plant.

Hempfest "97 was not just about hemp, however. There were booths selling
huge bowls of strawberry shortcake, large cups of espresso, cold cans op
pop and hot meals in addition to Tshirts, pins and ... just plain thins.

For $4 you could buy a hemp bandana, or at $25 and up, a tall man with
matted hair would sell you a tootlong section of bamboo sawed in a way
that made it sound like tiny marimba band when hit with a stick.

While marijuana was not sold openly, plenty of pot paraphernalia was:
water pipes, bamboo bongs, rolling papers, stash boxes and other
accessories.

"Sow Hemp", proclaimed one Tshirt. "everybody must get stoned," said
another.

  
PI reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 2064488156