COLD WEATHER, PATROLS MAY PUT KIBOSH ON HASH BASH

Memorial for Pot Concocter Chef Ra Planned on Diag

Scores of pro-marijuana activists will gather on the University of
Michigan Diag this Saturday for the 36th annual Hash Bash.

The event serves as an outlet for citizen protest against current
marijuana laws, said Adam Brook, its organizer and master of
ceremonies since 1989.

"It's a reminder that when you make a law we don't agree with, we're
going to come out and let you know," Brook said.

But Therese Doud, the substance abuse prevention coordinator for
Washtenaw County Public Health, said the Hash Bash is not a positive
form of protest.

"It really presents a climate that condones and supports anything
goes, that in-the-open illicit drug use is OK," Doud said. "Looking
at the devastation of substance abuse, it's not a good message to
send to our youth."

This year's Hash Bash will memorialize James Wilson Jr., known as
Chef Ra to those who read his food column, "Chef Ra's Psychedelic
Kitchen," in the pro-marijuana magazine "High Times." Wilson drove a
cab in Urbana, Ill., and instructed readers to cook using marijuana
as an ingredient. He died in his sleep on Dec. 26 at age 56.

"(Chef Ra) is like an icon to people in the marijuana movement," said
Tim Beck, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

NORML seeks marijuana legalization through ballot initiatives, and
the Michigan chapter is sponsoring Saturday's event, Beck said. In
2004, Ann Arbor voters approved by 74 percent an amendment to city
code directing law enforcement officials not to arrest medical marijuana users.

Hash Bash isn't affiliated with U-M and in the past Brook has
reserved use of the Diag through student organizations. This year,
Brook said he has not pursued a permit.

Ann Arbor's city code punishes marijuana possession as a civil
infraction, fining $25 for the first offense, $50 for the second and
$100 for subsequent offenses. But the U-M Department of Public Safety
enforces state law and university ordinances on campus, including the
Diag. The minimum punishment under state law is $100 or 90 days in jail.

"We probably will have extra officers," Diane Brown, the spokeswoman
for the DPS, said of Hash Bash. "We expect that attendees will engage
in lawful behavior and unlawful behavior will be addressed," Brown said.

The Ann Arbor Police Department will also have increased patrols in
the downtown area, said Lt. Michael Logghe.

Attendance has declined in recent years, Brown said. Last year
approximately 750 people turned out for the event, which takes place
on the first Saturday of April. In its heyday in the 1970s, thousands
packed the Diag.

Hash Bash began 35 years ago as a reaction to poet and activist John
Sinclair's 1969 prison sentence on charges of possessing two
marijuana cigarettes. It also marked the implementation of a $5 fine
for possession in Ann Arbor.