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Vice Blog

WEED DEALINGS - THE EMERALD CUP

I went to France when I was 22. It was an ill-planned trip that I took with a group of friends. I wasn't really involved in the planning, but even if I had been I doubt I would have done anything different. Back then the only things I cared about were rapping, school, fucking, and art. And I didn't know much about art. So I wasn't in France under the auspices of great taste, although I did make my way to the Centre D. Pompidou to check out Duchamp's works. Anyway, I digress. A whole bunch. My point here is that I went to France as a young person and left it to the wind, but if I were to go now I'd probably want to see some wine country. I'm not that crazy about wine. I enjoy it when it's really good, I know a little bit about how it's made, and I know which wines I like. The draw for me has less to do with the wine itself, and more to do with the culture. French winemaking is an artistry that has been passed down across generations; it has shaped laws, and it has shaped towns; it has pushed trade, and pulled tourism; it has given meaning, and given sustenance. And the sum of the parts is the product of a bond between humans and plants. The plants have affected the humans as much as the humans have affected the plants. At the most basic level, consider that the quantity and quality of the harvest is determined by the plant. Think about all the days of all the lives that go into amending soil, blowing wine bottles from glass, coordinating shipping, sourcing fertilizers, tending to lands, harvesting, et al, and it ceases to be clear who is working who. And it's all OK. The government helps the industry regulate itself, the country looks upon it favorably, and people lead their lives intertwined with this complex vine. Shit, wine is a large part of what makes France France. A small part of what we see in France's wine industry is beginning to come into focus in the United States. The Emerald Triangle has slowly been gaining steam as the first recognized cannabis producing region in the United States, but we haven't really paid it much attention it yet. At least, not as a whole, not on a populist level. Our country is the birthplace of the cultivation of marijuana. Other folks may well have grown it before us, but that's like saying other folks were making wine before the French. Who wants to drink that other wine when there's French wine around? The stuff that the rest of the world smokes came right out of California, and a great deal of that was straight out of the Emerald Triangle. In many places in the Emerald Triangle the bond between humans and plants is much like the one formed in France. Marijuana has shaped the land, it has nourished the people, and it has become deeply intertwined with the people's lives. So it should come as no surprise that Mendocino played host to the 7th Annual Emerald Cup in early December. The fact that there is an Emerald cup, however, I can see being a surprise to most folks. When I first saw the poster for the cup I wasn't exactly sure what it was. I wasn't surprised to see that it would be happening in Mendocino County, but it was the first I'd heard of any kind of cannabis competition outside of tales of similar events in Amsterdam. The poster stated pretty clearly that it was a judged competition for outdoor cannabis and hash from the 2010 season. There would also be live music, vendors, representatives from local cannabis organizations, et cetera. It appeared to be exactly what you'd expect: a celebration of local industry organized by industry participants. It's probably not much different than a pumpkin fest in Pennsylvania, a strawberry fest in Plant City, or a lobster fest in Maine. It seemed like an interesting thing to get a look at, so I managed to get in touch with someone and made plans to head to Area 101 in Laytonville California to attend the cup. Laytonville is in the North end of Mendocino County along the 101. It's 160 miles North of San Francisco, 45 miles north of Ukiah—the County seat—and 112 miles South of Eureka. As you head North past Santa Rosa, the 101 takes a winding path through the largely undeveloped terrain. Moving through the mountain ranges the speed limit fluctuates between 55 and 65 miles per hour, and the stretches of road never fully unfurl in front of you before you reach the next bend in the pass. The views are stunning, with endless conifers blanketing everything that hasn't been cleared by humans. There are bears, deer, mountain lions (though you're not likely to see them), and scores of birds. The air is cool and damp, and there are few side roads off of the 101. Cell phone reception is spotty, and largely dependent upon your carrier, though no one seems to get good service in the mountains. Towns are spaced out about 50 miles or so, and there are definitely no billboards. It's the kind of place you go when you're trying to check out of the rat race, but not check out of society completely. It's not frontierland, but it's on the way to frontierland. Making the drive out there, it wasn't hard to see how things had taken root in Mendocino County. In the 70s, after logging and paper-making fell out, the area needed an industry to sustain itself, and it just so happened that marijuana growers were leaving the bay area and needed a place to settle. It's a great place to be, it provides ideal conditions for cannabis to grow, and if you need to get back to the thick of civilization you're only a few hours from San Francisco. The majority of people who showed up weren't there to score a sack of "dank nugs" or "blaze a fattie," as one might say. The majority of people were there to celebrate the harvest. This was a community event where folks who had spent the better part of the year working were just starting to unwind and enjoy the fruits of their labors, although the fruits here were flowers. And the flowers that were entered in the competition were put on display for everyone to see upon entering the main building. There were 150 entries, and they varied in every way that you might imagine them to: indicas, staivas, close trimmed, shaggy, big flowers, little flowers, new strains, old strains, dark flowers, light flowers, purple flowers—you name it, someone grew it. The thing that they had in common was their being grown outdoors in the Emerald Triangle. So, while it was obviously a cannabis cup, it was also, perhaps less obviously, a farming community's annual harvest celebration. But I don't think most people on the outside are really seeing that, at least not yet, because most people are still so mesmerized by being able to get marijuana without breaking the law. Despite what anyone took away from it there was simply too much going on, too many people doing too many different things with, through, and around this plant for it to not be more than a giant pot party. After all, it's organized by a farmers' collective that prides itself on its reverence for the plant. And it's not hidden from local law enforcement, local law enforcement is invited. Of course some of the people there were on a mission to get obliterated, but that's probably a daily M.O. for them. For other folks it was an opportunity to meet new people, catch up with old friends, introduce a new product, compete with your neighbors to see who has the best crop, get advice on how to improve your crop, see the newest strains, and so on. It's an annual meeting of a community centered around traditions, and the people involved in it work hard, treat others with respect, like to have a good time, and are happy to play host to outsiders. If you take away the stigma of the medicine, it's hard to find a bad thing to say about it. Sure, there's lots of hippies, and we all know the perils of being in close proximity to hippies, but you can't really fault anyone for the hippies coming around. An event like this can't happen without a robust community of support. It would be difficult to imagine the cup being successful if everyone there just wanted to smoke until their toenails were stoned. Instead of a field of couch potatoes this event wound up being a very interesting cross-section of people. I got to meet people who spent the year planting crops, tending to them, and doing everything they could to ensure that their crop would be as healthy and bountiful as possible. I got to meet people like Pebbles Trippet and Steve Sarich, who have been involved in the marijuana movement since the beginning, and have sacrificed their freedoms in order to change the way government treats marijuana. I also met Marv Levin, who is working to institute sensible and lasting regulations for the distribution and cultivation of medicine, and create a local organization that connects farmers and patients. I met the folks from SC laboratories, one of the first cannabis testing labs in the country. I met the people from Sweetleaf, who run a non-profit free-of-charge in-home (that was a high hyphen to word ratio right there) delivery service for low-income patients with debilitating diseases. In short, I met a lot of people who were doing way more than getting high. If I'm really going to tell you the story of the Emerald Cup, it's less about the Cup itself, and more about the stories that lead up to the Cup. Because the real story to be told here is the story of a farming region, and the trials and tribulations of the people who have formed this land, and the people who work it, and fight for it. The Cup is simply the annual reminder of all that has transpired in order to bring us to the present where we celebrate again. There is the recurring harvest, but there is also the ongoing legal struggle, the continual development of new cultivation techniques, the ongoing discovery of new medicinal properties, and so forth. The Cup is a time when people gather to tell the stories from the year. So starting next week we'll get into the stories of the people who not only made the Cup happen, but the people who have made and will continue to make marijuana happen. ZACHARY G. MOLDOF

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