Hash Bash No. 40

There were googobs of people out at the 40th annual Ann Arbor Hash Bash on Saturday, the celebration of all things cannabis. One news report I saw put the number of revelers at 6,000. I'm not sure how that number was calculated, but I say there were googobs of people who defied the chilly weather and laws against the public and recreational use of marijuana.

"It was the most successful one we've had in the past 10 years," organizer and emcee Adam Brook told me after the bash. "There've been some years when the weather was bad that we didn't have very many people, but when the weather is good we've had up to 12,000 people out there."

When the first Hash Bash was celebrated on U-M's Diag in 1972, the vast majority of the crowd in attendance last week wasn't even born yet, and the concept of medical marijuana was just a twinkle in the eyes of activists. But one thing that connects the first bash with this year's is John Sinclair.

Some of you may know Sinclair as the guy who writes this column every other week. Back then, he was fresh out of state prison after serving two-and-a-half years of a 10-year sentence for selling two joints; the Michigan Supreme Court had ruled the state marijuana laws unconstitutional. Sinclair and other activists came up with the idea of an April 1 event to take advantage of a small gap of time when there was no marijuana law on the books in Michigan. The first and several subsequent Hash Bashes were pretty much parties. This year's Bash was mostly a political rally defending the medical marijuana laws, although there was some talk of out-and-out legalization.

Ann Arbor activist Chuck Ream said, "We are going to have major threats this year," refering to the radically different ways Michigan's medical marijuana law has been interpreted differently by activists, on one hand, and law enforcement officials, on the other. "Fight back. Dare to kick ass. When we think about patients, we know we have no option to fail."

There was a stream of speakers, each apparently allotted about two minutes; Brook kept the program moving along. Brook, who's been the main Bash organizer the past 20 years, addressed the recent bust at his home in Royal Oak. "I want to apologize," he said. "I got busted. I was breaking no law and they came after me. The motherfuckers came into my house and I wasn't even there."

On Feb. 22, Brook, a registered medical marijuana patient, was charged with eight felony counts after a January raid when police found a triple-beam scale (a traditional tool of dealers), marijuana (allegedly more than a pound, although the amount is in dispute) and marijuana candy, two loaded handguns, a loaded shotgun and a bulletproof vest, according to a police report. Brook has a former felony conviction and is not allowed to be around guns.

"They found my wife's guns," said Brook. "I was charged with seven gun crimes. They've dropped four of them already." Regardless of the legal cloud hanging over his head ("I expect to beat this," he told me), Brook handled his duties well. "We knew this would be big," Brook said.

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