Pubdate: Sun, 17 Feb 2002
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 2002 Roanoke Times
Contact:  http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368
Author: Emi Kojima

IRONTO MAN'S SITE COULD STIR THE POT

Users can navigate the site by exhibit category: cannabis botany,
cannabis culture, hemp history, medicinal cannabis and the war on
marijuana.

IRONTO - An unusual museum with the potential to travel to every city
in the world and subvert the dominant paradigm is scheduled to be
launched next month.

The museum is Michael Krawitz's virtual Cannabis Museum, found at
www.cannabis-museum.org. It will have pages with 100 exhibits covering
all aspects of marijuana, positive and negative. Users can navigate
the site by exhibit category: cannabis botany, cannabis culture, hemp
history, medicinal cannabis and the war on marijuana.

Essays by prominent marijuana activists also can be accessed from the
Web site. Some of the essays try to convince people that the plant
really can be used as a medicine.

People like Roanoke's Jay Lynch use this as a defense for
manufacturing marijuana. Lynch was sentenced to 10 years in prison and
a $10,000 fine in July for growing an "orchard" of cannabis plants at
his home.

"Michael has worked diligently and is providing a major service to the
country and world by providing information and making it available,"
said Chris Conrad, a court-recognized cannabis expert from El Cerrito,
Calif. "He's a pioneer in this area."

Conrad met 39-year-old Krawitz, of Ironto, in Amsterdam when Conrad
was working at the Hash-Marihuana-Hemp Museum as a curator. He
recalled only three or four cannabis Web sites that were in museum
format.

"It's a big deal," Conrad said. "It puts the information in a
historical context completely unavailable to most Americans and takes
the museum to every town."

Krawitz said the real exhibits will travel to museums worldwide - of
which there are only a few devoted to cannabis.

In May, he'll travel to Portland, Ore., and set up a display at the
second National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics. He has
about a dozen volunteers helping him with the museum project.

Krawitz's exhibits include medical books from the 19th century listing
cannabis as a cure for migraines. His collection includes a bottle
used for a treatment for horse colic - with Cannabis Indica listed on
its ingredients label at 12 percent. He also has comic books with
sensationalistic plot lines about marijuana, which Krawitz said
demonstrate reefer madness.

Of course, there are already thousands of Web pages about marijuana.
Type "cannabis museum" in a search box on www.google.com and it will
pull up about 8,000 hits (no pun intended).

Still, High Times Senior Editor Steven Wishnia said Krawitz's
background as an activist and medical marijuana patient will make his
Web site stand out.

"He's not a star, but not a flake," he said.
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