OREGON ACTIVIST PUTS LUMBERYARD UP FOR SALE

Oct. 1--HARRISBURG, Ore.--The sale of his signature lumberyard is pending,
his annual hemp festival is up in the air and his run for governor is down
the tubes.

"I'm running for the border now," marijuana activist and longtime
fly-in-the-ointment Bill Conde says.

Monday will be the final day in business for Conde's Redwood Lumber off
Interstate 5 near Harrisburg, which has doubled in recent summers as home
base for the three-day World Hemp Festival. Conde plans to auction off
various items remaining at his business -- from lumber to tools and even a
forklift -- on Oct. 13.

He plans to move to the Central American country of Belize, where his wife
and three children already are waiting. Conde packed and sent off a
shipping container of his belongings this week, and he intends to follow as
soon as the sale of his lumberyard is wrapped up and some legal loose ends
are tied.

Conde faces six criminal charges related to allegations of drug use at his
hemp festivals. He says he has been negotiating with the Linn County
district attorney's office to resolve the charges so he can legally leave
the country. "I don't want to battle them anymore," he says.

The prosecutor who is handling Conde's case was unavailable for comment on
the negotiations.

In June, Conde served a two-week sentence after being convicted on felony
charges of abetting delivery of a controlled substance and hindering
prosecution.

Less than a week after being released, Conde announced his intention to
form a new political party he would call the Environmental Party and run as
its candidate for Oregon governor in 2002. He circulated petitions for his
political causes at the Hemp Festival in July.

Conde has fought a running battle in recent years with the Linn County
sheriff's office, whose officers have reported drug use and transactions at
his festivals, and with the county's Board of Commissioners, which has
sought to enforce sanitation and parking requirements at the mass gatherings.

But Conde, 58, says he's ready to retire to his wife's native country and
won't miss the close scrutiny that his advocacy of marijuana brought upon him.

He also says the national events of the past month have prompted changes
that reinforced his decision to move on. "In all honesty, man, I'd be
scared to stay in this country now," Conde says. "I'm a dove, not a hawk.
Right now in the United States of America, it's really not good flying
weather for the doves."