WEB SITE REVIEW - '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.