The city of Tempe will host the inaugural Arizona Canna Kush Girl Contest and Medical Marijuana Expo tomorrow at the 910Live event venue.
It’s a mouthful of a title that looks to tackles two different markets: Recreational (and primarily male) smokers and those who buy, sell and use pot for medical purposes.
Last week’s HempCon 2011 event in Denver took a similar strategy, advertising a host of seminars and talks for medical marijuana professionals but also promoting “hottest ass” and “best orgasm” contests. (Organizers took down references to those contests from the event website after a critical media report).
The Arizona marijuana expo, held from 5 p.m. to midnight, promotes itself as a “classy, fun filled, educational event” complete with speakers, legislative updates, raffles, music, comedy…and of course the requisite Kush Girl Contest.
Blending the marijuana culture with the pot business is a difficult balancing act given that the two sides are completely different. So it doesn’t always work too well – leading to an event without purpose or direction as well as a mishmash of people wandering aimlessly around a half-empty convention hall.
If organizers are serious about the medical marijuana side of the equation, they might want to get rid of the party atmosphere.
