Reason.tv at HempFest 2011: Rick Steves, Dennis Kucinich, Dale Gieringer

In August, Matt Welch and I traveled to Seattle for Hempfest, the world's largest annual pro-marijuana event, Seattle's Hempfest, to talk about how themes in our book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, intersected with drug policy reform.

Reason.tv producers Paul Feine and Alex Manning were also in attendance at the August happening, which draws tens of thousands of people and celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.

We shot four videos at the event, including one that captures the sweep and character of the the festival and straight talk from PBS travel guru Rick Steves, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and activist Dale Gieringer about the need for change to laws that arrest 800,000 people a year for possession of marijuana.

Click above to watch the four vids in a YouTube playlist. Videos produced by Paul Feine, Alex Manning, Nick Gillespie, Meredith Bragg, and Zach Weissmueller. Total run time is about 15 minutes.

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