HEMP DRAWS DOLLARS

Pro-Pot Funds Surprise Foes

The four Alaska campaigns working to legalize marijuana have raked in total
contributions of more than $160,000, including donations of about $27,000
from one Arizona woman, according to campaign disclosure reports the groups
filed this week.

"My goodness," gasped legalization opponent Patrice O'Connell when she
learned of that total. She is treasurer of No on 5, the only registered
campaign fighting Proposition 5. Her group has taken in only $2,758 so far.

Prop. 5, which Alaskans will see on the ballot in November, would eliminate
state penalties for adults who grow marijuana, distribute it or use it in
private places. It also would grant amnesty to people already convicted of
state marijuana crimes, and convene a panel to consider restitution for them.

Free Hemp in Alaska, headquartered in a Spenard Road building with a giant
cannabis leaf painted on the exterior, raised more money than any other
Prop. 5 group, about $70,000. Most of it -- some $49,000 -- came in 6,853
donations of less than $100. Campaigns aren't required to reveal the names
of two-figure contributors.

Free Hemp chairman Al Anders said his group has been raising money by
selling T-shirts and bumper stickers and through "instant karma" donation
jars at its events. Last week, campaign workers stood at traffic
intersections selling stickers and collecting cash in five-gallon buckets,
he said.

About $20,000 of the large contributions to Free Hemp are from Outside.

John Gilmore of San Francisco gave $10,000. Anders said he hit Gilmore up
at the Libertarian Party's national convention this summer in Anaheim, Calif.

Robert E. Field of Pennsylvania, whom Anders described as a legalization
activist, gave $5,000.

"That was manna from heaven," Anders said.

Former U.S. Attorney Wev Shea, who has been working with No on 5, said the
out-of-state contributions are telling.

"This movement is from outside Alaska, and it's part of a nationwide
movement to liberalize all drug laws," he said.

Hemp 2000, an Alaska campaign that emphasizes the industrial possibilities
of the nonintoxicating form of cannabis, received much of its money from a
Bisbee, Ariz., woman named Patricia Steward.

Steward contributed $18,000 to Hemp 2000, and also paid about $6,000 in
legal expenses on behalf of the campaign.

Campaign disclosure reports to the Alaska Public Offices Commission list
her occupation as art dealer, entrepreneur and self-employed.

"She calls herself the Duchess of Hemp," said Anders, whose group received
$2,000 from her. She also says she is the goddaughter of Harry S. Truman,
according to Anders.

Her answering machine in Bisbee tells callers they've reached "the home of
the duchess."

Neither she nor Hemp 2000 chairwoman Ronda Marcy returned phone messages
Tuesday.

The hemp duchess is the biggest contributor of money to Hemp 2000, but
Marcy is the largest overall contributor to the campaign, if you count
non-monetary donations. Marcy, a Wasilla paralegal, reported that she
contributed more than $39,000, almost all of it in hard goods. Among other
things, she has given the campaign five copy machines valued at $5,875, 59
swivel chairs and 13 mirrors at $100 apiece, $3,000 in karaoke machines,
and a $5,000 espresso machine for the campaign's downtown headquarters.

Wanda Carp, treasurer for Hemp 2000 who also gave the campaign goods valued
at several thousand dollars, said the in-kind contributions were mostly
things she and Marcy already owned and that they would get back at the end
of the campaign.

Golden Heart Hemp, a pro-legalization campaign based in Ester, reported a
total income of nearly $6,000 -- $500 from Steward, $500 from a man in
British Columbia, $300 from an Anchorage woman and the rest in small donations.

The only pro-Prop. 5 group Steward didn't give to, according to the
reports, was Alaskans for Privacy, a campaign led by Anchorage lawyers,
some of whom have worked on the decriminalization effort for years. It
reported nearly $10,000 in income, $9,000 of it from Bruce McKinney, a
Microsoft millionaire from Seattle who has funded similar campaigns in
Washington and Oregon. The money was spent on polling.

O'Connell, the treasurer for No on Hemp, said her campaign is just getting
started. A few corporations have pledged checks but they haven't come in
yet, she said.

Shea, who has been spreading the group's message through radio debates,
said he's worried Prop. 5 would turn the state into a drug haven.

"Alaska is going to be looked on as a place where you can get a Permanent
Fund dividend check of almost $2,000 and you can sit around and smoke
dope," he said.

Anders says Prop. 5 is about ending the war on marijuana, which he says
puts harmless people behind bars. The campaign money for legalization won't
buy victory, but it is an indication of the issue's popular support, he said.

"The drug war is not going to die an easy death, but we're going to win,
and we're going to win because we've got grass-roots support," he said, no
pun intended.