PRO-MARIJUANA GROUP SUES 3 RIVERS FESTIVAL

NORML Claims Festival Rules Restrict Organization's Free Speech Rights

A group that advocates legalizing marijuana has sued the 3 Rivers
Music Festival and city of Columbia officials, saying they are
restricting the group from advocating its cause at this weekend's festival.

The group wants a federal judge to force festival organizers to drop a
policy prohibiting non-profit organizations from passing out
literature away from their assigned booths or tents.

"I refuse to submit to conditional free speech," said Henry Koch,
president of the Midlands chapter of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The lawsuit contends the policy - which is new this year - is an
unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech.

But festival organizers and city officials disagree.

"Until last year with NORML, no one had ever left their booth," said
Virginia Bedford, festival president. "We had complaints from people
who said they were aggressively approached.

"This was a way that they could have a presence at the festival and
people would not be approached unsolicited."

But officials with the ACLU, whose lawyers drafted the lawsuit, said
the policy is unconstitutional because it limits only not-for-profit
groups and because the festival is being held in a public place.

"Essentially, they've made it more restrictive for political speech
than for commercial speech," said Denyse Williams, executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina.

Koch said last year was NORML's first at 3 Rivers, and that members
handed out about 6,000 pieces of literature.

"The response from the city was overwhelmingly positive," he said.

Koch insists his group does not advocate breaking the law, and does
not distribute drugs or drug paraphernalia. Instead, he said, it
advocates changes in the law.

Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, who sits on the 3 Rivers Music and Heritage
Foundation board, said the policy is reasonable.

"You have the right to talk to anyone, and you have the right to
distribute material from your booth," said Coble, who added that he
disagrees with the group's ideology.

Also named in the suit are Columbia City Manager Charles Austin and W.
Lee Catoe, director of the S.C. Department of Alcohol and Other Drug
Abuse Services.

Austin declined to comment, and Catoe did not immediately return a
phone call to his office.

A hearing has been scheduled for 11 a.m. today in U.S. District Court.
The festival opens at 6 tonight.

Originally the festival sought to keep NORML from even having a booth
there, but it relented after the ACLU complained.

Staff writer Otis R. Taylor Jr. contributed to this story.