Smoke on Screen : Marijuana Message on Public Access Cable TV Ignites Viewer’s Outrage

Former Moorpark Councilwoman Eloise Brown was sitting at home one afternoon this week when her daughter called with an unusual request.

“Turn on Channel 8,” she said, “And don’t hang up. I want to hear you.”

Brown got up, turned on the television and--as closely as she can remember--uttered the words, “Oh my God,” followed almost immediately by, “What the hell are they doing now?”

On her screen in blaring capital letters were the words, “HEMP, HEMP, HURRAY!” against a background of changing colors, circles and squares, accompanied by cartoon music.

The segment ran for an hour, just like that.

Alarmed that her cable system’s public access channel was being used to lead cheers for marijuana, Brown called Ventura County Cablevision. A customer relations representative told her the program was someone’s artistic statement.

“Precisely what is artistic about cannabis?” asked Brown, who visited the company’s offices the next morning and discovered that the show was the product of Michael Lippmann of Newbury Park.

Lippmann and his co-producer, Shernett Bullett, also watched the program’s first installment Monday--one of four scheduled to run on the channel through the month.

“It just cracked us up,” Lippmann said. “This is just harmless. It’s amusing. It doesn’t hurt anybody. It just says, ‘Hooray for our side,’ and it’s a nice thing to do.”

Lippmann said that the basic “hooray” message is the centerpiece of all of the shows. Future broadcasts will include facts about hemp and a wider variety of graphics, he said.

“It’s entertainment,” said Lippmann, 35, who says he has worked as a busboy, department store security guard, tattoo artist and rifle instructor, and is currently unemployed.

“It’s to get people saying, ‘Gee, what does that mean?’ and maybe they’ll go out and find out for themselves instead of just listening to the basic lies that have been told about it for so long.”

Brown questioned why it is being shown in the afternoon when children could be watching. She forwarded Lippmann’s name to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“We’re dealing with a controlled substance, and if this individual chooses it as his lifestyle, that’s one thing, that’s a personal thing,” Brown said. “But to try and convince others to adopt that lifestyle is no longer a personal issue, it becomes an affront to the community.”

Dave LaRue, president of Ventura County Cablevision, which serves 90,000 customers, said that public access programming allows wide freedom of expression except in cases of extreme obscenity or explicit sexuality.

“The law limits our ability to scrutinize rather dramatically,” LaRue said. “You can advocate an activity that’s illegal, such as the use of marijuana, and that’s protected speech. We have no ability to decide whether or not to show that.”

Lippmann is not a newcomer to public access, having produced a handful of other shows, including one 30-minute program that simply featured the words “KILL YOUR TELEVISION.”