20,000 Turn Out For Marijuana Festival

Wearing a pair of tattered hemp sandals, Jon Meadows raised a marijuana pipe to his lips and inhaled what he said was a “hit of liberty.”

Corralled among the 20,000 people who turned out for Seattle’s fifth annual Hemp Fest in Myrtle Edwards Park, Meadows passed the glass-blown pipe to his friends, leaned back on his elbows and exhaled.

“This in itself is a victory,” said the 24-year-old resident of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. “We’re fighting for our independence. This is just as important as civil rights.

“By me getting high and chilling out in a city park with all my friends, then we’ve won a small battle.”

Perhaps, but the one-day festival aimed at touting the virtues of the illegal herb didn’t mean anarchy.

Seattle police patrolled the festival’s perimeter and cited several people who were brandishing their joints or pipes. In Washington state, a person in possession of 40 grams of marijuana or less may receive a citation and a $250 fine instead of jail time.

“We’re trying to deal with the situation as reasonably as we can considering the amount of usage,” said Seattle police Lt. Tag Gleason, who could not provide the number of citations that officers had issued.

“Everyone seems to be cooperative and no one seems to have any violent tendencies,” Gleason said.

Though police were visibly present around the festival, few were seen inside the park’s confines. The thousands of festival goers who crammed inside the waterfront park were met with shoulder-to-shoulder people and acrid waves of marijuana smoke, incense and perspiration.

Vendors sold everything from hemp cookies to hemp tents, not to mention an endless variety of exotic paraphernalia.

“Things are going pretty good,” said Terry Huddins, 19, who was helping a friend sell ebony pipes and hemp bracelets. “It seems like everybody came out for it.”

Along with the marijuana, there were other elements of the neo-hippie movement present. There were hackey sacks, drum circles, political platitudes and oceans of tie-dye.

For organizers, it was the first time in five years the festival had received official permits from the city. Turnout was much higher than anticipated, but outside of a few minor injuries, there were no major problems, said Hemp Fest spokeswoman Kathleen Winters.

Admission to the festival, which included a handful of popular regional rock bands, was free. Vendors agreed to pay a $25 fee to the festival in order to hawk their wares, Winters said.

Many of the participants and some speakers were advocating recreational use of marijuana, but the main purpose of the festival is to educate the public on historical, industrial and medicinal uses of the hemp plant, Winters said.

Marijuana is the drug made from the dried leaves and the flowering stalks of the hemp plant. Hemp products are not illegal, except the plant cannot legally be grown or farmed domestically.

“We don’t agree with restrictions on recreational use, but the industrial and medicinal uses are most important,” she said. “We need to have people understand how important this plant really is.”

Petitions advocating decriminalization of marijuana were distributed by several signature gatherers. Some distributed leaflets describing the medicinal uses of the drug.

One such group was Green Cross of Bellingham, Wash., an organization that provides marijuana to people suffering from illnesses that include AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Co-founder Joanna McKee, who has been charged with drug possession in Kitsap County Superior Court and scheduled for trial later this month, was a featured speaker.

Casey Wilbanks, 40, of Des Moines, said he joined Green Cross after he became diagnosed with AIDS.

“If it wasn’t for Joanna I wouldn’t be here today,” Wilbanks said. “She provided medicine for me that made me better and that’s why I’m here today. I want to show that the government should have no say in how I decide to medicate my God-given body.”