'FREE HEMP' BATTLE CRY FOR LOCAL GROUPS

From a worn storefront office on Spenard Road, Al Anders is leading a
crusade to legalize marijuana, and he is a fully committed zealot.

He lives upstairs from the campaign office of Free Hemp in Alaska, in a
commercial building just south of Chilkoot Charlie's. He has no car, no
social life, no salary.

He dresses in campaign T-shirts featuring Alaska flags with pot leaves in
place of stars. He sometimes looks like he's not sleeping well. He's happy.

"There's not a thing in the world I'd rather be doing than stopping the drug
war," the Indiana native declared recently, sitting in the brightly painted
coffee shop one door down from his office.

If you've driven down Spenard Road lately, you've noticed the coffee shop,
the unofficial living room for Anders and his band of marijuana freedom
fighters. Cafe Pax is the one with big cannabis leaves painted on the
windows. An enormous yellow sign has been painted on the south side of the
building that houses both the cafe and the campaign office, urging Alaskans
to vote yes on Proposition 5.

In 1998, Alaskans approved a medical marijuana initiative, but what they'll
see on the state ballot Nov. 7 would go much further. The citizens'
initiative, which Anders peddled on a clipboard last year, would change
state law to remove criminal penalties for adults who grow marijuana,
distribute it or use it in private places. It would also grant amnesty to
people convicted of state marijuana crimes and convene a panel to consider
restitution for them, although marijuana would still be illegal under
federal law.

Maybe because the initiative is so broad, four different campaigns
registered with the state to work for passage of Prop. 5, and one has formed
in opposition. In Anchorage, the two main pro-legalization groups are Hemp
2000 and Anders' campaign, each with its own emphasis.

"They (Hemp 2000) are working more on the hemp-will-save-the-world thing,"
Anders said.

His bottom line is that marijuana use among adults is none of the
government's business.

Several volunteers and campaign workers at Free Hemp have been convicted of
drug crimes. Or, as a committed Libertarian like Anders sees it, they're
"victims of the war on drugs."

Tom Holohan, who designed Free Hemp's Web site, is on probation for four
marijuana felonies. He says he and his 4-year-old were watching a Disney
movie on the couch in their Wasilla home when the police busted in and
trashed the place. They found lighting equipment and 174 pot plants growing
in a crawl space.

Holohan said he was hoping to work off some of his court-ordered community
service through Free Hemp, but the probation office wouldn't approve it.

On the wall at Free Hemp are pictures of men serving long terms for drug
crimes; men the campaign refers to as "prisoners of war."

"I cry when I see this," said Sil DeChellis, a barrel-chested 62-year-old
tattoo shop owner from California who is Free Hemp's treasurer.

Jeremy Irvin, 37, says he has a brother who has spent the past 10 years in
prison for drugs. Irvin said he left his high-rise maintenance business in
Minnesota a few weeks ago to help Anders end the war on drugs.

"Look, I believe these guys," he said softly. "Because Al Anders, he means
it."

He said he doesn't smoke pot and doesn't believe others should, "But I also
don't believe that you should be put in jail for it."

So he's been doing whatever needs to be done, from secretarial work to Al's
laundry. "I facilitated another volunteer once to do Al's laundry," he
clarified.

'FAMILY ORIENTED' HEMP GROUP

Every Tuesday evening, another campaign devoted to legalizing hemp holds
"public invited" meetings in a spare, fluorescent-lighted room on Denali
Street downtown.

Hemp, they say, can literally save the planet. It can fuel our cars, heat
our homes, feed our children. It can be made into clothing, paper, lumber,
bricks and plastic.

"When you use motor oil from hemp, you can pour it on the ground and it
won't kill all the grass around it," said R.L. Marcy, a paralegal who is the
chairwoman for Hemp 2000. She wears big round glasses, rings on almost every
finger and a gold-nugget watch. Her first name is Ronda but everyone calls
her Marcy.

Like many in this campaign, Marcy lives in the Mat-Su area and is a longtime
Alaskan. She and Anders were part of the same campaign last year to get the
initiative on the ballot.

"She was just too meeting-oriented for me, and I felt we were moving much
too slowly," Anders said.

The two groups had separate booths at the state fair in Palmer.

She didn't want to say much about the split, but Hemp 2000 supporters speak
of a cultural gap between the two campaigns. They described themselves as
more mainstream, more family oriented.

"There is, I guess, more of a flash to the other group," said Don Hart, a
66-year-old retiree whose beard reaches to his belly.

"Let's put it this way," said Wanda Carp, an Anchorage grandmother who
serves as the group treasurer. "They don't have a playroom for their
children to play in."

At Hemp 2000 headquarters, you can light a cigarette without objections.
When the pizza man came to deliver for the meeting last week, no one asked
for vegetarian.

Debbie Haws of Wasilla brings her 8-year-old daughter to Hemp 2000 meetings.

"I tell her I believe (hemp) is a God-given gift," Haws said.

She believes marijuana could help her teenage son, who she says has
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and now also Ritalin-induced
epilepsy.

She doesn't believe children should smoke marijuana, but she said it could
be a benefit to many young people like her son, she said.

"They sometimes need help calming down and putting it all together," she
said.

Someday, she said, parents might be able to "sprinkle it on their (kids')
cereal to keep them from amping out in school."

Like most of the others involved with this group, she stresses the
industrial possibilities for hemp, which is the subject of an extensive
exhibit on the wall of the Denali Street headquarters.

"Everybody thinks it's about getting high. It absolutely is not," Haws said.

Industrial hemp is made from a form of the cannabis plant that contains
insignificant amounts of THC, the mind-altering substance in marijuana. It's
generally illegal to grow hemp in the United States, but nonintoxicating
hemp products can be legally imported to the country from Canada and other
nations.

Among its many uses, the meat from its seeds is an excellent nutritional
source, Haws said.

"It's higher in protein than mother's milk," she said.

She's especially looking forward to the day when most of our building
materials are made from hemp. The trees will grow back in the forests,
providing the Earth with more oxygen, she said.

"I have asthma and emphysema. I need the air," she said, tapping her
cigarette ash into a Pepsi can.

The fields of the Mat-Su would be excellent for growing hemp, Hart said. The
plant would thrive with the long summer daylight, the fresh water and the
soil conditions. Two companies have already discussed building hemp
processing mills in Alaska if the initiative passes, he said.

Neither pro-hemp groups could say how much money they've raised so far --
the first disclosure reports aren't due until next week but Hart said he and
Marcy have contributed about $25,000 from their own pockets to the campaign.

In November, the two of them were stopped on the Glenn Highway in Palmer,
allegedly because Marcy was speeding. Police say they found 120 grams --
slightly more than four ounces -- of marijuana in the Ford Explorer. Hart,
they said, was carrying $16,000 in hundred dollar bills in his boot. They
were charged with possession with intent to deliver.

They've pleaded not guilty. Neither wanted to discuss the case. Marcy,
though, said she committed no traffic violations and broke no laws. Her
attorney, Pamela Scott, said she believes her client may have been targeted
because of her outspoken political views.

THE OPPONENTS

The campaign opposing Prop. 5 has no storefront headquarters.

A dozen or more opponents meet weekly in the offices of Key Bank, said Aaron
Harrop, co-chairman of No on 5. He is a Wasilla substance abuse counselor, a
scoutmaster and a father.

"This is Dad," he said when he answered his home phone this week. He said he
has nothing against the industrial uses of hemp, although he is skeptical of
the claims.

"What I'm against is making the drug legal, setting the convicts free and
then not having any real legislation to control it," he said.

He said he doesn't believe marijuana is evil. But it does have some negative
effects, he said, such as "amotivational syndrome."

"Basically it's not a bad product, but it's not a healthy product and it's
not going to do all the things they say it will," he said.

Harrop has debated the marijuana proposition on radio talk shows, as has Wev
Shea, a former U.S. attorney for Alaska who now runs a private law practice
upstairs from F Street Station, a downtown bar.

Harrop said his campaign has raised only a few thousand dollars, and he
feels it is facing an uphill battle.

"A lot of people, the only time in their lives they're going to go out and
vote is this time," he said. "And it's because they want their pot."

Sidebar:

BALLOT MEASURE NO. 5

Allowing Uses of Hemp, Including Marijuana

This bill would do away with civil and criminal penalties for persons 18
years or older who use marijuana, or other hemp products. These products
include hemp used for paper, fiber, food, fuel, medicine, or personal use in
private. Marijuana would be regulated like an alcoholic beverage. Doctors
could prescribe marijuana. The bill allows for laws limiting marijuana use
in some cases to protect public safety. It grants amnesty to persons
convicted in the past of marijuana crimes. The bill creates an advisory
group to study restitution for those persons.

Should this initiative become law?