Hash Bash No. 40

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:



Hash Bash No. 40
Ann Arbor fills with revelers and speakers, but who's blowing smoke?

By Larry Gabriel
Published: April 6, 2011


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. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/mmj/hash-bash-no-40-1.1128384