Jacksonville, FL
Scott Bledsoe has been arrested twice in the last year, and chased by a baseball-bat wielding preacher while petitioning for mdical marijuana here. But the 28 year old organizer of the Jacksonville Hemp Fest is not reasy to back down.

Bledsoe, a Jacksonville native, is a relatively recent convert to activism. "The first time I went to any organized event was the 1995 Gainesville Fest," he remembers. "That's where Elvy [Musikka] got arrested for smoking her government-prescribed joint, and the cops were just overwhelming, I didn't do anything after that, but it got me thinking pretty hard."

He took his first step into the world of grassroots activism by handing out flyers for a courthouse tour by the Marijuana Policy Project and the Cannabis Action Network. That was also his first encounter with police harassment.

"This off-duty cop threatened me with arrest infront of a really popular bar," he remembers. Fortunately, Bledsoefound a nearby sergeant more sympathetic to the First Amendment. "The off-duty cop ended up having to go through public relations training."

Bledsoe since has gone beyond handing out flyers, and plice retalliation has increased accordingly. In 1998, he had to go to court to get an injunction when city officials denied his application for a permit for the first Jacksonville Hemp Fest.

He also sued the city sheriff's office and the supervisor of elections twice for not defending the right to petition for signatures at polling places. He settled one case; the second, still pending, stems from an incident when Pastor Gene Youngblood threatened to attack Bledsoe with a baseball bat for petitioning outside his church while it was being used as a polling place in a 1999 local election. Nonetheless, John Stafford, the new supervisor of elections, support the activists' rights, and Bledsoe intends to drop the suit against him.

"Stafford is pro-legalization," Bledsoe says. "He wasnts us to help him make a training video for poll workers. We're very excited, and he's really a good guy."

It's unfortunate that he wasn't around AllTel Stadium on Dec. 2, 1999. Bledsoe and glaucoma patient Dave Tillman set up a table outside a Jaguars-Steelers game. Police asked them to leave. Bledsoe refused, explaining that he had a sheriff's memo stating that his free-speech activities could not be curbed without orders from specific supervisors. But they didn't listen. Several officers picked up the table and started to walk away with it. Bledsoe followed, trying to protect the literature. Four sheriff's deputies tackled him.

"They destroyed my table, and threw my petitions in the garbage," he recalls. "One has his knee in the back of my neck, one had his knee on my torso, and one was scraping my hand against the cement, trying to make me let go of a tape recorder I was using, There were about fifty people gathered around, booing the cops. I was screaming "POLICE BRUTALITY!" Bledsoe faces charges of trespassing, resisting arrest and misdemeanor posession of marijuana.
He was arrested again on Dec. 26, pulled over while acting as a designated driver after a friend's Christmas party. Less than a minute after the stop, he was dragged out of his truck and manhandeled into the back of a police car.

"I was asked to provide a breathalyzer, and when I refused I was struck about the face," he says. "The cop who arrested me, K.W. Bowen, told me he knew who I was, that he knew what I did, and that they'd be keeping an eye out for me." Charged with driving under the influence and possession of pot, Bledsoe faces 90 days in jail and the loss of his license for two years.
Still, he seems more concerned with bringing new energy into the marijuana-legalization movement in Florida than with his own fate. He helped organize Students for Drug Law Reform at the University of North Florida campus here. They'll be helping with petition drives, much to his relief.
"I'd like to see more volunteers so we can get more things done, "he says. "The people we have kick ass, but it's just not enough to cover everything, The people who need marijuana need it NOW. They're sick. They're dying, and they shouldn't have to worry about police storming into their homes. You can't find a reason why they should be denied safe and legal access to medical marijuana."