<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesyof today's (August 18, 2013) Spokesman-Review.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); ">Lawyers talk bluntly about I-502 at Hempfest</h1><h5 class="subhead" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); line-height: 1; font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); ">Attorneys warn of higher cost</h5></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">SEATTLE – If serial Hempfest-goer Rob Thomas, of Everett, had his way, marijuana would “be sold at farmers markets, just like tomatoes.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That’s what Thomas, 25, hoped for when Washington voters last fall legalized the recreational use of marijuana.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But that’s not the picture painted by the panel of defense lawyers that Thomas and about 50 others listened to under a large tent during Saturday’s Hempfest session.</span></p></div><div><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Instead, Seattle attorney Jeff Steinbord said the pot law, Initiative 502, “was drafted to pass, not to work.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Steinbord said state officials, instead of allowing ready access to legal marijuana, seem determined to create a system under which marijuana is “regulated like plutonium and taxed at three different levels.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Our work here is not done,” Steinbord said. “Liberty is always unfinished business.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">About 250,000 people are expected to attend Hempfest, a “protestival” first held in 1991, and which continues today at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Another member of the attorney panel, Doug Hiatt, said, “Some people think cannabis is legal (now). It’s not.” He warned that users who rely on the initiative’s passage to buy and use marijuana may be in for a shock, especially with marijuana still banned under federal law.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Steinbord and Hiatt said recreational and medical users of marijuana are likely to find that marijuana will actually become more expensive and harder to get – factors which, in turn, will likely continue to fuel an illegal market for the drug.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The lawyers’ pessimistic view – at the first Hempfest since voters approved the pot law in November – sounded a cautionary tone at what seemed a celebration for many at the festival, with the scent of marijuana smoke in the air.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Philippe Lucas, of Victoria, B.C., the moderator who introduced the legal discussion, said he felt high just arriving in Seattle, which he called an “island of freedom” in the campaign for marijuana.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And Viv McPeak, longtime Hempfest director, said those who attend the three-day festival should celebrate the pot law, which he called “a game-changer” in marijuana policy.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“(Initiative) 502 is not perfect, but what in government is?” he said, adding that the new law should be regarded as a step on a journey, not an end.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Crowds in the sunshine in front of the festival’s main stage gave a polite round of applause to an unusual speaker at the event, Seattle Police Department spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Whitcomb, who later confessed he was a bit nervous to address the group, told the gathering, “We want to make sure we’re doing our jobs, sharing with you how the law works.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seattle police, he said, intend to use “leniency, education and patience” in dealing with marijuana possession, “not a heavy hand.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In a development picked up by national news media when it was announced last week, Seattle police at Hempfest handed out about 1,000 packages of Doritos, which popular culture regards as a classic favorite of marijuana smokers who get the “munchies.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On the chip packs was a list of dos and don’ts for Hempfest attendees.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Among the don’ts: “Don’t drive while high. Don’t give, sell … weed to people under 21. Don’t use pot in public.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And a do: “Do enjoy Hempfest.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Information on the packs said under the law, people using marijuana at the event could be cited, “but we’d rather give you a warning.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Labels on the bags invited people to learn more about new marijuana rules on a Police Department website: <a href="http://www.spdblotter.seattle.gov/category/marijwhatnow.%3C/p%3E" style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 70, 93); outline: invert none medium; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; ">www.spdblotter.seattle.gov/category/marijwhatnow.</a></span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; ">--------------------</p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Seattle Police Department spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb hands out bags of Doritos affixed with a sticker that helps spell out rules for marijuana users during the second day of Seattle’s annual Hempfest on Saturday.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><img src="cid:AB0C4860-BCC1-4F88-8B00-B76E1F0102D7" alt="rg18_Heampfest_t620.jpg" id="AB0C4860-BCC1-4F88-8B00-B76E1F0102D7" width="620" height="417"></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><img src="cid:BC00687D-435B-4B2F-9182-331B99D5876F" alt="image.jpeg" id="BC00687D-435B-4B2F-9182-331B99D5876F" width="300" height="300"><br><br><div>Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</div><div><br></div><div>"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</div><div><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></div><div> </div><div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div>"<span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">There's room at the top they are telling you still</span><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill </span><br style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">- John Lennon<br></span></font><div> </div></div></div></body></html>