William Conde (Mailbag, "Our Most Expensive War," Dec. 23) got an arrow-splitting bull's eye: where would President-elect Obama be if .? Once Obama takes office, there should not be another responsible U.S. citizen caged for using or possessing small amounts of cannabis (marijuana) ever again. Conde was mistaken about the expense of incarceration, however. Caging humans for using the relatively safe, socially acceptable, God-given plant cannabis is a money-making gravy train for the prison industry, police, drug testing industry and their unions; lobbying efforts are one of the reasons cannabis and hemp prohibition perpetuates. A sane argument to continue caging responsible citizens for using the plant doesn't exist. Cannabis prohibitionists are like vampires. Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
An Open Letter To President-Elect Obama: Conspicuous in its absence has been any intelligent dialogue concerning one of our largest financial drains and human rights violations: The USA's longest (decades long), most expensive (hundreds of billions annually with totals now into the trillions of U.S. dollars), with by far the largest number of casualties (millions of families and lives destroyed annually) of any war to date. Must we mention the hit on the rest of the world? More than 3,000 brutal executions of police, prosecutors, journalists, politicians and more, this year so far in Mexico alone. [continues 350 words]
As a registered cannabis-using patient in Oregon, I enjoy the benefit of one of the best medical marijuana programs in the country. If I actually could get access to my medicine in a safe, consistent manner - - at a local dispensary, for instance - it would be perfect. I am confined to a wheelchair by an especially crippling form of rheumatoid arthritis and suffer from the associated chronic pain issues. I also have glaucoma and other eye conditions, severe muscle spasms and adult-onset insomnia. Growing my own isn't an option for me. Using cannabis has helped me in many, many ways, but best is its reduction in my menu of costly pharmaceuticals. [continues 609 words]
Your article, "Pot-Leaf lookalike leads to book redesign" (Sept. 14), made me laugh. All that work Bill Conde put into educating people about hemp and cannabis, all his grief in bucking a system bent against him and after a mere five or six years since his departure to Belize the locals get spooked by a maple leaf. While not quite up there with Janet Jackson's Superbowl gaffe, the good folks employed here in the People's Republic of Eugene can be proud knowing that no good leaf goes unburned. Besides, as Conde made clear, lying about cannabis is the job of the federal government. Allan Erickson, Drug Policy Forum of Oregon, Eugene [end]
Auditors found that 345 firearms, $10,423 in cash, and drugs in various quantities were unaccounted for and that many records had been destroyed. The Oregon Department of Justice submitted the cases involving the Willamette Valley narcotics team to a Linn County grand jury, which did not return indictments. Albany Police Chief Joe Simon, chairman of VALIANT's governing board, said the investigation showed nothing criminal had occurred. The investigation began 18 months ago after James Welch of the Linn County Sheriff's Office became VALIANT supervisor and tried to find a gun that was to be released to its owner. [continues 342 words]
Auditors found that 345 firearms, $10,423 in cash, and drugs in various quantities were unaccounted for and that many records had been destroyed. The Oregon Department of Justice submitted the cases to a Linn County grand jury, which did not return indictments. Albany Police Chief Joe Simon, chairman of VALIANT's governing board, said the investigation showed nothing criminal occurred. The investigation began 18 months ago after James Welch of the Linn County Sheriff's Office became VALIANT supervisor and tried in vain to find a gun that was to be released to its owner. [continues 427 words]
It was a peaceful Saturday afternoon at Alton Baker Park, site of the first ever Emerald Empire Hempfest. All kinds of people stopped by the free event to shop for hemp products, to listen to music about the political plight of cannabis, to sign medical marijuana petitions and to dine on hemp-based food. There were old people, young people, big people, little people, people wearing lots of clothes and people wearing almost nothing at all. They shared a common belief: The marijuana plant is misunderstood, undervalued and unfairly demonized. [continues 414 words]
Will our area see another hemp festival this summer? The big annual for-profit celebration in Linn County discontinued after embattled cannabis activist Bill Conde exiled himself to Central America a couple of years ago, but local activists are planning a free Emerald Empire HempFest 2003 to be held July 19 at Alton Baker Park. The focus of the event will be to promote education and awareness of "hemp-based products and processes," and to "neutralize and eradicate government propaganda regarding the plant cannabis sativa," according to the group's mission statement. [continues 177 words]
In 1997 I first heard the name Esequiel Hernandez. Zeke's story angered me. When I get mad I get educated. I became a volunteer for MAP in 1998 after becoming educated and learning about too many deaths like Zeke's. I was employed at the time by a man who was one of the leading industrial hemp advocates in the country, William Conde. I watched the WO(s)D destroy Mr. Conde's business and along with it one of the best jobs I have ever had. [continues 194 words]
Well, it's that time of year again: Saturday Market, garden parties with wine and beer, endless outside events. And before you know it it's time for the Country Fair, the Barter Fair, and the Hemp Festival ... wait a minute, no Hemp Fest this year. Bill Conde is gone. He vamoosed to Belize, Central America. He lives in a village near Orange Walk Town with his wife, Ruby, and three children, ages 9, 6, and 2. He has the newest and biggest house in town that also doubles as a variety store, which he calls "Guaranteed Used." They sell fine used clothing he buys from Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. He also sells filtered water and filtered ice and that brings in a good living. [continues 303 words]
Oct. 1--HARRISBURG, Ore.--The sale of his signature lumberyard is pending, his annual hemp festival is up in the air and his run for governor is down the tubes. "I'm running for the border now," marijuana activist and longtime fly-in-the-ointment Bill Conde says. Monday will be the final day in business for Conde's Redwood Lumber off Interstate 5 near Harrisburg, which has doubled in recent summers as home base for the three-day World Hemp Festival. Conde plans to auction off various items remaining at his business -- from lumber to tools and even a forklift -- on Oct. 13. [continues 335 words]
ALBANY - A deal was struck Thursday but won't be finalized until next week that will result in six criminal charges being dismissed against marijuana activist and Harrisburg lumberyard owner Bill Conde, who will serve a five-year term of self-imposed exile in the Central American country of Belize. Conde, 58, went to court Thursday expecting the agreement to be approved by Linn County Circuit Judge Carol Bispham, but instead sat for a half-hour in an empty courtroom while his attorney and a prosecutor worked out details with the judge in her chambers. [continues 425 words]
HARRISBURG, Ore. - The organizer of the annual World Hemp Festival is tying up loose ends in preparing to leave the country. "I'm running for the border now," marijuana activist Bill Conde told The (Eugene) Register-Guard. Tomorrow will be the final business day for Conde's Redwood Lumber, which has doubled in recent years as home base for the three-day World Hemp Festival. Conde will auction off items remaining at his business from lumber to tools and even a forklift Oct. 13. He said he plans to move to the Central American country of Belize, where his wife and three children are waiting. [continues 200 words]
HARRISBURG - The sale of his signature lumberyard is pending, his annual hemp festival is up in the air and his run for governor is down the tubes. "I'm running for the border now," marijuana activist and longtime fly-in-the-ointment Bill Conde says. Monday will be the final day in business for Conde's Redwood Lumber off Interstate 5 near Harrisburg, which has doubled in recent summers as home base for the three-day World Hemp Festival. Conde plans to auction off various items remaining at his business - from lumber to tools and even a forklift - on Oct. 13. [continues 334 words]
HARRISBURG, Ore. The organizer of the annual World Hemp Festival is tying up loose ends in preparing to leave the country. "I'm running for the border now," marijuana activist Bill Conde told The (Eugene) Register-Guard. Monday will be the final day in business for Conde's Redwood Lumber, which has doubled in recent summers as home base for the three-day World Hemp Festival. Conde will auction off various items remaining at his business from lumber to tools and even a forklift on Oct. 13. [continues 181 words]
ALBANY - Marijuana activist Bill Conde has been jailed for failing to do community service as required under terms of a probationary sentence he received in May for aiding in the sale of illegal drugs and hindering prosecution. Linn County Jail records show Conde, 58, was sentenced to 10 days. He previously served two weeks in jail as part of his sentence on the same charges. The convictions stemmed from open drug sales at the 1999 World Hemp Festival, an annual event he holds at his property east of Harrisburg, District Attorney George Eder said. [end]
HARRISBURG - Hemp burger, hemp bracelet, hemp hat, hemp this and hemp that. If hemp is your thing, then the World Hemp Festival is your place. The annual celebration in honor of the multipurpose plant began its annual run Friday in a once-empty hay field east of Harrisburg. As people arrived, they visited booths touting legalizing marijuana, fingered hemp-based clothing and sampled a wide selection of food made from hemp. They found dancing music, new friends and a slow-paced event that gives time for a little rest. [continues 589 words]
A Celebration Of All Things Alternative Jaya Lakshmi plans on getting very high at the World Hemp Festival in Harrisburg this weekend. As vocalist and keyboardist for the techno/world music act Lost at Last, Lakshmi won't need any mind-altering substances to reach her elevated state of consciousness. All she needs are music and an audience. "I dance a lot on stage, and I do a lot of spiraling and spinning," Lakshmi said in a phone interview. "The idea is to kind of generate positive energy and for the audience to generate positive energy. ... [continues 617 words]
HARRISBURG - There are big goings-on at the home of the World Hemp Festival. Not only is Bill Conde out of jail. And not only is he going ahead with this year's three-day music and hemp-products extravaganza, July 20 through 22. Conde, 58, also has decided to use this year's event as an "assembly of electors," as described by Oregon law, to get himself nominated as a minor-party candidate for governor in 2002. "It came to me as I was pacing up and down like a caged animal the other night in my jail cell," the longtime marijuana legalization activist said Monday. [continues 560 words]
I disagree with Suzanne Levinson's June 8 letter that Bill Conde's tenacity is admirable. There are many legitimate uses for hemp, and some medical uses for marijuana. What I have read about Conde doesn't convince me that his motives are altruistic. My oldest daughter died from drug abuse. My youngest daughter's life is destroyed by drug use. Both girls began with marijuana. Unfortunately, marijuana is often laced with other substances. At best, it fosters irresponsibility and self-centeredness. When Levinson has watched two of her children's lives destroyed by this "innocent" drug, and one die from the almost inevitable escalation to harder drugs, let her tell us how much she admires people such as Conde. Carolyn Reilly Springfield [end]
Conde, William
