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The organizers of Portland's third annual Hempstalk Festival faced long odds in putting together the 2007 event. The previous location - the Downtown Portland Waterfront Park - was already booked. The City Parks & Rec Department also refused to issue a permit to use a different park, citing unsubstantiated claims that minors were drinking beer in the park (which could not have been purchased at our event) and widespread marijuana smoking was taking place in the park (not in public view and only by medical marijuana patients).

But thanks to relentless work by the organizers, their legal team, and advocates from the ACLU, Portland Hempstalk became a reality. The event once again took place on the weekend after Labor Day, but this time, at the Sellwood-Riverside Park just south of Portland.

There were about 10,000 in attendance over the two-day event who came to listen and dance to some of the best bands in the Northwest, headlined by Los Marijuanos. Oregon NORML and CRRH were prime sponsors of the event. Madeline and Russ both spoke at the event, and the Oregon NORML booth played the DVDs of "Busted" (which explains civil rights in a police encounter) and the documentary "Grass" (which chronicles the history of marijuana prohibition).

Pictures from the event can be found in the Oregon NORML Gallery.

Though tobacco and alcohol cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, cannabis is completely nontoxic and has never caused a single death in thousands of years. Yet tobacco and alcohol users can avail themselves of a regulated market, while cannabis users are subjected to arbitrary prosecution and punishment by enforcers of this unjust law. Our work shall continue to end this and we shall prevail.