MARIJUANA RALLY

COLUMBUS -- N.C. State House of Representatives 113th District candidate
Jean Marlowe smokes marijuana, and she wants every voter to know it. The
catch is, she does it legally.

Saturday, the joint-lighting Libertarian will merge forces with California
activist Jack Herer, author of the pro-hemp book The Emperor Wears No
Clothes, for a campaign rally on the Polk County Courthouse lawn. Issues
addressed will include reducing restrictions on medicinal hemp and marijuana
use and preserving the environment.

Marlowe, who once spent 10 months in prison for smoking marijuana while on
probation, suffers from a mild form of porphyria, a disease that affects the
liver. Because of severe allergies, she can't take most medications, so her
physician suggested she try marijuana, Marlowe said.

"(Marijuana) either supplies the missing enzymes to my liver or it makes my
liver function as if they were there. ... It enables me to function normally
because I'm not in pain," Marlowe said.

Despite the earlier ruling that landed Marlowe in prison, she is now
permitted to use the drug because of her limited medical options.

Jack Herer, dubbed "The Emperor of Hemp," said he's known Marlowe almost
three years. He helped bring about legislation to permit medicinal marijuana
use in some California counties and hopes to add North Carolina to the list.

"In the world of medicine," Herer maintained, "nothing is safer than
marijuana. It's the safest medicine in the world."

"The Libertarian platform this year is putting an end to the war on drugs,"
Marlowe said. And she intends to end that war by accepting drugs (at least
under some circumstances) rather than fighting them.

Hemp products such as clothing, shoes and beauty products will be displayed
at the rally, which runs from noon until 4 p.m. Also appearing at the rally
will be Eddie Gordon of the Harmonica Rascals, Michael Krawitz and his
Traveling Cannabis Museum and the blues band White Lytnyn.

Marlowe will face Republican Trudi Walend in the general election.