I arrived at Hempfest with low expectations on the one-month anniversary of temporarily quitting a 20-year pot habit. I was not disappointed.

At the media tent I greeted Dominic Holden, who organizes the event with Vivian McPeak. Dominic (full disclosure-his father is the Belltown Messenger's restaurant critic) said hello and reminded me of our "contentious email exchange last year." I think he was referring to a dust-up with Messenger freelance writer Jeremy M. Barker. I have only had one other brief conversation with Dominic, during which he called legendary pot comedian Tommy Chong "an asshole" for bailing on his scheduled Hempfest appearance.

Jeez, between the short-term memory and the bickering, it seems the peace and love associated with hemp is all hype. The Hempfest folks even filed a lawsuit against the Seattle Art Museum and the City of Seattle this year for delaying the issue of a permit for access through the Olympic Sculpture Park's construction site. But all was settled a few days before the event. Despite the rough edges, Holden and McPeak should be commended for doing their part in fighting a sick society's utterly repressive injustice system.

Anyway, Dominic's a sweet guy and super-smart, and so is McPeak, but as usual it took about three seconds for me to get tired of McPeak's speechifying. This is a person who loves to hear himself talk. We went past the main stage at the north end of the park so my wife could breastfeed, and ended up near some booming house music. The incessant "bam-bam-bam-bam" beats were unhippie-like, and the bouncy DJ girl seemed unnaturally ecstatic.

On the way back we were unable to avoid some of McPeak's exposition. "We've worked with the Seattle Police on this fest for 15 years man," he told the crowd. "I've been a judge at the pot awards man, and I'll tell you man, Seattle has some of the best sticky green bud in the world, man." I'm not confident that someone who ends every sentence with the phrase "man," making him sound like a white guy talking to a Black Panther at a Jefferson Airplane concert circa 1965, should be one of the leaders of the hemp legalization movement.

And speaking of leaders, pot activtist and author Ed Rosenthal had his own tent. I went up to meet him, but he was too preoccupied trying to light up a bowl to acknowledge me until one of his handlers nudged him and pointed out that I was standing a foot away from him. This diminuitive baby boomer couldn't complete a coherent sentence. He also didn't seem to posses the charm necessary to convince nonusers that pot should be legal, making me wonder whether the legalization movement needs some new blood. Would it help the cause of the liquor lobby if one of their de facto leaders was sitting around swilling one martini after another with a bunch of people half his age, drunk off his ass?

And that brings me to the crowd. They were quiet as they came in, not quite smiling and passive like sheep entering a pleasure-pasture. At least half the people in attendance (at an event celebrating an illegal drug) were high school kids. There were a few black faces (more than at most lily-white Seattle events), but in my mind the park was swarming with white teenagers, many under the age of 18. The Seattle Police in attendance didn't look too happy to see so many youthful faces.

I believe our drug and alcohol regulations are insane and I cry out for reform; but can you imagine a beerfest where half the attendees are under 21 and openly drinking? The fact is, insane or not, the law is the law, and the city and the SPD should be commended for tolerating this sort of blatantly illegal nonsense. Of course, comparing alcohol, earth's most violent and destructive drug, to pot, a substance which has caused zero confirmed deaths in 4,000 years of documented use, is unfair.

An almost total lack of political awareness and activity at this year's Hempfest was a stark reminder of how selfish our society has become. Sure, tons of pro-legalization material was available, but I only saw two canvassers trying to encourage people to register to vote, and absolutely no anti-Iraq war organizers. I understand this event is about trying to get pot legalized - but has the whole hemp crowd gone insane by forgetting how all of these issues are inextricably linked? I speculate most of the attendees weren't even born when Reagan got elected in 1980 and ushered in a never-ending era of right-wing madness and pre-emptive war. Their futures are really bleak, but I guess it would be a buzz-kill to think about that on such a beautiful summer day. There's no question that pot should be legal and regulated by the government, but I also think there are more pressing issues facing our country that outrank hemp legalization, like getting a gang of murderous criminals out of the White House. That said, let's do the math and figure out how legalizing pot could help society.

First of all, buying pot, for medical reasons or otherwise, is a ripoff. There's no guarantee of quality, price, or quantity. It's a seller's market, and that just means the consumer gets screwed and risks getting thrown in jail.

And people involved in the higher levels of the pot trade tend to carry firearms, and use them. These people were nowhere near Hempfest. When you make millions of tax-free dollars a year, the last thing you want to do is be seen with a bunch of your stoned teenage customers in a crowd swarming with undercover feds. The world of illegal pot is a world of guns, ripoffs, and jail; those who think otherwise (the ones lucky enough to have a reliable, safe pot connection) are in denial.

So what if pot were taxed just like tobacco? Let's say, and this is a radically low estimate, that of the 100,000 people attending this year's Hempfest, each person spent $50 a year on pot. That's $5 million, taxed at say, 20 percent - $1 million in tax revenue.

Is that so insane?

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