THIS YEAR'S WEEDSTOCK TO TAKE PLACE IN DODGE COUNTY

Weedstock, a festival celebrating marijuana use and promoting legalization
of the drug, will move to Dodge County this year, the event's organizer
said Friday.

Ben Masel said he plans to take the Memorial Day weekend festival to Dodge
County because of legal matters still being ironed out at the annual
festival's last home.

Authorities in Sauk County shut down the festival last May after a judge
said organizers did not have a proper permit. A dozen people were arrested.

Masel said he will dedicate this year's festival to Scott William Bryant, a
29-year-old Beaver Dam man shot and killed in 1995 by one of four Dodge
County sheriff's deputies who served a search warrant at his trailer. The
warrant was issued as part of a marijuana investigation.

Dodge County Sheriff Jerold Witte said he first heard that the festival,
held annually since 1988, was coming to the area through a La Crosse radio
station.

"They said the organizer had called them and told them about it," Witte
said. "He hasn't contacted us at all."

The sheriff said his concerns about the festival center primarily on issues
of public safety, such as traffic control, sanitation and how those
attending the event would be protected if severe weather struck.

"Quite frankly, everybody's got a right to assemble, and everybody's got a
right to hold events. My only concern, as sheriff, is that all of the
issues that concern public safety be met," Witte said.

"If I were scheduling an event, number one, I would make sure I met all the
local codes and ordinances. And, two, I would make arrangements for traffic
control and those sorts of things. I don't think that's out of the
ordinary, to contact local officials. But we haven't heard a thing."

Masel said the event could draw an estimated 2,500 people.