The impact and evolution of A2’s Hash Bash

Poet John Sinclair, founder of the White Panthers, lays out the history of Ann Arbor’s Hash Bash – its impact on marijuana laws and its current evolution. Excerpt: “Once enacted, the Ann Arbor marijuana ordinance served as a model for the progressives of Ypsilanti and East Lansing, where similar laws were enacted, establishing Michigan as the world leader in harm reduction with respect to marijuana use. Activists in the Netherlands picked up the banner and moved it up a couple of levels, decriminalizing all recreational drug use and providing for over-the-counter sales of marijuana and hashish in the coffee shops that proliferated into the hundreds, entirely without regulation until the mid-1990s. Unhappily, marijuana legalization in the United States never got any further than Michigan in the early 1970s. Progress stalled until the medical marijuana movement in California led by Dennis Perrone and Scott Immler succeeded in legalizing medical marijuana 20 years later and opened the door to the series of ballot initiatives that’s led 15 states and the District of Columbia to recognize the benefits of weed and protect citizens from arrest for smoking. Just now several states — including California and Massachusetts — have effectively decriminalized cannabis by making possession a ticketable, noncriminal offense subject to fines of as much as $100. Breckenridge, Colo., has completely legalized the sacrament within its city limits.” Read the rest of the story here. Or here.