Cannabis Cup in the D

Michigan's medical marijuana community will be spotlighted in a big way when High Times magazine brings the Cannabis Cup to Detroit this weekend. The first Michigan Medical Cannabis Cup competition and exposition kicks off at noon Saturday and continues through Sunday evening at Bert's Warehouse Theatre in Eastern Market.

The Michigan Cup will feature the world's premier medical marijuana competition, a two-day medical marijuana expo, and a special medical smoking area where qualified card-carrying patients can meet and medicate.

The exposition will include a series of panels and seminars with doctors, patients, researchers, growers, dispensary owners, activists and leaders of the medical-marijuana movement, including High Times cultivation editors Danny Danko and Nico Escondido.

For sheer medicated fun, High Times will throw a VIP party on Saturday night at the Warehouse, 140 Clark St., on the city's southwest side, with music by the 420 Funk Mob with special guest Dr. Funkenstein, plus rapper Royce Da 5'9".

A gala awards ceremony at Bert's Warehouse will close out the festivities Sunday evening when the High Times judges announce the winning strains of sativa and indica, hybrids, concentrates and medical edibles submitted by Michigan growers, cannabis collectives and compassion clubs.

Patients, growers, activists and cannabis businesses will be offered a series of seminars on cultivation, cannabusiness, legal medicine in Michigan, veterans and medical marijuana, marijuana-law reform activism, and political action, sure to be a popular topic in today's repressive climate.

Panelists include medical hemp-oil inventor Gersh Avery, Detroit cannabis attorney Matt Abel, Dr. Paul Meyer, Michael Krawitz of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, Jamie Lowell of the Michigan Association of Compassion Centers, and representatives from Michigan organizations including Mary Jane's Helping Hands, Michigan Moms United to End the War on Drugs, MedMar, the 3rd Coast Compassion Center, C-4 Dispensary, the Midwest Cultivator and Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine.

On a personal note, this writer will be honored by High Times with the Lester Grinspoon Lifetime Achievement Award and subjected to questioning from the audience at 4:20 on Sunday. I'm deeply appreciative of this honor, a rare instance of a prophet being honored in his hometown after 45 years as a proponent of marijuana legalization.

There's never been anything like the Medical Cannabis Cup in Michigan before, and it provides smokers of every stripe with the unprecedented opportunity to get together and make new friends, learn things, make important contacts for the future, and generally have a ball celebrating our culture and talking about what we can do to get the authorities off the backs of marijuana users and growers in Michigan once and for all.

> Email John Sinclair