Whenever Felicity and I go to a medical marijuana event, such as The Emerald Cup held at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds in Sonoma County, California last weekend, we find new and interesting businesses and ideas. This time, we also found some of the best musical groups from the Sixties too!

Racks of clones Paul Kantner of Jefferson Starship Peace and Love! Fito de la Parra, the only member of the original Canned Heat band still alive James Gurley, lead guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company Grateful Don Everything dark in this picture is made of hash! Dab tools (photographed to get Diablo Dabs jealous :-) ‹›

Celebrating their 10th year, The Emerald Cup, billed as “the world’s only outdoor competition”, is all about cannabis growers and their organically grown outdoor-only products. This event was created to resemble good old fashioned county fairs, in which farmers would display their produce and livestock, and compete for prizes and fame. There were literally hundreds of flower and concentrate entries (see the results here), and I actually do not envy the judges. I’d hate to be asked to make any kind of professional decision after trying even a tenth of that stuff! Here’s a short video of the contestants:

As in any craft fair, vendors showed their wares: ubiquitous glass, pipes, tools, dab paraphernalia, art, organic compost, locally made hemp clothes, commercially printed T-shirts and sweatshirts, and political organizations as well as cannabis focused business-to-business companies. For instance, Grateful Don (portrait in the slideshow above), goes to Asia to buy jewelry and tie-dye hippie clothing, and then travels all over the U.S. selling it at similar events as well as online.

As always there was a Prop 215 area and “pot doctors” to get on-site medical recommendations. No law enforcement was in evidence, other than fairgrounds security to check bags for prohibited items (weed was not on the “bad list”!) and to restrict access to some doorways (“this is an exit only!”). The whole vibe was really happy, and probably as a result, we saw no security or other problems while we were there.

We did hear that some of our favorite Sixties bands would be there, and it was great to see Big Brother and the Holding Company, Canned Heat, and Jefferson Starship playing on the same stage one after the other, probably for the first time in many decades. Considering the amount of smoke wafting past them on the stage, we can only imagine what the backstage party was like!

But since they’re even older than we are, I suspect they were in bed asleep even before we were. Three hours driving each way, lots of Kiva chocolate bars, and many hours of fun, music, and cannabusiness was quite a bit for two senior citizens like ourselves. So no surprise that we woke up the next day quite late in the afternoon!

Bonus for reading to the end: