CANNABIS CAMPAIGN HOMEGROWN TALENT HAS A HIGH TIME IN AMSTERDAM

Marijuana's Recreational And Medicinal Benefits Were Celebrated At An
International Conference Held In Amsterdam Last Week.

By Ros WynneJones

CLUTCHING his trophy before a crowd of hundreds at the Melkweg, one of
Amsterdam's most famous nightclubs, the winner seemed to be suffering from
a form of shortterm memory loss. "Uh, hi," he blinked in the stage lights,
to rapturous applause from the faithful gathered below. "Like, what
category was this again?"

The category was Best Imported Hashish, the occasion the 10th anniversary
of the High Times Cannabis Cup, a celebration of the cannabis sativa plant
and its many uses. Beating off strong opposition from the United States in
the Cannaboid International Flower Show, homegrown talents swept the board
last week, to prove that the Netherlands is still the hashish capital of
the world.

The judges, meanwhile, after three days of arduous testing of 13 new
varieties, had gone for a lie down. As connoisseurs with names like Little
Mountain and Willow debated the merits of Nepalese Cream and Yellow Cab in
a vaulted hall cloudy with cannabis fug, a white Rastafarian somewhere
between Jamiroquai and Vanilla Ice sang tributes to Bob Marley. The late
reggae guru's former wife, Rita, looked on from the edge of the stage while
inhaling from an implausibly large joint.

Categories from the Hydrocup, for the best Hydroponic cultivation of
cannabis, to the Biocup, for the best natural marijuana, followed, with
appropriate pauses for the presenters to remember where they were and
winners to roll up from their award winning supplies.

The compere remembered the spirit of the Grateful Dead, "when they played
the Pyramids, '76" and recalled sharing a "Neutron Bong" with LSD guru
Timothy Leary. Former judge Hunter S Thompson was invoked in the naming of
a new variety, White Shark, and overall winners of the dope world's Grammy
Awards, Dampkring, pledged their next seed strain to the hallowed memory of
Uncle Bob.

A high fashion show on the makeshift catwalk, ("Dan wears 100 per cent
cannabis sativa hemped suit from Crucial Creations, Ivana wears a hemp,
viscose and silk mini dress from the Ohio Hempery") showed the versatility
of Narco fabrics.

It was a celebration of the sativa plant in all its many forms, the
culmination of a week of events dedicated to examining the many uses of
marijuana from the medical to the recreational, as well as quoting a forum
for identifying and promoting excellence in strains of cannabis.

Hosted by High Times magazine the New Yorkbased weed lovers' bible the
International Conference, which also heard moving testimonies of the drug's
efficacy from multiple sclerosis sufferers, celebrated the first
anniversary of California's Proposition 215, which allows doctors to
prescribe marijuana to patients, as well as a decade of Cannabis Cup winners.

The US lawyer and Ohio hempery owner, Don Wirtshaster, had stripped to his
floral boxer shorts to illustrate the cannabis world's favourite parable,
The Emperor's New Clothes. Rita Marley had allegedly set fire to her
Amsterdam hotel room after apparently falling asleep indulging in her late
husband's greatest passion.

By Friday, activists overpowered by a week of living off an embarrassment
of cannaboid riches in the land of the free were ready to return to their
less enlightened homelands across Europe and the United States, but already
making plans for the 11th High Times Cannabis Cup festivities.

"What's your address?" One weed worshipper asked a dreamy, dreadlocked San
Franciscan. He swayed briefly. "Damned if I can remember," he said. "See
you next year."