| The Northern River Echo, 15 Dec 2011 - It isn't every day that you meet a former stockbroker turned hippie. I'm sitting with Nimbin's unofficial mayor, Michael Balderstone, at the Nimbin HEMP Embassy, watching locals and tourists wandering past colourful painted shopfronts. The little village of Nimbin has a unique laid-back lifestyle and it's going on around us. People are drinking coffee, chatting with others as they pass by, some are shopping for organic vegetable seedlings and hemp-based soaps. For the past 20 years, Michael has been the public face of the North Coast's Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) movement. As the president of the Nimbin HEMP Embassy and the founder of the Nimbin Museum, Michael is a self-proclaimed hippie and advocate for all things hemp; but his life wasn't always about living the alternative lifestyle and promoting decriminalisation. Before finding his way to the North Coast 26 years ago, Michael spent his school days at a private boarding school in Victoria before heading off to find his fame and fortune as a high flyer on the stockmarket. |