MARIJUANA ADVOCATE GROUP FREE TO ROAM

Sued Music Festival Over Movement Restrictions For Some Organizations

COLUMBIA - A group that advocates the legalization of marijuana can
leave its booth during a three-day music festival here, but if it
flaunts its message and literature throughout the festival it might
not get a booth next year, an attorney for the festival said.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws was seeking
a temporary injunction to keep this weekend's 3 Rivers Music Festival
from insisting the group stay behind its booth, 3 Rivers attorney Jay
Elliott said. The group didn't get the injunction, but won the right
to roam after the festival said it would do nothing if the group
violated the rule.

"If somebody just wants to flaunt it in front of us, we're not going
to do anything," Elliott said. "But the next year we're going to look
pretty carefully at the application."

The marijuana reform group said the rule barring nonprofit groups from
leaving their booths to pass out materials restricted its First
Amendment rights. Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union,
whose lawyers drafted the lawsuit, said the policy was
unconstitutional because it limits only not-for-profit groups and
because the festival is being held in a public place.

Judge Cameron Currie did not rule on whether the policy infringed on
the free speech rights of marijuana reform group, but warned festival
organizers that the rule likely was unconstitutional.

"Unless you adopt a policy that applies to all organizations, not just
not-for-profits, I do not think this is going to withstand
constitutional scrutiny," Currie said. "If you do it, you have to do
it for everybody, and it has to be content-neutral."

Elliott said the 5-year-old festival, which draws roughly 25,000
people each day, could revamp its rules for advocacy groups.

Henry Koch, president of the Midlands chapter of the marijuana laws
reform group, said after the hearing his organization would protest
any future policies that confine groups to a booth.

Koch said his organization will be out in force at the festival this
year passing out materials. He said last year was his group's first at
3 Rivers and that members handed out about 6,000 pieces of literature.

Originally the festival sought to keep the group from even having a
booth but relented after the ACLU complained.