MADISON: Sunny skies and pleasant fall-like temperatures combined with low winds to bring thousands of marchers to the annual Harvest Fest parade Sunday.
Smoke billowed over blocks of marchers making the annual trek from Library Mall at one end of State St. to the Wisconsin State Capitol on the other. Longtime Harvest Fest organizer Ben Masel estimated that around 3200 people paraded this year. Not only were crowd numbers up, but attendees seemed very enthusiastic about flexing the activist muscles gained in the fight for medical cannabis in Wisconsin.
Before heading to the Capitol, attendees warmed up with live music from Venice Gashouse Trolley and Nama Rupa. Rocker-T, returning to Harvest Fest from the West Coast, joined Nama Rupa onstage part way through their set. Speakers included Ben Masel, Jim Miller, Jacki Rickert and Gary Storck, Charmie Gholson of the Michigan-based Midwest Cultivator, SAFER’s Mason Tvert, T. A. Sedlak and State Supreme Court candidate Joel Winnig. Sedlak reprised his Saturday speech about having to leave Wisconsin because of a recent cannabis bust and the need to change the law so people do not have to live in fear as well as the brain drain cannabis prohibition is triggering.
MADISON: Thousands of people attended day one of Madison’s two day 40th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival Saturday despite chilly winds and mostly gray skies. The festival, which began in 1971, entered its fifth decade this weekend. The festival continues Sunday – attendees will return to Library Mall after 12:30 for live music and speakers before the traditional parade to the State Capitol at the other end of State St. The parade is slated to depart Library Mall at 3:15pm for a 4pm rally on the State St. steps of the Capitol with a concert by the Milwaukee area reggae band Recalcitrant.
On Saturday afternoon, in between a selection of Wisconsin bands featuring a number of musical genres, speaker after speaker denounced marijuana prohibition from every angle. Among those speaking was Jacki Rickert, namesake of the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (JRMMA), which failed to make it out of committee despite strong legislative support, overwhelming public support and an 8-hour public hearing in Dec. 2009. The legislator who stopped the JRMMA in its tracks, State Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Milladore), who joined the Senate Health committee Republicans in opposing the bill and killing it in committee was a frequent topic.
MADISON: After I reported the first Harvest Fest had it’s roots as an anti-war rally, I heard from “a reliable source” who was among the organizers of the first of what will be 40 marijuana harvest festivals this weekend. The source, who wishes to go unnamed, shared some memories of the first fest:
Harvest Fest was a smoke-in from the get-go.
We asked the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to get the permit for use of Brittingham Park because we didn’t think that the city would give the Yippies a permit for anything (this was before [Paul] Soglin was elected Mayor) but figured they wouldn’t be able to deny it to the vets.
What we didn’t know was that we were so thoroughly infiltrated that this strategem was reported by the informants and therefore completely known to the police and whoever the police chose to tell.
MADISON: Next Tuesday, President Barack Obama will be coming to Madison and headlining a political rally on the University of Wisconsin campus downtown.
The event will be on Library Mall, which just a few days later, on Saturday Oct. 2 and Sunday, Oct. 3, will be the location of the 40th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival.
The festival, entering it’s fifth decade, has been a fall fixture in Madison, even outdrawing the university’s football team back when the team was not the powerhouse of recent years.
Harvest Fest, which began as a free speech/anti-war protest in 1971, went on to become the Midwest’s most enduring cannabis festival. But its long existence also speaks to the seeming intractability of marijuana prohibition. Generations of UW students who attended the festival literally have grown gray waiting for the laws to be changed.
