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Hemp Headlines

1. Mexico decriminalizes personal possession of marijuana
2. Marijuana may protect brain from binge drinking
3. Third LA-area raid: Royal Temple of Zion in Echo Park

CelebStoner.com Entertainment Report with Steve Bloom, co-author of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life

• Exclusive interview with John Davis, who kicked Dominic Holden out of Hempfest
  

  Chris Goldstein, John Wilson, and Ken Wolski (©Chris Goldstein)

• Reply from Dominic Holden regarding Hempfest incident
• 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• It’s a Rap Friday – ‘The Weed Song’ by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

Cannabis Community

• Jim Miller and Ken Wolski, founders of Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey and Chris Goldstein, Executive Director of NORML New Jersey, on the trial of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson, facing 20 years for growing 17 plants for medical purposes. Wilson is not only not allowed to mention his medical use of marijuana, the judge has forbidden him from even mentioning that he has multiple sclerosis.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Seattle Stranger writer kicked out of Hempfest backstage

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• How to stay healthy at summer festivals
• Cannabis and cancer – how THC may be the prevention, if not the cure
• Cannabis and lung function – new data shows tokers to have the same lungs as non-smokers

NORML Newsmakers

• My appearance at the Laughs Comedy Stage at Seattle Hempfest

(The Stranger’s SLOG) I got kicked out of Hempfest’s backstage yesterday, apparently for suggesting in The Stranger that the event should lose the tie-dyes on the stages and go for a broader appeal. …After listening to a few speakers and consuming one gigantic veggie burrito with pickled jalapeños, I went behind the main stage. I was talking to a friend when a member of the Hempfest board, John Davis, whom I’ve known for about 15 years, approached me and said, “You can’t be back here. You have to go.” …Davis snatched the pass out of my hand, and as the security guy escorted me out, he said that it’s because I’m a “member of the media.”

Uh, I’ve been a member of the media in past years, and I’ve always been allowed backstage. And before I was a reporter—back when I was the spokesman for Hempfest—several times we’d have reporters walk freely backstage. So what gives? Hempfest director Vivian McPeak reportedly told a staffer, who went to ask what the fuck was going on, that I had “proverbially stabbed [him] in the back.” But, Vivian, I thought you were omnipotent. About 10 minutes earlier, he was on the main stage mic referring to himself as “the great Vivian McPeak.”

The issue, clearly, is that Hempfest organizers are outraged that anyone would dare critique their event. They cannot separate themselves from their culture from their politics. So any commentary of their political strategy (simply saying they should take down the cheesy tie-dyes) is apparently a personal backstabbing. That’s a tragically self-centered perspective for any organization, political cause, or leader—especially one that is “great.”

Dominic, you must have been ousted shortly after I had a chance to say hi to you and your brother backstage. I had my media people nearly kicked out of backstage at Main Stage as well, as Hempfest had a “backstage escort” requirement this year. Any folks with media passes without an accompanying speaker or musical performer were kicked out, I was told. Too many people trying to relax backstage didn’t want any photos or stories about what they were doing, I guess.

I appreciated the back-and-forth we had on this topic over at the Stash. I’m still of the opinion that 200,000 people gathered peacefully in a park for a weekend openly smoking marijuana while an all-volunteer crew wrangles hundreds of vendors and six stages is enough of a political statement as it is.

I also understand the “that ain’t me” reaction from many pot smokers. It’s the same reaction my wife gives when she sees bud-covered naked women in High Times Magazine. To that I say, great, please, form a new magazine or present a new Hempfest for all the cannabis-closeted squares to come enjoy. If there are so many who are so uncomfortable with hippie tie-dye patchouli-stained ghettoes, there surely should be a huge audience for the new Short-Haired Respectable Polos & Dockers Hempfest with special guest Kenny G, and there must be plenty of ad revenue available for the new Cannabis Connoisseur Magazine.
Many have brought up the Hempfest “Objective and Purpose”. 200,000 people openly smoking pot equaling no disaster is a huge example of “educat[ing] the public” “through example”. Panels on hemp, media, medicine, politics, and law at Hemposium are nothing but educating the public. NORML, Oregon NORML, SAFER, and other non-profits are educating the public. Vendors selling everything you can make from hemp are educating the public.

Personally, my walking an estimated seven miles through wall-to-wall people to speak on four stages was educating the public. I guarantee you hundreds of people now have the Congressional Switchboard (202-224-3121) and the White House Comment Line (202-456-1111) programmed in their cell phones now from speeches by me and Madeline Martinez. Hundreds of people now know the prohibition stories of GA Rep. Tommy “Caning for Potheads” Benton, Michigan student Derek Copp, and Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo. I spent 25 minutes at Laughs Comedy Stage educating a growing crowd about police tactics in drug busts, marijuana health statistics, marijuana usage statistics, Constitutional rights, and state and federal legislation.

Hempfest is what it is and is the most successful one of its kind. The criticisms you leveled at Hempfest were taken culturally by people who consider themselves hippies and represent themselves with tie-dye and other counter-cultural attire. Don’t be surprised they took it like organizers of a pro-Israel rally might take it if you suggested more mainstream people would be attracted to their cause if they got rid of all the Hebrew writing, offered some pork dishes, and kept those guys dressed in all black with the funny hats and curly-q sideburns off the stage.

I know that’s not how you intended it; you intended constructive criticism for a huge public event to be more effective. I also know you didn’t mean it personally; I’ve hung out with you at Hempfest and other events before and I know you to not be abrasive or insulting. But in this case, Dom, you may have just been a bit culturally insensitive. The people pouring their heart into Hempfest are hippies, so “lose the hippie vibe” sounds like “you people bring us all down” to them, and that’s a helluva thing to read when you’re dedicating a large part of your life to something.

And, in fact, the hippies go out of their way to make Hempfest as diverse as possible. I heard a 1930′s style old timey band, hardcore gangsta rap, a bitchin’ jazz acoustic guitar player, and an Ozzy Osbourne cover all on the same Main Stage (not all at once, of course). I saw Boca, Veggie, and Beef burgers served for the backstage VIPs. There was a Dancesafe stage playing the most unhippie electronica possible. I saw more guylinered multi-chained-droopy-drawers Goth kids than I did hippies.

Finally, as one commenter above made the point of “white folks don’t need a month”, Hempfest is for the freaky, the counter-cultural, the hippie to celebrate marijuana. The conservative-looking minivan-driving couple with the house in the hills who smoke pot in the garage when the kids are away don’t need a Hempfest; they’re not the ones getting harassed by police and busted for marijuana. (It’s a bit of a chicken and egg, isn’t it? The squares don’t want to be busted like hippies, so only the hippies are left to agitate for marijuana legalization, which the squares would support if only if weren’t so hippified. I say the hippies have done their share. I am ready and willing to give speeches at Squarefest whenever it comes to fruition.)

Dominic Holden, a writer for the Seattle Stranger and former director at Hempfest, opines on the event in this week’s edition:

Hempfest, which pioneered the movement in these parts, is regressive and archaic. Tie-dyes hang from the stages, and reggae-rock fusion blares from the amplifiers. There’s nothing advantageous about sticking a pressing political issue in a countercultural time warp, and there’s nothing attractive about a rally that looks more interested in satisfying its own indulgences than effectively advocating for political reform. As it is now, Hempfest drives away unknown numbers of would-be supporters—politically engaged city folk. Here’s what Hempfest can do to avoid squandering its potential.

Lose the cultural baggage: Hippies are the stigma of the pot movement. There’s nothing wrong with hippies, mind you, and Hempfest itself is wonderful. (I was a director and permit holder for many years, fighting from the inside for Hempfest to ditch the hippie accessories.) But countercultural celebrations and drug-legalization advocacy are mutually undermining ambitions. In truth, the crowd at Hempfest is mostly mainstream folks, freakishly hot guys without shirts, and perky little emo kids. But clichéd hippie artifacts and music—chosen by the organizers—make people who don’t identify with a tiny cultural niche want to run screaming.

Hempfest doesn’t need to lose the “hippie vibe” any more than gay pride parades need to lose the drag queens, any more than “God & Country” festivals need to lose the Confederate flags, any more than block parties need to lose the baggy-pantsed teenagers, any more than DC cocktail parties need to lose the Brooks Brothers stick-up-the-ass WASPs.

Hempfest is what it is. 150,000 or so marijuana aficionados peacefully gathering to smoke pot, listen to music and speakers, maybe buy a piece of glass or a t-shirt. The magnitude of the event is enough of a political statement.

As we face global warming, corporate rule, rising obesity, pharmaceutical stupor, and digital overload, I look back and realize the hippies were right about sustainability, local control, organic diet, herbal medicine, and music and art. Those ethics are worth celebrating.

The sad thing is that because of marijuana’s illegality, only those with true dedication and nothing to lose could come out of that cannabis closet and make something like Hempfest happen. Because hippies in tie-dye weren’t shackled by corporate drug tests for employment and would lose no face in their community by openly supporting marijuana, they are the ones who became the standard bearers for legalization. But now that the mainstream wants to legally enjoy 4:20, you want the tie-dyed hippies to get in the back of the bus?

We’ve discussed this before, Dom, and we do have some similar personal views regarding Hempfest; I too recoil from the scent of patchouli and body odor, the mundanity of drum circles and reggae, and the freakishly pierced/tattooed/dreadlocked. Then I get onstage to speak and look over the mass of humanity on the waterfront all sharing one dream – legalized cannabis and hemp – and find that the positive far outweighs negative at Hempfest.

The marketing could be tweeked, the speakers could be more well-known, but all-in-all 150,000 people gathered for two days smoking pot without any major incident gives lie to the reefer madness about amotivation and criminality among cannabis consumers. Until the short-haired, polo shirt, respectable job mainstream pot smokers put on an event that attracts 150,000, let Hempfest be Hempfest. It’s a party, y’all; don’t try to read too much into it.

(Besides if you want a serious button-down political examination of marijuana policy, there’s always NORML National Conference in San Francisco, Sep. 24-26, chock full of doctors, lawyers, political strategists, media personalities, professional athletes, researchers, and celebrities. And very little tie dye.)

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-02-13

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Today’s Stash features an interview with our Daily Toker Tunes artist, Potluck!

We’ve also got Steve Bloom from Celebstoner with the latest on the hockey team that’s having “Don’t Be Like Mike” night and another NFL stoner.

Dominic Holden from The Stranger is here to discuss the Kerlikowske appointment as Drug Czar.

And my parents are driving in from Boise!  They’ve come to see my brother, former Stash music director “Less Than Radical” Josh, starring in a play here in Stumptown.  It will be good to see the whole famn damily.  Tonight’s Paul Stanford’s TV show, tomorrow is a cardholder meeting, a play, and Valentine’s Day, Sunday is the Oregon NORML TV show, and then Monday I’m back here.  Whee!

Pot arrests have plummeted under Kerlikowske’s watch. When he took office in 2000, Seattle police arrested 332 people for misdemeanor marijuana possession (.pdf); by 2006, the number had dropped to 148. Some of that decline is likely due to Seattle passing Initiative 75, which made marijuana enforcement the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority. But Kerlikowske didn’t try to block I-75. While City Attorney Tom Carr joined Bush’s Drug Czar John Walters at a press conference to oppose the measure—and Carr campaigned against the measure for months—Kerlikoske was mum. And after voters passed the law in 2003, SPD told a City Council Marijuana Policy Review Panel that “officers [had] been verbally advised during their roll calls that investigation and arrest of adults for possession of cannabis intended for personal use is to be their lowest priority.” At Hempfest—where tens of thousands of people smoke pot in unison—SPD sergeant Lou Eagle told a reporter, “We are not out there to enforce the marijuana laws.” And medical-marijuana patients, who could still be arrested despite the state’s medical-pot law, found Kerlikowske fair. Had Kerlikowske chosen, SPD could have maintained or increased pot arrests. But he didn’t.

via The Stranger | Slog | Czar Struck: Obama’s Brilliant Pick for Drug Czar.

That Queasy Feeling | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper
As former chairman for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden is the person most responsible for passing a package of laws in the mid-80s that we think of as today’s drug war. Biden presided over the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines that required judges to sentence dealers’ girlfriends and small-time peddlers to decades-long terms in state and federal prisons, where thousands are rotting to this day. 

He used hearings “to mislead his colleagues and the public… on drug policy where police, prosecutors and DEA officials got the opportunity [to speak] while opponents were kept out,” says Kevin Zeese, a former director of Common Sense for Drug Policy and a leading drug-law reformer in Washington, D.C. since the 1980s. “Pick a drug law you don’t like from the last 25 years and thank Senator Biden.”

It wasn’t just coincidence that these laws were passed while Biden was at the helm of the judiciary committee. He was the leading advocate for establishing the Office of National Drug Control Policy—the White House Drug Czar’s Office—an agency that to this day gives lip service to drug treatment programs but spends its millions on ads linking pot to terrorism. The ads actually increased drug-initiation rates among teenagers. He’s a conservative on most crime issues. And in recent years, Biden pushed the so-called RAVE Act, which criminalized everyone attending parties where drugs were found. Biden is the drug war embodied.

But, since this is Obama’s campaign, I’m trying to hope—hope that Biden can change.

“Our intentions were good, but much of our information was bad,” Biden said in February. He decried the very sentencing disparities he created between crack and cocaine, which is one of the reasons prisons are full of young black men. “Each of the myths upon which we based the sentencing disparity has since been dispelled or altered,” he said.

A change of heart, perhaps. And when it comes to the playing the old white guy card—a requisite in the run against McCain—Biden’s the king of hearts. Also, nice teeth. They must be fake. Anyway, I like to think that the folks who pushed the drug war in the 1970s and 1980s—Richard Nixon, Nancy Reagan, Joe Biden—believed that it may have worked. Clinton should have known better. But by every measure of efficacy, it’s failed.

Obama cannot alter drug laws on his own—he’s lived a youth of indiscretions. (Realistically, no politician can make any sweeping changes; it must be incremental.) But if anyone has the credibility at the federal level to say we were wrong, to push the Senate for sentencing reform, to back Barney Frank’s bill in the House to decriminalize pot—nobody is more more capable than Joe Biden. And if he does, this could be an excellent four years.

As one commenter at The Slog noted, with Obama/Biden, we may have a shot in hell at getting some positive drug law reform.  With McCain/Palin, we have no shot in hell.  And while the Greens and Libertarians are much better on the drug issue, they’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected.

My personal recommendation – not a NORML official stance – when asked how a drug law reformer should vote is to first figure out whether your state is “safe”.  If it is a lock for either McCain (say, Utah) or Obama (say, California), then vote the issue and throw some love to the Greens or Libs.  The more votes they get the more their platform has to be recognized by the Dems.

But if you’re in a “battleground” state, I believe personally that you’ve got to put your hope on Obama and cross your fingers with Biden.  John McCain literally has turned his back on wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patients and said he doesn’t believe in medical marijuana.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I believe that there is some possibility that quote ‘medical marijuana’ could spread into other areas and that the definition of medical could expand rather dramatically. You’ve seen that in other cases.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)

“I don’t think marijuana is healthy, I don’t think that it is good for people, and I also, there is a large body of medical opinion that says there is plenty of other medications that are more effective and better and less damaging to one’s health to use to relieve pain.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)

“I think there’s other ways to relieve pain … I do not believe in legalizing it because I think there’s other ways of relieving pain and applying medical help than that, and that’s my position.” (August 9, 2007, town hall meeting in Merrimack, New Hampshire)

“I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view and that’s the view of the federal drug czar and other experts, although that is also a debatable question. I think that there is much more effective ways of relieving pain and suffering than the use of marijuana, and so therefore I view it as something that I do not support. That’s just my considered opinion, I’d be glad to receive additional information.” (August 11, 2007, house party in Milton, New Hampshire)

“No town hall meeting in New Hampshire is complete without some young man who has been sent here to talk to me about medical marijuana … The fact is I do not approve of the medical use of marijuana, I never have and I never will, and you all keep coming to the town hall meetings. I’m always glad to see you, it helps with the attendance.” (September 29, 2007, house party in Exeter, New Hampshire)

“Every medical expert I know of, including the AMA, says that there are much more effective and much better treatments for pain than medical marijuana … I still would not support medical marijuana because I don’t think that the preponderance of medical opinion in America agrees … that it’s the most effective way of treating pain.” (September 30, 2007, town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire)

“The law is the law, and I do not believe it’s going to be changed, and it’s not going to be changed by me.” (October 23, 2007, town hall meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire)

“The will of the people, my friend, is that medical marijuana is not something that the quote ‘people’ want. Certain people feel strongly about this issue, and they show up at most town hall meetings, obviously feel very strongly about it. There is no convincing evidence … there’s evidence, but no convincing evidence to me that medical marijuana relief of pain and suffering cannot be accomplished by prescriptions from doctors.” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call)

“There may be times when the will of the people, for example Iraq, the will of the people, unfortunately is that we withdraw from Iraq immediately or very very soon. I don’t share that view of the will of the people. And I think the will of the people was that we get out of Korea when Harry Truman was president of the United States, but then he decided to do what he thought was best for the will of the country. Now, I don’t compare this issue with Iraq or Korea, but, look, I’ll be glad to continue this discussion, and read the stuff about it, but I am not changing my position on quote ‘medical marijuana,’ okay?” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call, said upon being reminded that the will of the people in California was to make medical marijuana legal)

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-09-04.mp3)

Sorry to be so late, Stashers, but I got caught up doing a lot of research and blogging under my political hat.  See, there was this speech last night that was #2 all-time in ratings for a political convention (somebody else last week scored #1) and I had to address that over at the Blend and the Writ.

It’s 420 Comedy day, and Tere Joyce joins us again.  This time she brings us a twenty-year stand-up vet, Bill Browning of ComedyNation.com, and we have a couple laughs talking about the current political race and, of course, weed!

I’ve also got the first portion of my Marijuana and the Media panel from the Hemposium at the Seattle Hempfest.  Joining me in the discussion are Dominic Holden, a writer for The Stranger and an activist with NORML; David Nott from Reason Magazine; Mason Tvert from SAFER Choice; and our own Steve Bloom from CelebStoner.com (it was my first time meeting Steve face-to-face).

Plus we’ve got some music from Portland’s late lamented Elliott Smith.  Yeah, it’s getting all Portlandy up in this place… because the Portland Hempstalk is just two days away!