WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S HEMPFEST

The festival Vivian McPeak and Gary Cooke visualized from day one was
something like Woodstock, but their event had hundreds of thousands
of people packed in a Seattle park celebrating a green leafy substance.

Even some of their friends thought the idea of a big party pushing
for reform of anti-marijuana laws was half-baked.

"When we told people 15 years ago there would be 150,000 people
coming to a protest festival with 60 bands from around the country
all playing for free and the cops would smile, they didn't think it
could happen," McPeak said. "It defied conventional wisdom."

But McPeak and friends have built the Seattle Hempfest -- an annual
event started in 1991 -- into one of the largest drug-policy reform
rallies in the country, if not the world.

To do so, McPeak has invested thousands of unpaid hours, living on
disability paychecks for ailments he said he remedies with medicinal
marijuana. Many on the roughly 700 all-volunteer staff are similarly
dedicated to producing the free event Saturday and Sunday at Myrtle
Edwards Park.

"Hempfest is about promoting the freedom to choose and human rights,"
said McPeak, the event director, unmistakable for his shoulder-length
dreadlocks and array of pro-hemp attire. "There are elderly women and
parents in jail for smoking marijuana. ... We don't want responsible,
otherwise law-abiding adults to be incarcerated for a marijuana offense."

Not all of the 150,000 people organizers expect at Myrtle Edwards
Park over two days have the stereotypical stoner look. Cooke has
short, brown hair; and though he's credited with helping found the
event, people still ask if he's a cop.

Even one of Seattle's former top cops has thrown his support behind Hempfest.

"Hempfest consistently draws a wide diversity of people united around
the idea that the prohibition of marijuana is ridiculous," said
former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper, who spoke at last year's
rally. Stamper was scheduled to speak this year, too, but backed out
this month because of a book project.

"My take from a distance is that Vivian has mixed his passion with a
lot of skills to make it work," he said.

In 1987, McPeak formed the Seattle Peace Heathens Community Action
Group, which ultimately grew to form the Hempfest organizing crew.

The group organized a Gas Works Park peace vigil in 1990, protesting
the Gulf War. McPeak said drug advocate Timothy Leary came to visit,
as did beat poet Allen Ginsberg during the six months it lasted. The
protesters sang, meditated and one day invited a speaker from a
marijuana law reform group.

But the speaker never showed. Cooke, who for months had passed out
marijuana handouts on University Way, turned to McPeak.

"Let's put a pot rally together," McPeak recalls him saying.

As a result, Hempfest started in the spring of 1991 as the Washington
Hemp Expo, drawing about 500 people to Volunteer Park. Attendance
quadrupled the following year when it took the current name, and
jumped to 5,000 people in 1993 -- a year that featured blatant
marijuana smoking in the "Bong-a-Thon," but didn't come with major
repercussions from police.

Police said about 60 people were cited for illegal marijuana use at
the 1997 Hempfest, and about a third of that number were arrested at
the event the following year. In 2001 -- the year Hempfest became a
two-day event -- a West Precinct police commander told the Seattle
P-I that there was only one arrest.

Police in the past have taken low-key approach to policing pot use at Hempfest.

A Seattle police spokesman said the department will have an "enhanced
presence" this weekend for crowd control. But police aren't expecting
anything worse than previous years.

Hempfest organizers estimated that close to 200,000 people came to
the 2003 Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park, and they expect about
150,000 this weekend.

McPeak and a core group of about 100 volunteers plan the event
year-round and pay more than half the estimated $180,000 production
bill with vending revenue.

Last year's event was marred by access problems and restrictions
forced by the construction of the neighboring Olympic Sculpture Park.
As a result, space for Hempfest vendors in 2006 was reduced, and
event organizers lost an estimated $27,000 in revenue, volunteer
coordinator Katie Morse said.

The tiff between the Seattle Art Museum and Hempfest was fueled when
a crowd overran a construction fence at the sculpture park, causing
about $16,500 in damage that SAM officials demanded that the pot
advocates pay for. They did -- after their lawyers went back and
forth with city officials.

This year, Morse said SAM is "being very cooperative," and museum
spokeswoman Cara Egan said employees there are "really looking
forward to the event."

If anything, Seattle's marijuana laws have been reformed somewhat
since Hempfest's inception.

A month after the 2003 Hempfest, Seattle voters passed an initiative
making the investigation, arrest and prosecution of marijuana
offenses, when the drug was intended for adult personal use, the
lowest law enforcement priority.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Washington since 1998, and four
years ago McPeak received a doctor's authorization for the drug. He
uses it to remedy a colon disease and a condition that causes burning pain.

A former cocaine and heroin addict, McPeak doesn't advocate children
smoking pot and says Hempfest isn't an excuse to get stoned in the park.

Looking back at how things have changed since the first Hempfest,
McPeak has hope for marijuana reform on the horizon, and it's no
longer just a pipe dream.

"No political or human rights movement in America has made it this
far without eventually winning," McPeak said. "It's just a matter of time."

[sidebar]

GOING TO HEMPFEST

# Event hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.

# No dogs, narcotics, alcohol, weapons, camping or unauthorized
vending is allowed.

# Admission to the Seattle Hempfest is free.

# Travel author Rick Steves speaks at 1:30 p.m. Sunday on the Hemposium Stage.

# For a full list of performers and speakers, go to
hempfest.org/drupal/?q=node/14.