Grow: Could you explain the Seattle Hempfest to our readers? Rick: Seattle hempfest is an amazing celebration of freedom and embracing life and enjoying Marijuana and I went to the hempfest before I was really so outspoken on this topic and I was just blown away by the power and the magnitude of this counter culture that you don’t see everyday and then once you are in Seattle 100,000 people come out and they are dancing on top of the picnic tables and it’s just a beautiful celebration of life. When I go to Hempfest I see all of these great people having a party , I see the mountains, I see the sea, I see the spaceneedle and the ferries coming and going. I see the policemen standing by in a very mellow atmosphere and I just think the northwest really is a beautiful place. I see potential. I really used to be put off by the rag tag, tie dye, counter colture crowd because I am suburban businessman and I saw hempfest and I thought ‘this is a legitimate cross section of our society and the fact that the recreational drug of their choice is considered evil pushes them into a very bad space and these are beautiful people and this is a beautiful culture and hempfest is an annual chance for them to waive their flag and dance their dance and celebrate their way of life. I find that if you disagree with some of us it is a visual opportunity to see that you cannot just stop this group who enjoyes cannabis culture. I mean if you
stand out on a block and you look out over hempfest and you think if they effectivly enofrced these laws all of these people would be in prison..that’s ludicrous...it’s not going to happen. And as mayor LaGuradia the former mayor of New York, back in the days of prohibition, that if you have a law on the books that you are not planning to enforce consistently then the very existence of that law erode’s respect for law enforcement. We have a law on the books that criminalizes marijuana and well off white suburbanites can smoke without any risk and if you are a poor minority on the streets of some big city you are very likely to get arrested. It is a very unequally enforced law and that in itself should cause people to reconsider what is going on there but a lot of people don’t think about that.
“It is just economic common sense. If the government wants big business that is happening anyways, you could have it happen in a criminal way but then you are just enriching criminal drug pushers as we enrich the organized crime back in the days of prohibition of alcohol.”
-- Rick Steves
Grow: How do different nation’s in Europe handle cannabis? Rick: Well it is dangerous to paint europe with a broad brush because every country even though Europe is united, has a different approach to marijuana. Generally when I look at the European websites and I search for the word cannabis, the only thing I find is in the context of problem cannabis use. Anything can be over used or abused and cannabis can be abused. They deal with this as a health challenge and not generally as a criminal issue. In
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