TOWN PREPARES FOR MUSICAL GATHERING

HARMONY -- A music festival organized by a well-known advocate for
marijuana legalization sent town officials here scrambling to come up
with a way to regulate it. Known as the Somerset County Jam Fest, the
three-day event begins Friday afternoon and will feature about 15
different rock 'n' roll and folk bands that will travel from as far
away as California and as nearby as Skowhegan.

Medicinal marijuana advocate Don Christen this year moved the event
from Starks, an hour down the road, to Harmony after several years of
trying to keep attendance numbers low enough to obviate his need to
obtain a mass gathering permit from the town.

"We're just like everybody else -- we might smoke a little pot, but
we don't cause anybody any problems," Christen said. "Plus, half the
town of Harmony probably smokes pot."

But some in Harmony would rather not be profiled in High Times
Magazine or listed as a "hippie haven" in Web sites like hippie.com
as has Starks.

One outspoken critic and Harmony resident, Bill Witt, predicts the
festival will bring with it problems that the town will have
difficulty handling, such as traffic jams and looting.

"These people are going to be urinating and defecating in the woods,
and we're going to be smelling it for a month," Witt said. "Property
sales are going to plummet as a result of the kind of people who are
drawn to this -- drug users, the criminal element."

Others don't think the festival represents such a malevolent force.

"I'm not against it because there's drugs. There's drugs everywhere,"
Harmony resident Mary Cobb said. "If they want to clean up drugs,
they'd better clean it up right here in town before they even get
here. I'm 74 years old, and I'm not against (the festival)."

A committee of Harmony residents has formed to produce an ordinance
that would require organizers to obtain a permit if their event
exceeds a certain number of people. There is not time before Friday's
festival to craft an ordinance, call an emergency town meeting and
put the measure to a vote, selectwoman Donna Olson said. But
selectmen aim to do so before summer's end.

Christen plans to have another concert, a reggae weekend called
Webejammin, Sept. 5-7, in Harmony.

Residents want to make sure the town is prepared for the festivals
and has adequate security, Olson said.

If 18 years of music and pot-smoking at festivals in Starks are any
measure, there may be a few problems, but perhaps not quite as
extreme as some predict, said Starks Planning Board Chairman Kerry Herbert.

"The issue (in Starks) was not opposition to the music festival. It
was concern over the community's ability to sustain that many people
coming in," Herbert said, citing a lack of access to portable toilets
and inadequate parking as problems encountered in Starks.

Herbert said Christen was not forced out of Starks, nor was he denied
a mass gathering ordinance.

Maine State Police puts additional troopers on duty to help patrol
the events, said Lt. Don Pomelow.

"We've had to arrest people because of fights, and charges have come
up against organizers because of loud music complaints," he said.
"I'm not sure how many times Maine Drug Enforcement has been in
there, but they have been able to go in, buy drugs and get search warrants."

Christen, a Madison resident, has run afoul of the law on occasion.
In April 2007, he was convicted of aggravated cultivation of
marijuana after saying he was growing the plant legally to supply to
patients who needed it for medical reasons. One of those patients, he
said, was his wife, who at that point was undergoing chemotherapy as
part of her treatment for cancer.

Maine is one of 12 states that have medical marijuana laws, although
many consider the law unworkable because it does not provide a legal
means of acquiring seeds or marijuana itself. People who qualify
under the law to use marijuana include cancer patients and people
with AIDS, glaucoma, and certain other conditions.

Patients or their caregivers may grow up to six marijuana plants,
although only three of those plants may be mature or flowering.

An article in High Times magazine reported that during the 2004
Hempstock music festival, one of the events Christen organizes
annually, 7-foot-high marijuana plants could be seen growing near the
grounds. According to the article, the plants were owned by someone
other than Christen.

The Harmony site is located on Carson Hill Road. Tickets for the full
weekend for camping cost $50, or $60 at the gate on opening night.
Camping for individual days costs $25 in advance or $30 at the gate,
which will open at noon Friday, July 18. More information can be
found at Christen's Web site, mainevocals.net.

Pomelow said that in recent years the number of complaints about
noise and other issues has declined along with attendance levels.

Concerts in Starks last year attracted 500 campers and several
thousand people who came just for the day, Christen said.

Christen has purchased 105 acres of land in Harmony, with about 24
acres cleared. He said he employs more than 20 security personnel and
an emergency medical crew in addition to volunteers and other staff members.

He and employees have been working in recent weeks to make sure there
are adequate portable toilets and parking spaces, he said.

"We'll do our best to make it safe," Christen said. "Most people are
just coming out to have fun, and don't want any problems."