PAGE FOUR; FEATURE

For those tired but dedicated professional cannabis smokers for whom dope smoking is a humdrum part of thier daily existence (who are we kidding?), the Cannabis Cup is always an incomparable event. It is, of course, and has always been an event for which there is no comparison. For most of us, the Cup represents the best annual opportunity to catch up on cannabis news world wide. And a depressing affair it usually is. Busts here, oppression there, who’s inside and who’s outside (temporarily), rip-offs and -- occasionally -- successful scams. But mostly it’s just depressing. And as the Cup week progresses the depression deepens until, on the evening of the last day, it reaches its nadir as capitalism and corrupton take to the winners’ stage to demonstrate that the cups are as much ‘for sale’ as any other item.
...In the aftermath of the Cup, the sweet smell of excess is usually not so much sweet as sour. In the weeks following the Cup Amsterdam usually has nothing good to say about the event. Despite the fact that -- in all the world -- it is such a singular and unique event. Despite the fact that it is such a total celebration of Amsterdam’s uniqueness. Despite the fact that it is devoted to the ‘happiness herb.’ Amsterdam just scowls and hisses between its teeth or shrugs its shoulders in a massive wave of apathy.
...The most recent Cups, however, have been rather different. For two years running the sour smell of excess has been transmuted into that of success. Even the news from foreign climes was good. But the wave of apathy was still there.
...(It is the case that what for dope smokers is a major, super-duper, spliffs galore world wide gathering of the tribe is for straight Amsterdam an embarrassment and something of a scandal. While the cannabis industry and its customers revel in the major event of the dope smokers’ year, straight Amsterdam glances, spits and gets on with the ‘real world.’)
...The apathy is understandable. Expected, even. But it was the post-cup dissatisfactions among those who were there -- the coffeeshops, the cannabis supplies companies and the small numbers of Amsterdam smokers who attend -- that would stick in the throat.

...But, as we said, recently it has all been different. Well, not all. The November weather was the same. And, as usual, chaos reigned but, courtesy of a new organiser, in a pleasantly restrained and well managed fashion. Delegates smoked themselves into oblivion and coffeeshops were visited to excess (and, indeed, exceed) via a stream of mini-buses which would scoop them up from the pavements provided their feet had not become frozen in place and return them eventually to the Pax Party Centre to regroup their scattered brain cells, recharge their bodies with energy drinks and smooth their intellectual feathers with some smoozing. snoozing and (unfortunately) boozing.
...With the Pax Party Centre as the hub of all the acivity by day and the Melkweg by night, delegates had only to brave the elements on their trips round the coffeeshops and as they shuttled between the two venues. But most of them were too numbed of brain to notice the weather, which was as cold and rainy as only Amsterdam can be. But the Rokerij were giving out welcomed umbellas for delegates to leave in coffeshops all over Amsterdam.
...Within the warmth of the Pax Party Centre it was a bonanza of prodigious consumption and multifarious activities. With a judges lounge offering lectures, music and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife, a first and second floor expo brimming with goodies spread over three rooms, a top floor snack bar offering reasonably priced and reasonably good food, plus a selection of toilets and a very few chairs, almost all of the delegates' needs were satisfied. At least it seemed as if there were very few chairs as one maneouvred oneself through the sodden, weary and braindead delegates who seemed to have collapsed all over the stairs. Of course there were chairs in profusion in the Judges Lounge occupying the main hall on the ground floor of the Party Centre but, after a hard day battering your brain to death in Amsterdam, who has the initiative to do more than fall over? So fall over they did.
...For those who were interested in more than merely dissolving their brains there was a program packed with events at the Pax Party Centre but getting good and stoned always came first. The buses came and the buses went and like a spring tide (without much spring) the delegates ebbed and flowed through the sacred Halls of Peace. Among the lectures, movies and other events designed to stir up the surviving brain cells of Cup delegates were seminars led by some of the leading lights of marijuana activism.

...And, suddenly, as if by magic (the magic of missing out whole big bits of the story), we are at the awards ceremony. Yes, the Cups themselves. What of them?
...The whole point, of course, of the Cannabis Cups is, we are told, the cups themselves. And therein lies the source of the corruption and contention of previous years. In 1998 it may be remembered, in a grand slam that left everyone in no doubt that bribery (or the excessive use of freebee inducements as it is called in polite society) works, Greenhouse took seven of the nine cups and most of the event’s credibility. For seven and a half minutes in the week following the end of the Cup there were murmurings of rebellion but Amsterdam being what it is they quickly disappeared into the apathy that passes as a hip and laidback attitude in the coffeeshop society.
...There was, it was generally agreed, a major glitch in the voting system. Delegates, smokers but not connoisseurs, it was felt, were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of smoking required to actually put in a worthwhile vote. While voting at the Cup has always been a

major opportunity to demonstrate confusion, ambiguity and lack of definition it has, at least, provided an excellent source of entertainment for those not involved. It is clear that none of the voting marshalls have ever been fans of ‘One Man and His Dog.’ (Anglo-American Cultural Note: For a country renowned for the quality of its television,’One Man and His Dog’ was a joker in a hand of otherwise strong cards for the BBC. The ultimate low-budget show, it featured a cast of two -- the one man and his dog of the title -- plus a number of extras in the form of sheep and was set in a very cheap field. For 30 minutes a number of men would whistle, shout and swear at their dogs as the poor animals chased a lot of other poor animals around the grass as they tried to get them into a pen. At the end of each try, the dogs would be judged and points awarded for such things as not pissing on the cameraman or humping the leg of the producer. Oh, the joys of British television.) What the marshalls need is a sheepdog and a crook or two -- although it is often said that there are far too many crooks at the Cup already. There is nothing quite like a totally stoned, totally disorientated potential Cup voter for a bit of comedy. Comedy, however, was not the problem. The problem was that delegates were too easily influenced by those prepared to put some real money behind getting their grass entries to the Judges.
...So, in an amazing piece of sleight of hand, a new system was introduced, one that involved some real experts -- the coffeeshops themselves -- in 1999. No less confused or ambiguous, it was felt that adding a coffeeshop vote would in some ineffable fashion ‘clean up’ the voting procedures. Although the paid-up laminate carrying Judges would still participate in the voting, their easily influenced votes would be balanced by the votes of the coffeeshops. The change was well received and all went fairly well. There was some cheating by a notably excessive Cup winner of previous years but generally the voting system was felt by the coffeeshops to be the fairest so far devised.
...It was with some relief that on the night of the awards ceremony, the 1999 cups did not all go in one direction.

...For a day or two, the Cannabis Cup was possessed of a credibility that it had never before known. And then, disaster. As news broke in the Netherlands media that there had been cheating among the coffeeshop judges,the Cup’s credibility disappeared in a blink.
...In the bloody aftermath of the 1999 Cup, blame flew in all directions. Although the air was thick with accusation, the option of suspending the three guilty coffeeshops from one or more future competitions was, of course, not even considered. Someone had to be the scapegoat and the head that rolled on this occasion was that of the well-respected and highly-regarded long-time organiser, Annie Reiken.
...Clearly the voting procedures were, again, in need of revision. For the 2000 Cup, the coffeeshops were removed from the equation and a special judging team was put together through a High Times magazine competition that required entrants to demonstrate their knowledge and appreciation of the GanjaMa by making complete prats of themselves on video. This carefully selected group of blaggers were rewarded for their lack of good taste by being flown into the City of Dreams a week before the start of the Cup so they could spend the time trying all the dope entries under the ever watchful eye of the High Times video production team.

...Delegates, judges, exhibitors and hangers-on, got the chance to meet the ‘experts’ and see the videos at the Cup dinner on the Saturday evening before the start of the Cup proper. And, oh dear. None of us could believe that the fate of the Cannabis Cup entries would be left in the hands of such a motley collection of amatuers. But, in the absence of explanations from the organisers, we were all left guessing.
...In the event, of course, voting is one of things delegates to the Cup pay for and they could never be excluded. But we had to wait until the presentations themselves to find out what was going on. As the delegate judges milled and baaaa-ed their way around the Melkweg cafeteria only a couple hours before the presentations were due to take place, we Cup watchers grinned ruefully and wondered -- not for the first time -- what the hell was going on. None of us could see how the massed delegates vote could be combined with that of the special judging team.
...The solution was far simpler than any of us could have guessed. Suddenly there were two cups -- the Cannabis Cup and the People’s Cup. The Cannabis Cup was awarded to the selections made by the special judging team and the People’s Cup was awarded to the selections made by the hundreds of voting delegates. Only you, dear reader, can judge which of these awards is the eunuch and which has the balls of a super hero.
...On both years the main Cups went to coffeeshops and exhibitors who seemed truly to deserve them. There seemed to be no promotional activities associated with the winning entries. The Cups seemed to be awarded on merit and merit alone.
...For the record the Cannabis Cup 2000 winner, as selected by the six-man team of ‘Castaways’, was Blueberry from The Noon,with the excellent Stardust from Rokerij in second place and White Smurf from new entrants, Yazoo, taking third place. The People’s Cup went to Sweet Tooth from Barney’s Breakfast Bar pushing Greenhouse’s erstwhile winner, Super Silver Haze, into second place. Again, Yazoo’s White Smurf got the third place.

...Although all the cups are hotly contested, one of the most sought after is that for Best Coffeeshop. This year (2000) Rokerij was voted the coffeeshop with the most attractive and busty barmaids. They get a 44 DD cup. Second place winner was the recently refurbished Greenhouse and in third place the also recently refurbished, Abraxis.
...Among the other notable cup winners were our favourite coffeeshop Katsu, who took the Hash Cup with a their phenomenal Water Hash, Serious Seeds who took the Best Sattiva Cup with their Kali Mist and Dutch Passion who won the Best Indica Cup with Blueberry.
...For many of us the high point of the awards ceremony was the induction of Ina Mary Gaskin, author of Spiritual Midwifery, into what used to be the Cannabis Hall of Fame but this year became the Counterculture Hall of Fame. As surreal as any event at a Cannabis Cup could be, this involved an extended video presentation on natural childbirth complete with detailed gynocological asides that left most delegates pushing hard and hoping for a girl.

...Come the 2001 Cup and -- surprise, surpise -- it is all change with the voting system once again. The Castaways idea was generally given the thumbs down by just about everyone associated with the Cup and the power was, once again, returned to the people, The coffeeshops who, if the truth be told, were the only people who ever questioned the fairness of the voting system (with everyone else simply assuming it was totally corrupt) were pacified with some bland assurances that the abuses of previous years would not be repeated. And, indeed, it all went well. Of the People’s Cup there was ne’r a mention but we will let that pass.
...Again all seemed fair and square. Interestingly, though, there were not many changes from the previous year’s winners list. Once again, the Noon’s fantastic Blueberry took the Cannabis Cup itself, Katsu took the Hash Cup and Barney’s got the Best Coffeeshop award.
...Although there are many negative aspects to the Cannabis Cup -- not least its commerciality -- it is hard not to give it the credit it is due. For many Americans it offers a true taste of freedom and that is never a bad thing. However, for everyone, the Cup provides an annual event on which we can all focus. It is one where young and old can come together, to find or re-establish their cultural roots and can take a year’s worth of heart that the beautiful people are not extinct.