(Riverfront Times) Carrie Goebel went to sleep this Halloween in her own version of paradise. She woke up to a nightmare.

The 46-year-old artist from Warrenton, Missouri, spent the last weekend in October camping out at Camp Zoe’s Spookstock music festival. “It was a good time, the weather was great, there were lots of good costumes,” she recalls. “Little kids were trick-or-treating from campsite to campsite. It was a good time. It was a great weekend.”

But on the morning of Monday, November 1, Goebel and several hundred other Spookstock holdovers awoke to find a small army of law enforcement officers storming the campground.

“I was making coffee and I look over and there was a pickup truck full of police officers and in the back was men in camouflage,” Goebel says. “They were going from tent to tent telling people to get out. There was a hazmat team and police cars from Salem and Rolla. I wasn’t there when the dogs came, but they wrote down my driver’s license info in a notebook and then filmed me leaving. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I was being terrorized.”

Only later did Goebel learn that the raid was the culmination of a four-year-long investigation by the DEA and the Missouri State Highway Patrol into alleged drug use and sales by Camp Zoe concertgoers. No one — including Camp Zoe owner Jimmy Tebeau — has been charged with a crime, but the eastern Missouri U.S. Attorney’s Office is attempting to confiscate the 352-acre property using a controversial process called asset forfeiture.

Representing Tebeau is NORML Board of Directors member Dan Viets, whom we hope to book on our NORML SHOW LIVE shortly to discuss the case.

Camp Zoe hosts other festivals aside from Spookstock, including the popular Schwagstock.  Other regional festivals, like Bonnaroo, could also be targeted by authorities who believe there’s illegal drug activity going on (read: young people smoking pot.)  Nobody in the Camp Zoe ownership has been charged with any crime, but they don’t have to be.  Asset forfeiture allows the government to charge the property with the crime of being acquired with dirty money or supporting the commission of crimes.  The property is considered guilty until the owner can prove it innocent in court.  Of course, sometimes the property seized and charged with a crime is the money the owner would have to use to hire an attorney to prove the money was innocent.

Yes.  Right here in the good ol’ USA.  Guilty until proven innocent.  Inanimate objects that commit crimes.  Innocent (or at least, uncharged) citizens forced to defend their property from the government.  Does your head hurt yet?

The doctrine of asset forfeiture dates back to English common law and was justified by our government as just desserts for the drug kingpins we catch.  Take that, you drug lord, we’ll snatch away the mansions and sports cars and jewelry you purchased with your illegal drug dealing!

In the real world, however, asset forfeiture is used by government to seize property for profit.  Almost every law enforcement agency has a budget line for income they expect to receive from forfeiture.  It is also used to bankrupt and intimidate people the government doesn’t like (see: Bernie Ellis) and shut down those crazy jam band hippie festivals, dagnabbit!

And it is only profitable through the prohibition of marijuana.

See, not many people do other illegal drugs.  Of the 21.8 million Americans who will use illegal drugs (or legal drugs illegally, like OxyContin) this month, 16.7 million are using marijuana.  Some people may be using more than one drug, so you can’t just subtract to come up with a number for the non-marijuana users.  However, when you note that 7 million were using legal drugs illegally, you’re then left with just 1.6 million cocaine users, 1.3 million hallucinogen users, 600,000 inhalant users, and only 200,000 heroin users this month.  Police need marijuana to remain illegal because there just aren’t enough seizure targets among the 3 million or so other illegal drug users.

The Inaugural HIGH TIMES American Medical Cannabis Cup in San Francisco - June 19-20, 2010 - San Francisco - Click here for more information

It’s not too early to be making your plans for the big cannabis events this spring and summer, which with all the reforms taking place in America should be the biggest cannabis protestival season to date (NORML SHOW LIVE will be streaming live from the events that are listed in boldface).  If you have an event you’d like to add to the list, please email me at stash@norml.org (I’m entering these from memory and I live on the West Coast, so please send me Midwest / Southern / Eastern events!)  Also check our NORML Cannabis Community Calendar for the smaller local events sponsored by NORML chapters around the country.

April 2010

• Michigan NORML helps present the Ann Arbor Hash Bash which kicks off the season on the first Saturday in April every year (April 3).  It’s just “one hour of power” around that famous 4:20pm time on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
• The International Hemp & Cannabis Expo takes place in San Francisco on the weekend preceding 4/20 (April 17 & 18). This debut event is happening at the Cow Palace.  “Radical” Russ will be a featured guest speaker.
• 

  CU Boulder's 4/20 Smoke Out draws an estimated 10,000 people

  The world’s largest 4/20 smokeout will likely occur at the campus of Colorado University – Boulder.  There are also big 4/20 celebrations held in many other cities in the US (send me info at stash@norml.org and I’ll post it), as well as Vancouver BC and Dunedin, New Zealand internationally (our NORML New Zealand chapters represent!)  4/20 is on a Tuesday this year and “Radical” Russ will be giving a 90-minute presentation on marijuana law reform at the University of Washington in Tacoma.

May 2010

• The Worldwide Marijuana March takes place in cities all around the world (logically enough) on the first Saturday in May (May 1 – May Day is Jay Day!)  Click the web link to find your city.  “Radical” Russ will appear at Portland, Oregon’s version of the march, the Global Cannabis March, all day at Pioneer Courthouse Square.

June 2010

• 

  This year marks a return to Hunter S. Thompson's famed "Owl Farm" on Woody Creek for a special afternoon cookout.

  NORML Aspen Legal Seminar takes place at the Gant Hotel in Aspen, Colorado, on June 10-12. This is NORML’s only event that is both accredited for cannabis law professionals’ continuing legal education and open to the general public.

• HIGH TIMES’ Medical Cannabis Cup debuts in San Francisco, California on June 19 and 20. This will be a daytime expo featuring medical marijuana experts and activists, leading dispensaries, medical cultivation seminars with Jorge Cervantes, Danny Danko, Nico Escondito and more!  Then on Saturday night the VIP party features performances by Eagles of Death Metal, Lyrics Born, and other top acts.

July 2010

• The Emerald Empire Hempfest takes place on July 16-18 in Eugene, Oregon. Willamette Valley NORML is a major organizer of the event and “Radical” Russ will be speaking at the event.

August 2010

• The second of two California HempCons promoted by Beverly Hills NORML takes place August 6-8 in San Francisco, California.
• 

  This is what Hempfest looked like BEFORE it became a three-day festival and BEFORE the City Attorney in Seattle said he would no longer prosecute personal possession of marijuana...

  The “mother of all hempfests”, the Seattle Hempfest, takes place on the third weekend of August (August 20-22) on Myrtle Edwards Park in Seattle, Washington. The Hempfest has expanded to three days for the first time this year and in a very promising development, the newly-elected city attorney in Seattle has said he will no longer prosecute personal marijuana possession offenses!  You thought Hempfest was smoky before…

September 2010

• 

  If you want to be truly effective as a reformer, you must network with your colleagues.

  NORML National Conference is scheduled for September 9-11, 2010 in Portland, Oregon. More details for hotel and conference registration will be announced soon.  NORML SHOW LIVE will carry most of the conference on pay-per-view internet streaming for the first time for activists on a budget or unable to make it to Portland.

• Portland Hempstalk takes place September 11 & 12 at Kelley Point Park in Portland, Oregon, making Sept. 9-12 the perfect four-day “two-fer” for cannabis activists to visit the Pacific Northwest.
• Boston Freedom Rally marks its 21st year on the Boston Common on September 18.

We’ll keep updating this page as more people send us their information.  You can easily find this page with the URL http://stash.norml.org/summer2010.

Now that June has arrived it is time to start looking at the Summer Festival Schedule.  I’m going to open this up with a look at the summer festivals I’ll be attending in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest.  I’m going to depend on you marvelous Stashers to keep me informed on what’s happening in your area.  Just send me an email at stash@norml.org and I’ll be glad to promote your area’s summer festival.  The Northwest schedule is listed in the Full Story below:

This weekend: June 6th, 7th, & 8th – The NORML Aspen Legal Seminar in Aspen, Colorado.  The finest legal minds in drug law reform gather to present on the state of cannabis and the law in our country.  I’ll be there podcasting for our NORML Special Events, as well as hosting my own XM Satellite political radio show live from Aspen.

July 11th, 12th, & 13th – The Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, Oregon.  This isn’t really so much a hempfest as it a celebration of the hippie lifestyle created by Ken Kesey and the Further folks who settled in the Eugene, Oregon area.  It’s unique in that the whole festival grounds are permanent in a very natural setting that makes you feel like you’ve landed in a small town in Middle Earth.

July 18th, 19th, & 20th – The Emerald Empire Hempfest in Eugene, Oregon.  This town, home of the University of Oregon, puts on a great hempfest.  I’ll be tabling with Oregon NORML there and may even get a chance to speak onstage.  Come on by and visit!

August 2nd & 3rd – The Spokane Hempfest in Eastern Washington state.  I’m looking for more details on this event, currently its website is down.

August 8th, 9th, & 10th – The Northwest World Reggae Festival, between Portland and Eugene, Oregon.  Last time I attended this one, they had very-unOregon-like temperatures in the triple digits.

August 16th & 17th – THE SEATTLE HEMPFEST, or as I like to call it, the big-’un!  If you are serious about your cannabis activism, you cannot miss the Seattle Hempfest.  Your chance to meet the movers and shakers in the community is unparalleled and just being in a crowd of tens-of-thousands of like-minded consumers is life-changing.  I’ll be there tabling with both NORML and Oregon NORML, and once again broadcasting my radio show live.

August 23rd & 24th – The Olympia Hempfest just south of Seattle in Olympia, Washington.  I won’t be able to make this one, as I will be on my way to Denver to cover the Democratic National Convention for NORML, Pam’s House Blend, and The Russ Belville Show.

September 6th & 7th – The Portland Hempstalk in my beautiful hometown.  We’re back on the river downtown on the Eastbank Esplanade.  We’ve got NORML Founder Keith Stroup as our special guest, and Jack Herer, and Seattle Hempfest favorites The Herbivores.  I’ll be there speaking and tabling as Oregon NORML is a major sponsor.