{news} US WA: Advocates for Legalizing Marijuana Tout the Benefits at Hempfest

[clifford thornton]

This group will tour the state in Sept. Oct. time frame.  Norm is a great guy.

Cliff
Thornton for Governor
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard Lake<mailto:rlake at mapinc.org> 
To: aro at drugsense.org<mailto:aro at drugsense.org> 
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 4:17 AM
Subject: ARO: US WA: Advocates for Legalizing Marijuana Tout the Benefits at Hempfest


Newshawk: Your Donation Will Be Doubled www.drugsense.org/donate.htm<http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm>
Pubdate: Mon, 21 Aug 2006
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Copyright: 2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact: editpage at seattlepi.com<mailto:editpage at seattlepi.com>
Website: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/>
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408<http://www.mapinc.org/media/408>
Author: Mike Lewis, P-I Reporter
Cited: Seattle Hempfest http://www.hempfest.org<http://www.hempfest.org/>
Cited: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.leap.cc<http://www.leap.cc/>
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Seattle+Hempfest<http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Seattle+Hempfest>
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?233<http://www.mapinc.org/find?233> (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm<http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm> (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm<http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm> (Decrim/Legalization)

ADVOCATES FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA TOUT THE BENEFITS AT HEMPFEST

Former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper doesn't have dreadlocks, a 
Zig-Zag T-shirt or a single Phish album. He just sounds like it.

"It's laughable when people say we are winning the drug war," said 
Stamper, who had just finished a main-stage speech to the crowd 
gathered Sunday at the Seattle Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park. "The 
people who are prosecuting the drug war are invested psychically and 
financially. It's a holy war for them.

"We should legalize all drugs."

While the comments might be unusual for most law enforcement 
careerists, they are nothing new for Stamper, who was Seattle's top 
cop from 1994 to 2000. That is why organizers brought him in for the 
popular two-day, pro-pot festival.

Organizers estimated 150,000 people flowed into the waterfront park, 
which for the weekend turned into a dense village of food booths, 
stages, arts-and-crafts sellers, hemp product manufacturers, 
leafleteers, hackysack circles and picnickers.

Now in its 15th year, Hempfest is at its core all about 
decriminalizing marijuana. So is Stamper, especially after years of 
witnessing firsthand what he sees as the futility of the federal drug war.

The drugs are winning, he said. It's time to change tactics.

"Police should be focused on violent crime," he told the crowd.

Stamper, a member of pro-legalization Law Enforcement Against 
Prohibition, said many of his peers agree with him but will only say 
so privately. He told a story about a recent chat with a police chief 
in a "major American city" who had read Stamper's 2005 book, "Breaking Rank."

In it, Stamper advocates legalizing and regulating drugs as a way to 
reduce collateral problems such as addiction, violence and property crime.

"He came up to me after a talk and said he agreed with the chapter on 
drugs," Stamper said. "I asked, 'Can I quote you publicly?'

"He said, 'What have you been smoking?' "

Stamper saw similar reticence Sunday, as he preached to the choir in 
the sunny, 90-degree heat.

Waiting for hand-dipped ice-cream bars in the festival's munchie 
midway, Seattleites Tony Witherspoon, 31, and Neil Toland, 28, said 
they don't see pot as a rip in society's fabric.

"I wouldn't think a little weed is going to hurt anybody," Witherspoon said.

Added Toland, "There needs to be a little space for (pot)."

Creating that political space is what the festival is all about, 
chief organizer Dominic Holden said.

Hempfest has matured over the decade and a half it's existed, he 
said. Initially, it went unnoticed by local police. Then, Holden 
recalled, it became tense and even adversarial between organizers and 
police in the late 1990s -- at a time when Stamper was chief.

"For a while there, it seemed like it would go downhill," Holden 
said. "They were doing backstage raids looking for pot. They didn't find any."

Since then, the political landscape has changed, Holden said.

First, state voters approved medical marijuana. Subsequently, Seattle 
residents said they are not worried about pot as a law enforcement issue.

Now, he said, the relationship is much more mellow.

"We all want it to be a safe festival," Holden said. "The police have 
been great. Very collaborative.

"This might be our biggest festival ever 
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