PICKET SIGNS & MORAL LINES

Pot advocates part of Lawrence's long tradition of dissent

Here's what one corner of downtown Lawrence sounded like last Sunday
afternoon:

"Honk. Honkhonkhonk. Hoooooooooonk."

As drivers leaned on their car horns, Mark Creamer and Thomas Trower
stood at the intersection of 11th and Massachusetts streets, "Honk for
Hemp" signs in hand, a little Christmas tree apparently made of pot
leaves propped up on the trash bin behind them.

"We'd like to see medical marijuana legalized, we'd like to see hemp
for fiber and clothes legalized and we would like to see marijuana be
legalized," Creamer said, explaining why he has spent nearly 15 years
of his life demonstrating weekends on Massachusetts street.

"I do think it's safe to say this is the only place in the state we
could do this and get away with it," Trower said, as he raised his
giant cutout thumbs-up in acknowledgment of a passing honker.

Love 'em or hate 'em -- and the occasional driver hurled a thumbs-down
or negative remark at the pair -- Creamer and Trower are one example
of a long Lawrence tradition: protest and dissent.

The Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice demonstrates against the
Iraq War every Saturday at the Douglas County Courthouse. Traffic jams
caused by anarchists marching down Massachusetts Street are hardly
unusual.

In the 1980s, Lawrence activists protested against nuclear
proliferation. In the '60s and '70s, they protested for civil rights
and against the Vietnam War -- a turbulent time in city history that
included the burning of the Kansas Union.

And of course, the town was settled in the 1850s by "free state"
activists who didn't want slavery brought to the Kansas territory.

Lawrence residents, it seems, don't need much prompting to grab picket
signs and hold candlelight vigils.

"I've always said Lawrence has politics in its roots in ways that very
few American communities did," said Steve Jansen, former director of
the Watkins Community Museum of History.

Criminal speech?

Creamer, 57, wears 1970s-style aviator sunglasses and a trimmed
mustache that gives him a resemblance to the actor Dennis Weaver.
Creamer said he started smoking pot in 1967 after he came to Lawrence
to attend KU.

"I chose marijuana as an alternative to alcohol," he said last week.

It was more than 20 years before he became an activist -- but Creamer
did so with a splash in September 1989.

"My big event was smoking a joint in public and getting arrested,
going to jail," he said.

That public place was the Lawrence Police Department. Creamer tried
arguing that because the act was done to publicly defy drug laws, it
was free speech and immune from prosecution. Prosecutors disagreed.

"The district attorney in my trial said standing on the corner was a
protest, but smoking was a criminal act," Creamer said. "We took the
cue."

First, though, Creamer and Trower had to plot out their plan of
protest. They were stymied by a lack of allies.

"We tried to figure out what would make a difference," Creamer said.
"We decided 2,000 people. Then we tried to figure out if two guys did
it 1,000 times, if that would make the same difference."

The two started their efforts in 1990. Once or twice a weekend, they
occupy a downtown corner, hold up their signs and pass "hemp dollars"
to passing pedestrians.

"We call it our symbolic futile gesture," Creamer said, adding: "We
get a lot of positives. We try to wave at everyone. We get an
occasional negative, but mostly positives. And we consider a smile as
good as a honk."

Living the tradition

Allan Hanson, coordinator of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and
Justice, said Lawrence is a great place for protests.

"This was a liberal hotbed in Kansas, founded by New Englanders as an
antislave state," he said. "We do consider ourselves to be a
perpetuation of that tradition."

The coalition hosts discussions and lectures to further its work.

"We don't only protest and march," Hanson said. "We talk and discuss
and try to be thoughtful, get people to improve their understanding of
situations."

But, he acknowledged, the protests are an important part of the
coalition's mission.

"I guess we feel we've got to make a statement," Hanson said. "We are
not pleased with the way policy in this country is going. We want to
express our opinion and let people see that we're expressing our dissent."

Which doesn't sound so different from the "honk for hemp"
guys.

"We figure that somebody ought to do it," Creamer said.

No more pot

Creamer says he no longer smokes pot -- he can't stand smoke of any
kind anymore. Trower pleads the Fifth Amendment when asked the question.

Both men say they're getting weary of the routine. They figure they
passed 1,000 demonstrations sometime in the year 2000.

"We're getting old," said Trower, who would say only that he is "over
50." "The embers are still glowing, but... ."

Creamer isn't sure if the demonstrations have made a difference.
Marijuana laws have become more liberal in other states, but not Kansas.

But he figures there's still value in the time he's spent protesting.

"I guess," Creamer said, "at least I stood up for something I believed in."