HIDDEN AT HEMPSTALK

At Hempstalk, stoners politely sneak off to the woods while
organizers and police celebrate their absence.

The dank, earthy scent of ganja lingered last weekend over Hempstalk
at Sellwood Riverfront Park, but at least blazing partakers were
nowhere to be seen.

The third annual celebration of all things hemp had been threatened
earlier this year when the Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau
raised concerns about the potential for pot smoking in the public
park. But the city then reached agreement with Hempstalk organizer
the Hemp and Cannabis (THC--nudge, nudge) Foundation that pot and
alcohol wouldn't be allowed (see "The City and the Giant Hempstalk,"
WW , Aug. 15, 2007).

And so an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 frolicking children, lounging
students and educators distributing medical-marijuana literature
packed the festival grounds last Saturday and Sunday.

Buds of the festival's namesake were hidden away, burning in the
pipes of stoners alternately coughing and giggling behind logs and
bushes deep in the nearby woods. Turns out smokers needn't have hidden.

"We're not here to bust people," said a police officer covering the
event who wished to remain unidentified.

The day's protocol was simply to tell roasters to put it out and
smoke elsewhere. However, most tokers were already polite enough to
sneak into the woods to avoid confrontation. Between coughs, a
red-eyed Brandon Yount, 24, explained why he had hidden in a thicket of trees.

"There's kids out there," Yount said. "I don't want to smoke pot in
front of them."

THC president Paul Stanford was pleased with the law-abiding
attendees for abstaining from public burning and selling. Stanford
attributes the absence of visible blazing this year to more police.
Last year, when the event was at Waterfront Park, organizers paid the
city for three police officers. This year, organizers paid for five cops.

"The organizers did a lot of work to make sure the attendees
understood that smoking could not be tolerated," said police Lt. Bob
Heimbach. "In the hour I was there, I didn't see anybody smoking."

Heimbach claims there were only a handful of instances in which his
officers had to remind not-so-sneaky stoners of the rules. No
festivalgoers were arrested.

However, smoking was just one way to indulge. Picnic basket-toting
vendors weaved stealthily among the crowd, selling tempting
"dankety-dank" buttery ganja brownies and cookies for $5 apiece.

Corey Smith, 21, a student at Lewis&Clark College, says he saw only a
few people smoking, and many more eating.

"There were lots of basket carriers," he recalled.

Sharon Place, a tiny 51-year-old woman who wore a flower crown atop
her waist-length gray curls, set up a booth selling crystals and hemp
kitsch. "People come to these events just to buy [pot] food," says
Place, who owns Loving Spoonful, a hemp food business in Eugene.

Last weekend, her employees sold suspiciously green brownies and
cookies in grease-stained paper bags under the table in her booth.

Said Place, her eyes flashing mischievously: "I can't disclose what
else is in the cookies besides hempseed."