TITLE IS EVERYTHING WHEN IT'S TAKEN AWAY

What's in a name?

One big stink, if it's The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation. And we're not
talking about the smoke from tokin' up. Since Jan. 17, the nonprofit,
with headquarters in Southeast's Buckman neighborhood, has gone by the
acronym THCF. But not by choice.

President Paul Stanford says he had to amend the name after a former
patient registered a new corporation as The Hemp & Cannabis
Foundation. Stanford filed suit in Multnomah County Circuit Court last
month against Daniel Keys of Banks to get the name back and recover
$7,500 in costs associated with the name change.

Keys, 56, says he had a legal right to the name and was "not sitting
on it for malicious reasons." A lifelong Tourette Syndrome sufferer,
Keys says a cannabis recipe he cooks in his kitchen helps ease the
voice and body tics caused by the disorder. His aim in securing the
original name, he says, was to ensure continuity of care for fellow
medical marijuana patients in the area.

The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation has helped thousands of patients obtain
a legal permit to grow and use marijuana, Stanford says. Founded in
1999, the foundation promotes marijuana through the weekly Cannabis
Common Sense cable access show, the Hemp News quarterly newspaper and
offices in Portland, Seattle and Honolulu. Stanford says he lost the
right to the original name when he forgot to mail a $50 annual
business renewal fee. After sending Stanford two renewal notices with
no response, the state dissolved The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation on
Oct. 14. A month later, Keys drove to the Secretary of State's office
in Salem, noticed no one had laid claim to the name and registered it
under his name.

By doing so, Keys "acted with the improper purpose of causing harm,"
according to Stanford's suit. "Deprived of the use of its own
well-known name," the foundation has been "injured."

It's hard to say how the loss of the organization's original name will
hurt business, Stanford says. The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation moniker
remains unaltered on its letterhead and on the organization's TV show
and newspaper. And business operations have gone uninterrupted.

That is, except for what Stanford calls the "coup attempt."

He alleges that Keys, his Portland attorney, a former THCF employee
and others broke into the foundation's headquarters at 105 S.E. 18th
Ave. on Nov. 14. In a complaint to the Oregon State Bar, Stanford
accuses Keys' attorney, Frederick T. Smith, of giving the group legal
advice that "they could break into and take over my office." When
employees showed up for work that morning, they found the group had
set up a cot and television, changed the locks on one of the doors and
"were off and running," says Ann Witte, a Portland attorney
representing THCF.

Smith did not return phone calls seeking comment. But in a Dec. 26
letter defending his actions to the Oregon State Bar, Smith wrote that
"we decided to take action" after failed attempts to meet with
Stanford and Witte. On Nov. 14, "the former corporation was legally
non-existent and had no right to do anything to meet the patients'
needs," he wrote.

Police asked Smith and his crew to leave after the building's landlord
told officers that the office lease was under Stanford's name, not the
foundation's. "When this fact was determined, we promptly and properly
left the premises," Smith wrote.

The Oregon State Bar is reviewing Stanford's complaint against Smith,
bar spokeswoman Kateri Walsh says.

Keys called the dispute "not that interesting."

Street Beat sides with Stanford's description: "very, very
bizarre."