HEMP DREAMS

"Is there anything sadder than 21st century young people trying to imitate the glory days of hippiedom?"

There are two related movements that are based largely on deception. The first is the medical marijuana movement, and the second is the hemp movement.

The medical pot movement wants to get the drug legalized but only for medical use naturally, on a doctor's orders. This is deceptive because the purpose is ultimately nothing to do with medicine, and everything to do with getting a personal vice legalized. Oregon and California both have these laws in place, and both have repeatedly had doctors fined or have had their licenses suspended for handing out pot prescriptions for nearly any malady or excuse. The intent has nothing to do with the medical benefits of pot - which are real - but everything to do with a systematic attempt to legalize marijuana. The medical benefits of pot can be obtained without sucking carcinogenic smoke into your lungs, let alone legalizing it at any level.

The hemp movement has a similar problem with deception, but in this case it's a self deception. Hemp does have leaves that can be dried and smoked - which is why the hemp movement is inevitably and overwhelmingly part of the pot movement - but the leaves are few and or lower quality than marijuana specially grown for harvest to smoke. Hemp plants are essentially a single stalk with a few leaves on top, pot plants are a bushy, many branched plant with lots of leaves. That being said, legalizing hemp is a deliberate attempt to legalize growing marijuana, and a glimpse at the Seattle Hempfest gives a perfect example of this.

The marijuana leaf was everywhere. Brownies and other edibles with "hemp" in them were for sale at stands. Actual marijuana was visible in many areas, including potted plants and leaves worn like leis and hats. The leaf symbol was ubiquitous, showing their dedication to industrial and food use of hemp. American Digest has the goods, a pictorial essay of the 16th annual Seattle Hempfest. This smoke-wreathed event has been going on for sixteen years now, and although the entry has a warning banning narcotics, it was everywhere. It's like an Oktoberfest without a beer, says writer Vanderleun, although the "beer" was around:

Actually, dogs do get in even if they don't exactly run free. Everything else seem to be expressly prohibited. And to judge by the furtive deals going on down by the breakwater, the "Drug Free" zone is an illusion. The drugs here are anything but free. Ditto the burritos, bongs, and hemp brownies. Other than that, the crowd -- running to type and overwhelming predictability -- underscores the last line. No matter what else may be going on, This is not a free zone. It's a zone bounded by ritual and tedium.

I no longer remember, if I ever did, exactly what we had in mind at the San Francisco Acid Tests or the Human Be-In, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't anything as obvious as all this. We were, I believe, trying to "change the world," not sell it a hemp t-shirt.

The first picture past the warning sign is the most hilarious to me: getting in takes a five dollar donation... but you can't get in without donating. Commenters discussed the event:

There are a lot of dirty, ignorant, delightfully stupid white people in Seattle. But it's still a great town. Give my regards to the Blue Moon on 45th.
-by Jack Nigh


This is the type of religion you end up with when you think you don't have one.
-by Vexorg


I went to a New England liberal arts college full of stoners like that, and yes, all their ideas about human nature and social change are BS. However, my friends and I were different, liberal, yes, radical even...but sober and articulate. I don't think I have to be too hopeless that there are more of us out there doing brilliant things in art, science and politics.
-by Anonymous


About 8 years ago my 9yo son and I were riding our bikes along the waterfront and found ourselves in the middle of this mess. We made it through from end to end and I was concerned about his exposure to these people. I watched him as we pushed our bikes through the crowd and he was obviously scared ****less and when we got through I asked him what he thought.
" Those people were pathetic" he said.
I give him 10 bonus points for the correct use of the word.
Just proud of the boy.
From a 60's hippie
-by Rick

The final comment when I posted this was a comparison between pot being illegal and Valium being legal. My response to this is always the same: I wish people weren't hooked on Valium either and it's criminal how doctors hand it out. The argument presented like this can be restated thusly:

"This horrible thing is already legal, why not more?"

Which is no way of setting policy. I knew several people in school who were bright, creative, and had a quick, ready mind and clear memory. They got to smoking pot "once in a while" for entertainment and to relax, and by the time I graduated, they were ruined. They had no memory, no taste, no creativity, their minds were dulled by the constant use of drugs that they only used sometimes for relaxation.

Pot makes people stupid. It is addictive, although not physically for most people, and almost nobody just smokes pot once in a while, not in the end. What's worse, recent studies have demonstrated that not only is marijuana a cancer-causing agent (gee, deliberately sucking smoke into your lungs is bad for you? Who knew?), but that it can cause brain damage and schizophrenia. It destroys motivation and ambition, restraint, and logical capacity. And all the while it makes you feel smarter, more creative, and freer.

Yet in Seattle, if you have an official event, the police look the other way. Sure, they clearly are carrying a controlled substance and selling it. Sure, those kids are underage. Who cares, really? They are harmless. They aren't hurting anyone else, except the rest of society that has to support the waste of space a pot user often turns into.

Hemp was a great plant, with many uses and industrial properties that it can be relied upon for... in the 19th century. Today, hemp's uses have been replaced by superior products that do everything hemp did far better and cheaper. The hemp movement pretends no advances in any product have replaced hemp and we're keeping ourselves from the wonder plant of amazing productivity and cheap products! That was true, in 1933, but it's not true any more. But then, the entire movement has nothing to do with hemp, in the end. It's just an attempt to do an end run around the marijuana laws.

Marijuana, Seattle, Hemp