A new twist on the war on drugs? Protesters say they should be able to cultivate hemp in this country. The DEA says no.
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Va. — You want to dig a garden, you need a shovel. You want to dig a guerrilla garden of illegal hemp on the front lawn of Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters and get arrested for the cameras, you need a symbol.
Shortly before they all were happily handcuffed Tuesday, the farmers took one look at what the activists had brought to dig with, and just shook their heads.
The symbolic shovels were shiny, chrome-plated affairs, the kind for turning the earth in a Washington photo op, stamped with slogans: “Reefer Madness Will Be Buried.” When the shovel blades were experimentally pressed into the mulch outside the group’s hotel, they bent like toys.
