Cannabis cup wrap-up

The idea of a Cannabis Cup conjured up visions of lines of tables in a room with people furiously toking away on numerous joints in the effort to judge the most powerful stuff. That didn't happen. The High Times Medical Cannabis Cup held at Bert's Warehouse Theater in Eastern Market over the weekend was no tokefest. There seemed to be almost everything associated with growing, using and advocating marijuana there, but no actual marijuana was being used, at least not on the grounds of the event.

Detroit Police made sure of that when they came by early Saturday and shut down the medication tent that was set up behind the warehouse. Medicating was moved to the nearby Trans Love Compassion Center owned by Holice Wood and John Sinclair. 

Police returned early on Sunday to shut down any booths selling drug paraphernalia. Apparently there is an ordinance on the city books that says you can't possess paraphernalia. They ended up writing a couple of tickets for businesses selling pipes and had the tables shut down. It seems odd that when you can buy the same kind of stuff practically every gas station in town they would bother to enforce that ordinance now. It seemed like they just wanted to harass the event and let folks know that anything does not go in Detroit. This led to a little bit of paranoia and disgruntled attitudes as "fuck the police" flew from several mouths.

Those were the biggest disruptions for an event that was well-organized and ran smoothly. The High Times staff obviously knows what they are doing. There was good security all around the place, seminars ran on time, the sound system was good, so you could hear what was being said during panel discussions. The High Times people told me that somewhere between 2,500 to 3,000 ticket-buying attendees were there, and that they planned to come back next year for another Cannabis Cup.

Although handing out awards for marijuana, edibles and topical preparations judged to be the best was an eagerly anticipated event, the actual ingesting and judging took place before the weekend at some other location and at a couple of analysis labs. The event itself was built around a series of seminars mostly focused on legal, entrepreneurial and activist issues, tables sponsored by various cannabis businesses touted their wares, there was a Saturday night party in a southwest side warehouse and the awards ceremony.

Sessions on the Legal Medicine in Michigan, Marijuana Law Reform Activism, Veterans and Medical Marijuana, Your Cannabusiness, Political Action and a couple of cultivation seminars filled out the schedule. The cultivation sessions, run by High Times cultivation editors Nico Escondido and senior cultivation editor Danny Danko, were by far the most popular, with standing-room-only crowds squeezed into the seminar area that sat about 200 people. 

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