In exactly one week an amazing annual event in the long struggle to reform cannabis…
Tag: Seattle
Newly elected city attorney Peter Holmes will no longer prosecute minor marijuana possession offenses, according to a report published in The Seattle Times.
“[The city of Seattle] is no longer going to prosecute marijuana possession cases anymore,” said Holmes.
Like the dutiful activists in Seattle protesting cannabis laws and supporting the victims of such outside of the local jail for nine straight years of Christmas days, Brazilian cannabis law reform supporters cheer the cultivator’s release from jail, celebrating, not condemning him.
A strong social indicator of governmental laws that do not enjoy mass public support–along with jury nullification–is when supposed ‘criminals’ are embraced and heralded as heroes.
NORML salutes the activists who not only slavishly work for cannabis law reforms but who also never forget about the tens of thousands of cannabis consumers, cultivators and sellers incarcerated in the United States.
Hempfest’s massive crowds last weekend spurred Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells and former state Rep. Toby Nixon to pen a bipartisan letter in the Seattle Times on the need for Washington State to join the other 13 states that have ‘decriminalized’ possession of cannabis–as well as the state’s largest population center, King County (Seattle), which effectively decriminalized possession by popular vote in 2003. Checkout this CNN iReport about this year’s Hempfest here (and kudos for the closing shot on the wrap).
WOW! The glorious Seattle waterfront at Myrtle Edwards Park was wearing its mid-August best! Saturday was broken clouds with sun in the high 70’s, Sunday, it was clear and 82. Sweeeet. Every tattoo, piercing and cleavage in the tri-state area that needed an airing, got one at Hempfest along the Emerald City waterfront this past weekend. Who knows how many hundreds of thousands hempsters were there?
Chief Kerlikowske’s former colleagues on the police force, cannabis law reform activists, medical patients, civil rights lawyers and public health officials all seem to recognize that science and ‘smart on crime’ (as compared to ‘tough on crime’ and ineffective platitudes like ‘just say no’ or ‘drug-free America’) drive his policing—not ideology and a twisted sense of personal morality.
On the positive side, Kerlikowske hails from Seattle — a city that has elected to make the enforcement marijuana crimes cops’ lowest priority. And although the police chief spoke out against the initiative effort — which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2003 — he’s abided by the will of the people since then.
The largest marijuana legalization rally in the world, Hempfest, is held annually on the third weekend of August at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront. This free marquee event usually attracts well over 200,000 people in attendance and Hempfest ’08, Aug. 16-17, was no exception, if not the record—because the weather on the Seattle waterfront was perfect for a mass gathering! The total number of attendees might well have topped 300,000.