U.S. SUSPENDS WAR ON DRUGS FOR HEMPFEST

Dozens Of Vendors Sold Elaborate Pipes, Humongous Bongs And Paraphernalia

SEATTLE - The U.S. apparently suspended its war on drugs here on the
weekend for the 14th annual beachside Hempfest.

Motley children in strollers, exuberant young adults in face paint and
costume, grateful deadheads in tie-dye, aging hippies in sarongs, the
city's finest in uniform -- more than 150,00 people, media estimated,
cavorted Saturday and Sunday in Myrtle Edwards Park.

Three stages featured everything from country ditties, electric rock to
acappela funk.

Dozens of vendors sold elaborate pipes, humongous bongs, multi-coloured
crystals, posters, T-shirts, paraphernalia, art and assorted handicrafts.

Information kiosks were manned by organizations as diverse as the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, industrial hemp producers
and Gramma's for Ganja -- all pushing to Free the Weed.

Food stalls offered a spectacular global menu of pizza, gyros, curry,
fruit, organic smoothies, ice cream, daiquiris, mini-doughnuts....

Of course, sales folk peddled pot-laced cookies and brownies and the
telltale perfume of burning illicit cannabis wafted over the throng, most
festooned in leis made of faux marijuana leaves.

Once ignored as a bit of an embarrassment to the local burghers (it was
started in 1991 to oppose the first Gulf War), the festival now is embraced
- a $200,000 Cdn event that generates a small frenzy of stoner capitalism.

Even former police chief Norm Stamper is a big fan of its time-for-a-change
message and endorses it: "I think the scope and magnitude of the damage
that's been done by the war on drugs far exceeds the damage of any other
crime-fighting public policy in the history of the country."

The recent arrest and extradition request of Canadian Marc Emery was also
much discussed at this year's gathering.

One of the key lawyers on the Emery defence team, John Conroy, told the
crowd the case would be an uphill battle.

He predicted it will turn on whether Canadian courts accepted the
contention the prosecution was an attempt to stifle free speech and
suppress the movement to legalize marijuana.

"It was all done for a political purpose," Conroy said. "It's a political
prosecution. Other seed sellers are not being prosecuted in Canada or the
U.S. This really is an attempt to get the Johnny Appleseed of pot."

Still, under the Extradition Act, Conroy thought it almost a foregone
conclusion that the three accused would be ordered handed over to the
Americans -- the true battle will be in the appellate courts.

Still, he warned, Canada has never refused to hand anyone over to the U.S.

Conroy added that current Justice Minister Irwin Cotler was not sympathetic
to Emery's argument that he is a victim of political persecution and faces
an overly harsh U.S. legal system.

In a previous ruling, Cotler said such a defence was precluded by Canada's
commitments as a signatory to international drug conventions.

The B.C. Marijuana Party was to have sent a representative to Hempfest but
decided at the last minute they risked arrest by U.S. law-enforcement.

Instead, the leader of the U.S. Marijuana Party, Loretta Nall, staffed a
stall where she collected money for Emery's defence fund.

She told me she feared imminent arrest on money-laundering charges because
Emery was her main financier.

"I figure about $250,000 in the last few years," she said.

If Washington was going after Emery, it only made sense that they would
target her, in Nall's opinion, because she knew the money came from his
seed business.

The FBI had visited her and her laptop had been seized on her return to the
U.S. after a visit to Canada earlier this year, she said.

Also on hand to denounce Emery's arrest was the three-year-old Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition group, which represents about 3,500 former
and current cops, judges, customs officers and DEA agents.

"I think it's despicable," said Jack Cole, a former New Jersey drug squad
officer and now LEAP executive director.

"What the DEA did there and what the U.S. Attorney sanctioned, is
despicable. It's time we ended this pot prohibition. We keep saying, you
can get over an addiction -- you can't get over a conviction."