Mickey & Mary Jane Forge “Collective” Understanding at OC Pot Expo


Odd couple of the weekend: Mickey and Mary Jane.

The pair honored their union Saturday at the Anaheim Convention Center, as Hall E converted into a cannabis-centric kingdom of all things chronic.

The event was billed as the “Know Your Rights Expo–Orange County's First Medical Cannabis, Legal Marijuana, & Natural Medical Expo.”  

But “knowing one's rights,” at least in the legal rabbit's hole that is California marijuana-policy, proved no easy task.  Not that anyone was all that interested, though.

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The event featured a lengthy list of marijuana experts to offer their perspectives, be it from a legal, political, medical, media, or scientific vantage point. But with weed candies on sale, scantily clad “Sexy Green Cross” nurses prowling around, glossy marijuana magazines, and the latest THC-extracting technological toys all on proud display, who had time to really inform themselves about policy?

Many event visitors were perfectly content to toke– excuse me, tote– around their goody-bags of marijuana swag.

Albeit to a crowd of only a few dozen, Christopher Glew provided some insight into dispensary laws in Anaheim. Glew, of the Law Offices of Glew & Kim, co-sponsored the event.  In his “legal panel” presentation, he succeeded in depicting the quagamire of confusing regulations in the northern part of the county, and the uncertainty posed by the passage of Proposition 19.

Tensions over the Regulate, Control, And Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, aka Prop 19, were palpable. Upon entering the expo, the second conversation overheard was a heated exchange between a young campaign worker for Yes on 19 and an impassioned older man, “KNOW on 19″ button proudly pinned to his shirt. The Know Your Rights Expo allotted both campaigns a presentation time and booth space.

The expo drew a very wide range of people, reflecting the diversity of the medical marijuana community at large.

TV crews, decorated Vietnam vets in electric wheelchairs, women with lizards crawling on their shoulders, stiff, lonely legal-types sitting idly at their booths, and the token 18-year-olds searching for bongs all roamed around the expo. And, of course, bud-babes lured in the curious visitors with booty-shorts and stethoscopes.

The Know Your Rights Expo may not have been the perfect catalyst to initiate a grand public policy debate. Regardless, it was a first-of-its-kind event in Orange County, and offered soothing natural remedy for that whiplash visitors suffered on Space Mountain earlier in the day.


 

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