State of Pot 2006

Ross Reynolds
08/18/2006 at 1:00 p.m.

This weekend is one of the more unusual summer festivals – Hempfest, a celebration of an illegal drug, marijuana. Myrtle Edward Park in Seattle will be chock full of speakers on medical marijuana, drug laws, plus booths with every hemp product you can imagine. What’s the state of pot in 2006?

We’ll hear the extraordinary story of the Rainbow Farm, a sort of permanent Hempfest in Michigan that ended in a Waco-like shootout. The story was largely buried because it took place just before 9/11. And we’d like to hear how marijuana has influenced your life. Have marijuana laws affected your life? Have your attitudes toward pot changed because of your experiences or the experiences of people around you? Does pot's illegality have much bearing on its use?

Guests:
Dean Kuipers is the the author of Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke. He's also the deputy editor of Los Angeles Citybeat, an alternative paper in LA.
Steve Robertson is a Special Agent for the DEA in Washington DC. He works in their public affairs office. Before then he worked as an enforcement officer in the Southwest, on the border of US and Mexico, for 18 years.
Roger Roffman is a professor of Social Work at the University of Washington. He's also the Director of the Innovative Programs Research Group at the UW. He’s been studying marijuana addiction.