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My new roommates are seated on the floor, passing around a cigar-sized joint. Lori and Donna are ravers from Milwaukee who have come to "get their smoke on." They have matching magenta pigtails and Lori is wearing a pacifier around her neck. Donna takes a pull and passes the joint to Pete, a lanky Texan with a whiteboy fro. Pete has smuggled a significant amount of mescaline into the country to sell at the festival and the profits will go toward his college tuition. When I comment that he's probably the only person in history to smuggle drugs into Amsterdam, he responds with a boastful, smile. "Groovy," he says.
I say goodbye and make my way across town to the Arena Hotel, which is the official Cup headquarters and home to all daytime festival activities. I pick up my judge's credentials and wander into the exhibition hall, which is filled with booths hawking every type of marijuana paraphernalia. There are exotic, hand-blown bongs shaped like swans and blowfish, as well as vaporizers, grow lights, and numerous cannabis food products, from a Bavarian hash strudel to a pungent array of marijuana baked goods. Noticeably absent, however, are the social, political, and environmental groups who populate the music festival circuit. If you want to buy an aromatherapy kettle fashioned from a rabbit skull, Cannabis Cup is the place. But if you want to save a whale, you'll have better luck cruising the concourse at a Dead show.
Downstairs in the main room, lecturers are pontificating on cannabis-themed topics, including "Hidden Knowledge and the Conspiracy Against the Psychedelic Mind" and my personal favorite, "Jesus Was a Stoner." According to the speaker, the anointing oils used by Christ were cannabis extracts, and application to the skin could induce hallucinogenic visions. As I ponder this bold theory, a heavy-set woman in the audience begins speaking loudly to no one in particular. "Jesus was a hippie?" she bellows. "Don't surprise me none. He got the long hair and the beard. And what about those sandals?" Then she looks over at me and adds, "Personally, I always thought he looked like Dan Fogelberg."
The Cannabis Cup was founded in 1987 by Steven Hager, former editor of High Times magazine, as a tribute to the California marijuana harvest festivals of the '70s. Originally, the Cup was modest in size--there were four entries and three judges: Hager, a photographer who documented the event, and the grow master known as Dr. Indoors. Hager continued to organize the event from New York, but would not attend again until the sixth festival, which featured 50 judges and introduced the sterling silver Cannabis Cup trophy that would be awarded to all future winners.
By 1996, the Cup had become a media event, drawing 1,500 judges and 30 entries. The judging has been open to the public since 1993--for a price (except in 2000, when High Times gave voting responsibility to six Cannabis castaways who lived on a houseboat for three days with an unlimited supply of each entry). This year, High Times sold 1,700 judges passes at $200 each. Worn around the neck like a rock tour laminate, the pass guarantees free samples of pot and hash, access to all parties, concerts, and events, and the right to vote in the competition. " It was the first attempt to legally establish a worldwide standard for cannabis seed, and the event has kept its mission intact," Hager says. "That is why it remains so popular. "