US OR: Festival Turns Up The Heat On Legalizing Hemp

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Serena Markstrom

Friday 14 Jul 2006

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It's a good thing hemp is such a strong plant, because it takes a
beating and absorbs much of the bad publicity of the more potent,
high-THC version of cannabis: marijuana.

Of course, most hemp activists wouldn't mind if all forms of the
seven-leafed plant were legalized.

In 2004, organizers had to cancel the Emerald Empire HempFest when it
couldn't satisfy the city's permitting process or afford insurance to
have the event with camping on private land.

The festival returned in 2005, but with much reduced attendance from its
inaugural in 2003.

Dan Koozer, the festival's executive director, said last year police
told him, "If they weren't called, they weren't coming. We pulled it
off and proved that we could do it."

That required a zero-tolerance policy for any illegal activity, which
volunteers will continue to enforce this year. Volunteers also will be
riding around on bicycles to find parking spaces and regulate problem
behavior, Koozer said.

Koozer noted that the biggest challenge to having the event at
Washington-Jefferson Park is the lack of parking. People are encouraged
to travel any way but by automobile.

Organizers hope the three-day event will attract as many as 4,500
people. It has modeled itself after the successful Seattle Hempfest,
which bills itself as the nation's leading cannabis policy reform event
and which attracted 150,000 people last year, according to the event's
Web site.

For Eugene's event, more than a dozen bands and speakers will take the
stage, and there will be vendors of hemp food and other hemp products,
such as clothing and paper.

Koozer said the objective is to educate the public to make the hemp
plant more accepted in our culture. "It's pretty ridiculous to have a
plant be against the law," he said. "It's not only a beautiful, but
extremely useful."

Bands will play continuously throughout the festival, which was
deliberately timed to happen the weekend after the Oregon Country Fair.
While bands are breaking down and setting up, speakers will give
20-minute presentations.

There also will be a hemp fashion show.

Koozer said no one will be turned away at the entrance for not paying,
but a suggested donation is $2 to $5 to help pay off debts from last
year's event, which finished in the red, and help the Eugene event stay
viable.

McKenzie Mist will provide free artesian water.
http://www.registerguard.com/

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