 [11] NORML (1:375/48)  NORML 
 Msg  : #5265 [190]                                                             
 From : Floyd Ferris Landrath               1:105/69        Sun 08 May 94 17:14 
 To   : All                                                                     
 Subj : Moscow, ID, 'Hemp' Festival                                             

STUDENTS ORGANIZE HEMP FESTIVAL TO UNDERSCORE PLANT'S USES
by Georgie Smith - Staff Writer,
reprinted from : Moscow/Pullman Daily News of 24 April 1994

  Moscow (4/23/94) -- It was a day of music, sun, fun -- and hemp.
  Sporting shirts emblazoned with "plant a seed and grow a
revolution," Birkenstock sandals and gaily colored stocking cap hats,
hundreds of people littered the grassy slopes of East City Park
on Saturday for the first annual Moscow Hemp Festival.
  A group of University of Idaho students organized the event
to provide a low-key, springtime celebration, said Shayne Kimball,
festival cooridinator.  Entertainment cosisted of seven local bands
and a variety of free-for-all hackey sack and Frisbee contests.
  But as band members strummed guitars and whined into micro-
phones, it was clear the festival also had a purpose: leagalizing
hemp in the United States.
  Kimball, a UI public relations major, wants to legalize growing
the male hemp plant (which has almost no narcotic applications).  Hemp
can be used to make a number of environmentally freindly products --
including paper, clothing and food, he said.
  "The main focus of this whole thing is to de-stigmatize hemp,"
Kimball said.  "If we can get hemp legalized in America, then we can
stop cutting down trees and that's what it's all about."
  Floyd Ferris Landrath, dressed in a hemp baseball cap and hemp
necklace, came from Portland, Ore., to help spread the word about hemp.
  Landrath is the director of the American Anti-Prohibition
League, a group dedicated to promoting grassroots support for legali-
zing marijuana and relaxing medical regulations on opiates, cocaine
products and other hallucinogens.
  Landrath brought his knowledge -- and his hemp products, including
duffel bags, fanny packs, baseball caps and purses.  All were made from
hemp imported from China and eastern Europe and weaved, shaped and dyed
into products by "starving hippies in Portland," he said.
  Landrath said hemp has long been grown for agricultural purposes,
even in America.  It is only in the last century that the United States
has prohibited growing hemp because of fear of its potential narcotic
uses.
  "It is the same plant but the difference (between the male and
female plant) is like night and day," he said.




--- Blue Wave/Max v2.10 [NR]
 * Origin: Jasmine's Echo Lounge & Brew Pub (1:105/69)

