HEMP FESTIVAL ORGANIZER EYES GOVERNOR'S MANSION

HARRISBURG - There are big goings-on at the home of the World Hemp Festival.

Not only is Bill Conde out of jail. And not only is he going ahead with
this year's three-day music and hemp-products extravaganza, July 20 through 22.

Conde, 58, also has decided to use this year's event as an "assembly of
electors," as described by Oregon law, to get himself nominated as a
minor-party candidate for governor in 2002.

"It came to me as I was pacing up and down like a caged animal the other
night in my jail cell," the longtime marijuana legalization activist said
Monday.

About that jail time: Conde served two weeks in the Linn County Jail after
being convicted in a jury trial last month on felony charges of abetting
delivery of a controlled substance and hindering prosecution. The charges
stemmed from allegations of open drug use and sales during the 1999 Hemp
Festival at his redwood lumber yard just east of Harrisburg.

After being released last Friday, Conde drove to Salem and double-checked
the practicality of his gubernatorial aspirations at the secretary of
state's office.

The electoral assembly rules require petition signatures from at least
1,000 registered voters to be gathered within a 24-hour period. Conde said
he expects a minimum of 6,000 people during the Saturday session of this
year's festival.

While he's at it, he said, he plans to begin circulating petitions among
festivalgoers to create a minor political party he would call the
"Environmental Party," and separate initiative petitions to put a marijuana
legalization measure on Oregon's 2002 general election ballot. Those
petition drives may last several months, he said.

Coincidentally, it was while Conde was in jail that this year's festival
was given the go-ahead by the Linn County Board of Commissioners. The board
voted 2-1 last Tuesday, with Conde in absentia, to issue an outdoor
assembly permit.

"It was bizarre," said Commissioner Roger Nyquist, who voted against the
permit request. "At 10 o'clock, we deliberated and made a decision to an
empty room."

Nyquist said the board attached several stipulations to the permit: Conde
must pay all outstanding fines he owes to the county, provide proof that he
has an insurance binder for the event, provide a partial list of food
vendors and provide parking space for sheriff's deputies who will be
assigned to monitor the festival.

All three commissioners expressed concerns about the "past history of the
event," Nyquist said, but his colleagues voted to issue the permit because
the county's outdoor assembly code addresses primarily food and sanitation
issues.

Staff from the county's environmental health division told commissioners
they believed the event would be manageable, from a health and sanitation
standpoint.

"We need to take a hard look at that outdoor assembly code," Nyquist said.

Meanwhile, expect everything from reggae to hiphop to psychedelic rock to
Mexican folk music at this year's World Hemp Festival. Conde said a total
of 18 bands have been booked for the three days and Artis the Spoon Man
will serve as master of ceremonies.

And vendors will be selling a variety of foods, drinks, clothing and other
products - most of them befitting the theme of the weekend.

"We'll have hemp microbrew beer, and there will be hemp clothing outer
garments, hemp ice cream and hemp hamburgers," Conde said. "There'll be
hemp dog collars, for crying out loud."

Tickets for the event can be purchased in advance at any Fastix outlet, or
at the gate on any of the days of the festival.

Prices are $22.50 in advance or $25 at the gate for a three-day pass;
$12.50 in advance or $15 at the gate for single-day passes; and $17 in
advance or $20 at the gate for "family day" passes that will allow carloads
of as many as seven people to attend Sunday.