HEMP GROUP MOVES OFFICE TO MELBOURNE

MELBOURNE - A group famous for its Hempfest in Gainesville is setting up
shop in Melbourne.

The Florida Cannabis Action Network, which advocates, among other things,
the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, now has an office in
downtown Melbourne on East New Haven Avenue.

Group President Kevin Aplin got his indoctrination to local politics when
the City Council on Tuesday night rejected his request to waive the
liability insurance requirement for the planned Our Voice Street Festival.
His group plans to host the festival Sept. 8 in Melbourne.

"Every group in the downtown area, we require insurance," Mayor John
Buckley said.

Aplin said Wednesday the group feels marijuana should be separated out from
the harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine. "Prohibition is a failure," he
said.

The Cannabis Action Network is a nationwide team of people working to make
cannabis legally available for medicinal, industrial and personal use,
according to its Web site. The group wants to put an initiative on the
statewide ballot in 2002 to legalize marijuana for medical purposes.

The network unites more than 250 groups from all 50 states and around the
world. National headquarters are in Berkeley.

Aplin said the network has moved to Melbourne for a more central location
in Florida.

Council members Richard Contreras and Pat Poole wanted to know if Aplin
planned to sue the city if his request for a waiver was denied. "I'm not
here to threaten anybody," Aplin said. "I don't want to alienate the (city)
administration."

Aplin's organization held a Cannabis Freedom Festival at Wickham Park
Pavilion in Melbourne two years ago. It was billed much the same as the Our
Voice Street Festival - "a political free speech event to bring together
grassroots organizations and to educate a broad spectrum of the public
regarding their activities."

The group has an attorney, Gary Edinger, in Gainesville, who has
successfully sued several cities and counties in Florida who have tried to
prevent the Cannabis Action Network from holding events in their areas.

The network holds a Hempfest in Gainesville in which it encourages people
to smoke marijuana and legalize its use and registers people to vote. The
group also teaches civics classes at universities in which it encourages
students to get involved in politics.

The Hempfest resumed in Gainesville in 1999 after skipping a few years. The
Cannabis Action Network scheduled the festival, not held since 1995, for
Dec. 3, 1999 after a resounding victory in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.

Gainesville refused to grant permits for a festival in 1995.

The 1999 court ruling struck down the city's noise and street closing
ordinances, ruling they violated the First Amendment to the Constitution.