SITE-SEEING -- "CAMPAIGN FOR THE RESTORATION AND REGULATION OF HEMP"

Some readers may wonder if the brains behind today's site-seeing stop
were dope-impaired or grass-enhanced when they designed it. Your
conclusion may say as much about you as it does about the site, but
I'm not critiquing you.

In the interests of full disclosure: I did inhale (and don't trust
anyone over 40 who didn't), but that was a long time ago.

The Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH), a
Portland-based advocacy group, has taken to the Web to push the
"Cannabis Tax Act" (CTA), a measure it hopes to place on the ballot in
Washington, Oregon, California, and perhaps other states by 2000. The
proposal would comprehensively reform marijuana laws by regulating and
taxing adult sales, licensing the cultivation of the drug for sale in
state-run package stores and adults-only businesses, allowing adults
to grow their own and farmers to grow industrial hemp without license
and letting doctors prescribe untaxed cannabis to patients suffering
from a variety of illnesses and injuries.

Leading the political and virtual campaigns is the group's full-time
director, D. Paul Stanford, who plans to begin a signature-petition
drive in Washington state by March and submit the measure to the
Legislature next year.

Stanford says he used to import industrial hemp - legally - from
China, until his paper company ran into financial trouble a few years
ago.

In a swirling homage to the weed it would legitimize, the Web site is
suffused in yellows and greens. It makes amusing use of tiny, animated
marijuana leaves that turn on their sides as visiting mice hover over
associated hot links.

The site maxes out with Shockwave's "Flash" technology, a browser
plug-in that enables animated effects. (For those lacking the plug-in,
there's a link to download it, though the site misses a beat by not
providing a handy test applet to tell if you need it).

There's a rich and fairly extensive archive of video clips, including
a 48-minute "Cronkite Report" that aired four years ago, and an
hour-long "Town Hall" meeting on medical cannabis broadcast by
Portland's KATU-TV station in 1997.

On the lighter side, the site's link to "Herb Griffin's `Hemp TV'
Jeopardy" sounded promising. "Test your knowledge of hemp and

marijuana culture against time, and the world!" it invited.

The familiar Jeopardy tune launched instantly, but unfortunately the
video component (i.e., the game itself) never materialized. Instead I
was transported to a shopping site for "hi-tech hipsters." (Stanford
said the link would be repaired).

As you'd expect, the site is full of arguments and propaganda to
further the group's political goals. There's even a legal treatise on
"Why the CTA will be upheld in a court of law."

CRRH claims credit for the rejection by Oregon voters last November of
a measure to re-criminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Oddly, though, especially for a site committed to political change at
the ballot box, CRRH lacks a current score sheet tallying up the run
of successful campaigns to legalize medical marijuana - starting three
years ago with California and Arizona and continuing last fall in
Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Pitches for donations are ubiquitous. Interestingly, Stanford says
that after the site was redesigned into its current "stoner-oriented"
look, two things happened: daily hits skyrocketed, and Web-generated
donations plummeted.

"I'm not sure if people see that (flashy animation effects) and think,
`They have enough money already,' " muses Stanford, who says another
redesign is in the works - one that will offer a less psychedelic
experience as an alternative surf.

Because the site's video streaming and Web design were donated,
Stanford said he was pretty much stuck with the preferences of those
doing the donating.