End the Drug War!

PUT DOWN THE BONG AND HEAD TO HEMPFEST

Hempfest, happening on June 3rd, is a day-long festival dedicated to
promoting the end of the Drug War, as well as teaching the average
person about the many uses of hemp and its, shall we say,
derivatives. Many vendors are available to sell food, trinkets, and
tobacco pipes, as well as literature and music.

Also featured on several stages are more than two dozen bands,
performers, and spoken word artists.

The styles of music will reach from reggae to trance to hippie-jam
and more, and there will be plenty of great munchies around to last
everyone well into the night.

As of this year, Hempfest has been around for twenty years, and the
festival, sponsored by local businesses and Students For Sensible
Drug Policy, has, until recently, been a force for positive change in
local and state politics.

Over the last several years, however, the organization has been
entangled in problems with city and campus law enforcement, as well
as local and state politicians. Federal courts ruled in favor of the
SSDP in 2004 when OSU attempted to shut Hempfest down by citing
technicalities with registering the event with campus police.

The event was cleared to go just 18 hours before the gates were
scheduled to open, but the damage was already done. 2005 was a
slightly less eventful year, and the event went on as scheduled.

I was originally scheduled to have a telephone interview with event
representative Tara Stevens, but was declined at the last minute
after her request to be paid for the short, seven-question
conversation. This aspect worried me about the choice of
representatives that SSDP has made in recent years.

I have found that most of those who work for or with nonprofit
organizations do not seek to receive personal compensation for their
work if they truly believe in the cause for which they are fighting.

I closed the conversation with a measure of disappointment in my
heart at knowing just how many people really want to get the word
out, only to be hindered by the greed of others.

Through these actions, parts of the organization begin to look more
and more like the empire they are allegedly fighting to stop.

In lieu of the interview I wish to offer some of my own experiences
of the last two Hempfests, at which I assisted a local vendor in
selling assorted items.

The crowd is usually a fair mix of hippie and anarchist, Phish fan,
Dave Matthews frat-boy, and ICP junkie.

Working a booth, one sees and talks to all these people.

Most of them really don't care much about the causes that the
spoken-word artists and free-press journalists are fighting for. They
just want to get stoned on the South Oval and see bands.

I surely can't fault them for that, but the bottom line is that this
kind of apathy is exactly what's working against groups such as SSDP,
or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, as well as the other activist
groups attending the festival to spread their message.

Admittedly, these groups are speaking to a tough audience in the
first place since again, most of them are there for the more obvious
reasons. I implore the general public to go, and spend some time just
listening to what people have to say there.

Too many good ideas have died simply because of the artificial
stigmas that surround them. The FDA's recent findings that marijuana
has no clinical or medical use despite physicians' and patients' own
testimonies to the contrary is an example of this willing ignorance
that in this and many other instances, has stymied public, unbiased,
and serious discourse about the true benefits of the cannabis plant
and its many extracts.

We as a nation have become far too willing to simply accept what we
are being told without question, that this plant, this weed, is still
the nation's biggest drug problem although methamphetamine abuse is
skyrocketing in rural and suburban areas, prescription drug abuse is
at an all-time high (no pun intended), and alcohol-related fatalities
show no signs of slowing.

There is no better time than now to show support for not just the
express causes of Hempfest, but for all forms of public expression;
and exercise our inalienable rights to assemble and discuss that
which displeases us about the current State of the Union. If you're
available this Saturday, put down the bong, come out, hang out, munch
out, and have fun. It'll be groovy, I promise.

"Ohio Hempfest 2006" will be held at the OSU South Oval on Saturday,
6/3 from 12:00 PM through Midnight. For more information please email
osussdp@gmail.com or visit www.ohiohempfest.com online.