ACTIVISTS PRESS FOR LEGAL POT AT HEMPFEST

SEATTLE -- An estimated 80,000 people packed Myrtle Edwards Park along the
city's waterfront Saturday for the first day of Hempfest, a weekend
festival aimed at changing the nation's marijuana laws.

Seattle police were out in force for the event, but there was no shortage
of joints, pipes or puffy clouds of pot.

"This stuff never hurt nobody," said Bud Mack, 54, a Vietnam veteran who
attended Hempfest with his daughter, Rainbow.

Organizers said they expect a greater turnout than last summer, when
150,000 people attended. Hempfest is billed as the largest such event in
the world, with protesters arguing for the decriminalization or
legalization of marijuana.

Thomas Pudmaroff, a floor-covering specialist from Federal Way, has
attended all 11 times the annual event has been held at Myrtle Edwards
Park. He now volunteers.

Pudmaroff smokes marijuana every day to help alleviate some of the pain
from severe migraines he's been suffering for 17 years -- and he wants the
drug to be legal.

In 1985, Pudmaroff says, he suffered a brain injury after someone pushed
him off a 150-foot cliff in a Federal Way park. To this day, he says, he
doesn't know who did it, but he points to the evidence: a 165-stitch scar
across his head. He had two blood clots on the surface of his brain.

"I was told I'd be a vegetable for the rest of my life," said Pudmaroff,
32. "I don't want to take prescription drugs. I found smoking a little bit
of marijuana helps. They told me I'd have seizures all my life and I
haven't had one."

Ted DeBray, 35, came from Port Angeles to show his support for marijuana use.

"I think it should be legal," he said. "I'm 35 and haven't smoked since I
was 17, but a lot of my friends do. I'm a criminal defense lawyer and I see
firsthand that the war on drugs is a complete failure."

To outside observers, Hempfest appears to be a just a big party with loud
music, food, and booths selling pipes, trinkets and tie-dyed clothing.

Hempfest director Dominic Holden likes to call it a "protestival."

"Art and politics have always come together well historically in American
civil rights movements," Holden said. "Our strong message is that the drug
war has failed and we have viable alternatives."

He said Seattle-based Hempfest is asking that adults who use marijuana
responsibly "not be treated as criminals and that nonviolent users have an
alternative to incarceration."

It was unclear how many people had been arrested. A police spokesman did
not return a page seeking comment.

"We're just monitoring things in case things go bad," officer E.A. Greening
said. "Everybody is getting along."

Bud and Rainbow Mack, from Salem, Ore., sold hundreds of hemp leis near the
festival entrance.

Their message?

"Legalize marijuana, of course!" Bud Mack said.