I have been asked to give a "State Of The Initiative Address" for Initiative 197. In case people have forgotten there is still another initiative out there in the works. The deadline for getting the signatures is January 2nd, 1998.

But I also need to give a "State Of HIP Address" since there is some significant stuff going on there. So here goes.

As to Init 197, we don't have a chance in hell of getting it on the ballot this year. Its a shame because it really is a great initiative. I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to work towards getting it on the ballot. I think it is clearly the best constructive initiative I have seen yet. We kept it simple and conservative. It was pretty much bullet proof. Everything was straightforward. I think it would have been received well if we would have had a chance to present it to the people. But that's not to be. We only have about 20,000 signatures in hand. Even if we could pay signature gatherers at this point there is just not enough time to get the rest of the signatures.

There were a number of factors contributing to our poor showing this year. Last year we got over 60,000 signatures in less than 3 months. So it didn't make sense that we would do so poorly this year. It's clear that having I-685 out there hurt us quite a bit. Many people who we ran into at the festivals thought they had already signed our initiative. When we explained that there were two initiatives this year they quickly signed ours. But for those didn't stop and talk to us they had no way of knowing so they would just smile and walk past. So that hurt us. But also we had fewer volunteers out there this year. Your guess is as good as mine as to why that was. We have some theories but I won't bore you with them. The bottom line is that we just didn't have the enthusiasm this year as we had last year. The upshot of this is that we went down hard. That's the breaks.

As to HIP, we're closing down shop after January 2nd. We've worked hard for three years trying to get a comprehensive initiative on the ballot. Though we never achieved our main goal we have accomplished a lot. Just having the organization in place has helped get Washington State hemp activists perform in a more coordinated fashion. Even those who disagreed with our conservative (I say "mainstream") approach at least got stirred up and more involved. We established the longest running Hemp Initiative Hotline in Washington State History. Our HOTLINE has been continually active since January 1994. Also, HempNet was born from the efforts of a HIP board member, Robert Lunday. And many of the Media Awareness Project members came from HIP.

So even though we didn't get the mega prize all of our work was not in vain by any means. All of you who went out there and gathered signatures wearing signboards, you made an impression. We let Washington know we were here. So much so that they began to expect us at the festivals and on the streets. We became accepted. You helped make the hemp issue more acceptable to talk about. And we can't move forward on this issue until we can talk about it. For that you should be proud!

But it takes a lot of energy to keep an organization going and at this point we are all pretty much exhausted. So its time for HIP-WS to close down. I hope that the coalition that formed around I-685 will take up the banner and keep the momentum going forward. They clearly seem to have more resources than we did. I just hope that they have the stick-to-it’ness to keep the pressure on. I think they do.

But it takes a lot of energy to keep an organization going and at this

But it takes a lot of energy to keep an organization going and at this So, once again, I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to try to make our dream come true. I have met some truly remarkable people in the time I have been involved in HIP. You've done good. And I'm proud of you all.