HEMMING EVENT RALLIES MARIJUANA SUPPORT

Legalization Group's Ambition

Know your enemy. That was Heath Wintz's thinking.

So Wintz set up a door frame on Hemming Plaza, and allowed visitors
to yesterday's Hempfest to bust through a door with a battering ram
and search for a bag of green leafy substance in the cushions of a
couch.

"You get to beat down the door like a real DEA agent," shouted Wintz,
wearing a white shirt, a navy blue tie and a baseball cap with the
letters "D-E-A" -- the abbreviation for U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
- -- on its front.

Wintz was being facetious. In fact, the purpose of the festival
hosted by Florida Cannabis Action Network in the shadows of City Hall
was to rally support for legalizing marijuana for medicinal,
industrial and personal use.

Prior to yesterday's event, organizer Scott Bledsoe said the group
had already collected 50,000 of the 435,000 signatures required to
place a referendum on next year's ballot to legalize the medical use
of marijuana.

Bledsoe said yesterday's focus was to add more signatures from the
several hundred people attending the event and, perhaps just as
importantly, to educate people about the benefits of marijuana use.

"I smoke a joint for the same reason other people go home and pop
open a beer," said Michael Johnson, 52, who wore a marijuana leaf
garland made of silk around his neck and carried a sign that said
"Know the Truth."

Marijuana serves the same purpose, he said, but is safer. There are
fewer accidents caused by drivers under the influence of marijuana
alone than drivers intoxicated by alcohol, Johnson said.

Legalizing medical marijuana would be "a foot in the door" to
legalizing it for any use, said Johnson, a member of the network.
"It's nobody's business what I put in my body, least of all the
government."

A federal judge in March ruled that the group could proceed with the
outdoor event without insurance or police protection, despite a city
ordinance that had required both.

In a lawsuit against the city, the group argued such requirements
could be used to discriminate and prevent the free speech of certain
groups. Last year, the city billed the network $3,600 for on-site
security, medical assistance and electricity.

This year, Bledsoe said the event was held without a permit because
the city is still in the process of rewriting its ordinance to comply
with U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger's ruling, which keeps the
ordinance from being enforced until it is fixed.

Despite urgings of band members who played in the plaza, no one in
the crowd appeared to test the marijuana laws by lighting up. Police
reported no arrests.

Instead, dozens milled around booths where people were selling
T-shirts, necklaces and water pipes made of hemp. The pipes are
illegal if used for marijuana, said vendor Madeleine Febres. Febres
said she advocates people use them for tobacco.

"Whatever people do with them once they leave this park is their
business," she said.

At other booths, members of the Green Party and Libertarian Party
handed out pamphlets.

"We don't think drugs are a good idea. We don't advocate drug use,"
said Douglas Klippel, chair of the Libertarian Party of Duval County.
"But the war on drugs has been an absolute failure. It's time we give
it up."

Bledsoe agreed, saying the laws are too strict and harm too many
people for no good reason.

"Prohibition doesn't work. We learned that in the 1930s," he said.