SEATTLE -- More than 150,000 denizens of the Northwest will gather this weekend in a waterfront park for Hempfest, billed as the largest promarijuana gathering in the country, to listen to speeches from the biggest names in the national drug-law reform movement between band sets and bong hits. | (inhale)"Woooow, groovy speech man!"(exhale) |
But this year, attendees will hear an explicitly partisan message, too: Organizers are pushing pot smokers to help elect Senator John F. Kerry president. The size of Hempfest indicates the potential power of the pro-pot vote, particularly in the Northwest, reformers said. Organizers think that registering even a few thousand Hempfest attendees could make the difference in a close election. ''It is essential for our crowd to understand that there is nothing more important they can do for drug policy reform than to go out and cast their ballots in the Democratic box in November," said Dominic Holden, 27, a spokesman for the festival. The Kerry campaign and the festival organizers seemed wary of possibly tainting the campaign with countercultural associations that could turn off mainstream voters. The presence of Kerry volunteers at Hempfest, or the push by organizers to get smokers to the polls in November, should not be seen as an implicit endorsement of the Hempfest agenda by the Kerry campaign, Holden said. ''I wouldn't want to say that their agenda is our agenda," he said. ''With 150,000 politically aware people here, they would be fools not to come out and do voter registration." | Of course, they have to be aware enough to drag themselves away from the bong and go vote. |
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