AMHERST — The sights, sounds and smells on the Town Common Saturday afternoon left little doubt as to the theme of the gathering that drew thousands of marijuana enthusiasts along with vendors, speakers, performers and political activists.
The 23rd annual Extravaganja organized by the UMass Amherst Cannabis Reform Coalition felt in equal measure like a party celebrating the loosening of prohibitions against a drug that for many years exposed users to stiff legal penalties and a political rally advocating the plant’s complete legalization for both medical and recreational use.
David Kimball, 19, a UMass freshman who plans to major in “plants, herbs and alternative medicine” and said he hopes to be an acupuncturist someday said he came to the common with a large glass bong to enjoy the music and 70-degree weather.
“It’s a really nice crowd,” he said.
He is also enthusiastic about the prospect of more thorough research into medicinal uses of marijuana. “I think it’s a really good plant that we haven’t looked at for a long time because it’s illegal.”
Delaney Ratner, one of the main organizers of the event this year said it is primarily “a legalization rally.”
Her focus is on a push to get marijuana legalization on the ballot in Massachusetts for the 2016 elections. She said she has been busy promoting letter drives and lobbying legislators to support what she predicts will be a successful 2016 referendum.
Also on the common Saturday were 60 registered vendors of everything from food to clothing and jewelry to high-tech paraphernalia for consuming the drug as a smokeless vapor.
Ratner, 20, a sophomore in resource economics, said she spoke with Amherst police who told her that as long as people confined their consumption of the drug to the common and the atmosphere was peaceful, no citations would be issued.
Amherst police reported no disturbances at the event.
Many years running
According to Terry Franklin, an activist who said he has attended every Extravaganja held on the common, in the early years organizers actively discouraged what were then scant crowds — about 50 people — from smoking in public. “The lighting up came later” when the town tried to clamp down on the event, he said. At that point it took on more of a “Boston Tea Party” atmosphere.
In the last five years, said Franklin, the Extravaganja has become almost mainstream. Last year an estimated 6,000 people attended and this year would likely exceed that. “We don’t even advertise anymore because we’ve reached capacity,” he said.
Maddy Parsley, an Amherst College student, had come into town to see a friend off at the Peter Pan bus stop. “I did not come here for the event, but it’s fine with me that it exists,” she said. Watching from across South Pleasant Street, she observed “groups of people in really interesting clothing.”
But she has her doubts. “The thing that’s a little weird for me is that some people do it as a family thing. I don’t know that bringing kids to this kind of a thing is a good idea,” said Parsley.
Among the speakers was Lester Grinspoon, a former professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He started studying marijuana in 1967 and became convinced that it had beneficial properties. He was an early advocate for legalization. Addressing the crowd on the common, many relaxing on blankets and smoking themselves, Grinspoon, 85, said, “I came up to announce the obvious to you, that marijuana is here to stay.”
Michael Pires of Boston was there as a vendor for the second year. His company, Kush Groove, sells what he calls “stoner life-style products.” A single booth cost him $80, he said, and last year he grossed almost $2,000 in sales of apparel and accessories. He is a wholesaler who sells his goods in five stores in the Boston area as well as at events like Extravaganja. “I like this one because of the energy and the younger crowds,” he said.
Brian Julin, 42, was one of the organizers of the first Extravaganjas in the 1990s. “The environment has sure changed since back then. Merely saying that you were in favor of marijuana legalization put you on the fringe,” he said. His role in what he called a group of good friends was to keep “people from doing stupid things. I was the inhibitor.” The strategy from the start was to distribute “informative, well-produced leaflets,” and to engage people in debate, said Julin, who lives in South Hadley.
“You had to know your information, you couldn’t just say, ‘I’m an advocate and you should be too’.”
By going public on the Town Common “we were looking to shock the system and it worked,” said Julin. He noted that “there were plenty of people who came before us” with a similar message. Still, he takes a measure of pride in his contention that the UMass reform group “is the longest running college marijuana legalization program in the country.”
Northampton lawyer Richard Evans said the UMass group “took a leadership role in producing this event when no one else had the courage to do so.” Dr. Jill Griffin of Northampton was sitting in a tent advertising what she calls “medical marijuana evaluations.” As the regulations surrounding the legalization of medical marijuana in Massachusetts go into effect, questions of what kinds of conditions it is best used for and how to evaluate dosages will have to be dealt with. The field “is really evolving,” she said.
Pro-marijuana rally-goers chill on Amherst Town Common Saturday
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