hempfest boston

Somewhere around 300,000 people converged on the Seattle waterfront
Saturday and Sunday to attend the 19th annual Seattle Hempfest, the
world's largest marijuana "protestival," as organizers like to call
it. While organizers and drug reform advocates were out in force to
encourage attendees to get involved in changing the marijuana laws,
for most of the crowd, Hempfest was one big pot party. And that has
some movement critics unhappy.

Last year's attendance was estimated at 310,000. While figures are
not yet in for last weekend's event, given the huge crowds, it is
likely this year's figure will be even higher.

With hundreds of vendors selling glass pipes, bongs, tie-dyes, and
assorted other pot-related paraphernalia, as well as dozens of food
vendors, with seven stages alternating musical acts with activist
speakers, and with crowds so thick that people literally could not
move at some points by mid-afternoon on both days, Hempfest seems
more like a dense urban community than a festival. And like any urban
community, Hempfest had a police presence, but as far as can be
determined, police couldn't find anyone to arrest despite the
ever-present scent of marijuana smoke in the air.

That's in part because Seattleites voted in 2003 to make adult
marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority. But it is
also in part because, unlike some other police forces, the Seattle
police actually acknowledge and heed the will of the voters. In all
of last year, Seattle police arrested only 133 people for marijuana
possession -- and those were all people who had already been detained
on other charges.

It is that tolerant attitude toward marijuana that makes the massive
law-breaking at Hempfest possible. In almost any other city in the
US, such brazen defiance of the drug laws would almost certainly
result in mass arrests. Even this weekend's Boston Freedom Rally, the
second largest pro-marijuana event in the country, will see numerous
arrests -- if police behavior in the past is any indicator.

Drug reform organizations including NORML, Students for Sensible Drug
Policy and StoptheDrugWar.org (publisher of this newsletter) were
present with booths or tables, as were numerous medical marijuana
support groups. But those booths and tables had to compete with
bong-sellers and pipe-makers, t-shirt vendors and hippie couture
outlets, and the hundreds of other vendors cashing in on the crowds.

To really get the drug reform message out, Hempfest organizers and
reform activists took to the various stages between acts to exhort
audiences to make Hempfest a party with a purpose. Among the
nationally known activists speechifying at Hempfest were "Radical
Russ" Belville of NORML, Sandee Burbank of Mothers Against Misuse and
Abuse, Mike and Valerie Corral of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical
Marijuana (WAMM), Debbie Goldsberry of the Berkeley Patients Group,
Washington state legislator and head of the Voluntary Committee of
Lawyers Roger Goodman, medical marijuana specialist Dr. Frank Lucido,
former medical marijuana prisoner Todd McCormick, cannabis scientist
Dr. Robert Melamede, and NORML founder Keith Stroup and current
executive director Allen St. Pierre. For a complete list of speakers, go here.

Activists also educated those interested in learning more about
marijuana law reform and related topics at the Hemposium tent, which
featured panels on "Human Rights for Cannabis Farmers, Dispensers and
Consumers," "Global Hempenomics," "Cannabliss: An Entheogen for the
Ages," "Cannabis and the Culture Wars: The Coming Truce," and
"Cannabis Coverage: Reefer Sanity for the 21st Century." For a
complete list of Hemposium panels, click here.

While Hempfest came off without any serious problems, it has sparked
a couple of related controversies. This week, Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation head Eric Sterling wrote a blog post, Hempfest is Huge,
But is It Good Politics?, in which he answered his own question with
a resounding "no." Hempfest and similar rallies are "a political
fraud," he wrote. Even worse, they are "advertisements for
irresponsible drug use."

Similarly, former Hempfest organizer Dominic Holden stirred the pot
the week before Hempfest with an article in the Seattle Stranger, A
Few Words About Hempfest, in which he complained it was a
"patchouli-scented ghetto" and overly countercultural. Like Sterling,
Holden saw the hippiesque trappings of Hempfest as counterproductive.
"Countercultural celebrations and drug legalization advocacy are
mutually undermining ambitions," he wrote.

Hempfest organizers were not amused, and on Sunday, Holden was
removed from the back of the Main Stage by unhappy erstwhile
comrades. They explained why in an interview with Steve Bloom's
Celebstoner, and Holden continued the spat with his own interview.

Perhaps the organizers of Hempfest and similar events will listen to
Sterling and Holden, but probably not. Hempfest is a celebration of
the pot-smoking counterculture, and it's not likely to go away or
change its ways because a guy in a suit and a disaffected former
friend are unhappy with how it operates. Straight-laced drug
reformers will most likely just have to put up with Hempfest and its
pot-happy ilk. They can treat it like the crazy aunt in the attic,
but they can't get rid of it.