The ever expanding usage of the Internet has given a significant boost to the drug policy reform movement. Many people might be hesitant to get involved with activism for fear they might lose their job or some other inequity might befall them. The Internet has allowed thousands of people to come together in a forum without faces to discuss solutions to our current drug policy and to plan action. Many online groups and organizations are helping facilitate drug policy reform efforts on the ethereal Internet. I do "behind the scenes" work for one such organization, Hemp.Net.

Since 1995, Hemp.Net has risen to become the premier source of information regarding hemp and marijuana activism in the State of Washington. Back in the day when domain names were still free, Robert Lunday started Hemp.Net with a few hempsters. The system began as a point of communication for members of Hemp Initiative Projects of Washington State.

In the past few years, Hemp.Net has grown to include a slew of activist mailing lists, website hosting for Washington reform groups, news writing and dissemination on local issues and general "geeking for the cause" among other things. Let me tell you a bit about a few of our activist geek projects.

Here in Washington State, we recently had a bill signed into law that created a civil infraction for the transfer of "drug paraphernalia." Whereas before, police had to prove store owners knew pipes would be used for drug use, they don’t have that burden of proof with this law. Nobody here in Washington had heard a thing about EHB 2772 before it was sitting on the Governor’s desk awaiting a signature. "How can we make sure something like this never happens again?" many people asked. It’s not possible for us to have a lobbyist in Olympia tracking legislation and that’s where Bill Watcher comes in.

We coded this script to check the Washington State Legislature site on a nightly basis and report back to us if any new bill mentions the word "drug" or "marijuana." We’re hoping this will help avoid any "stealth" bills like EHB 2772.

Special Reports

Washington is a very active state when it comes to drug policy reform. At Hemp.Net, we strive to give activists in depth information on everything going on in our great state and what they can do to help. One recent example is Senate Bill 6271, the medical marijuana bill introduced into the state senate. Our site provided activists with solid information to lobby, including key legislators with links to their personaL biographies as well as previous positions they may have taken on medical marijuana.

The Hemp Calendar

Occasionally, we’d receive inquiries about events around the country. Many hemp activist events don’t have web pages and getting information on them can be tricky. We set out to change that with The Hemp Calendar. Anyone can add their activist event to our database through a web form and a page will automatically be created for it with all the relevant information.

We’re hoping to save people a lot of time and help get them more involved by listing as many events as we can find. While instances of people emailing us and asking "can you tell me if the Hempfest in Detroit is on this year?" have actually increased, we are doing the best we can to track down activist events around the globe.

HempCast

Through a program called PointCast, Internet users can get news, weather, entertainment and other information delivered directly to their desktop. Most of the major United States news outlets are on the PointCast network and so is Hemp.Net. Using this fancy push media, HempCast delivers all the latest hemp and marijuana news to PointCast users who have subscribed to our channel. Subscriptions are free and require a few simple button clicks.

HempCast has been rated "Best of Connections" by the PointCast Network. We must be doing something right, because for many months, someone from the Central Intelligence Agency Department of Information Technology was subscribed to our news service. Every weekday without fail, they would update their news. That is, of course, unless it was a national holiday.

Communication

By far, the largest thing Hemp.Net does is facilitate communication between activists. If it has to do with Washington activism, chances are it was planned or discussed on a Hemp.Net mailing list or with some Hemp.Net usage.

Ben Livingston—Hemp.Net Number 2 Geek

ben@hemp.net  —http://www.hemp.net/~ben

Pager: (206) 405-5862
--- (360) 971-5233
P.O. Box 95227
Seattle, WA 98145-2227

Have you had your daily Hemp.Net dosage?