Where Have All the Hippies Gone?
by Amy Wilding-Fox
As a proud Gen Xer, second-generation activist, and fellow victim of the War on Drugs as I watched my mother held at gunpoint over possession of weed by multiple Flushing, Michigan, police in July 1988, like she was modern-day Ma Barker and given two years’ state time, my life’s mission has been to help end the negative Euro-American stigma attached to marijuana and its users. The ties run so deep in my connection to this fight that I was even conceived as a direct result of the War on Drugs (a longer story for another day, perhaps), and my dad, like so many of my generation’s dads, attributed marijuana to keeping him sane and alive while fighting in Vietnam.
Nestled between the boomers and millennials, our smaller-than-average generation had a unique perspective on cannabis. It was a tool for our boomer hippie parents to promote peace and self-care, yet still a teen rebellion act for us prior to the technological boom of the millennials where a camera is pointed toward your person at any given time. Therefore, for many like me, we seemed to innately take on the challenge that so many of the boomer legends began ahead of us to “Legalize It!” and “Free the Weed!” We were the 1980s-early 2000s counterculture of hippies, stoners, black sheep, geeks; but most of all “they” liked to label us “slackers,” mainly because of our love for Mary Jane.
While on the outside it may have seemed as such, little did they know that we were busy internally carrying on the movement that would lead to the legalization of cannabis that we are seeing today. We were taking that baton handed to us and running with it. With anthems like “Hits from the Bong” and “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” we were networking in our own ways. Slowly the winds started to change, and medical states began to emerge beginning with California in 1996. Our home state of Michigan finally approved marijuana for medicinal use in 2008 and more have followed since, reaching nearly 75 percent of the country.
Part of what I like to think of as “the golden years” of legalization were the events that took place to protest the criminalization of a plant that grows freely and had so many promising uses beyond just getting high. Prior to legalization for medicinal use, there was common knowledge that there was some risk involved, yet we would meet by thousands at festivals, concerts, events, and protests at local state and national levels. We would smoke tons of weed. We truly felt that we were making the change we wanted to see, though by some it was still perceived as slacking.
Then, as we created the caregiver systems for patients who needed the medicinal benefits of cannabis, the events naturally morphed into even larger events where patients and caregivers could meet. Thousands of hippies would be in attendance. Patients had the luxury of finding their perfect caregiver who could grow the medicine best suited for them. The caregivers could survive because they had the patients to help offset costs to grow. The event sponsors would find even more consumers. It was a win-win for all involved.
Next came the competitions. I can somewhat understand this concept because we had grown up idolizing the “High Times Cup” in Amsterdam, yet I never really participated. It was then this activist could see the greed creeping in. Local events turned grower against grower. Those little trophies would allow the grower to sell their products at the highest market price possible. Nepotism and cronyism prevailed. Which vendor donated the most as a sponsor became a prominent factor. The brotherhood and sisterhood we had built during those golden years began to dismantle themselves.
With the greed of the caregiver system setting in quietly like a cancer, Michigan pushed ahead with legalizing marijuana recreationally. While some still had the original goal to simply free the weed once and for all, the dark money that was piling up behind the initiative was really looking to capitalize on the greed and infighting of caregivers. Some of the same people who were involved in creating the caregiver policy Michigan has in place today are fighting to dismantle the caregiver program altogether.
As licensed and even national brands have popped up in communities all over the state, the market has intentionally become flooded with less-expensive, mass-produced cannabis. Large commercial growers are offering pounds to recreational dispensaries at prices as low as $500 a pound to admittedly put the caregivers out of business. While some can argue quality, at a time when inflation is on the rise, cheap buds from licensed dispensaries are becoming more and more appealing than the craft cannabis of caregivers, even to the older generations like me and the boomers.
With these licensed dispensaries come actual state-sanctioned events full of big-name sponsors. Younger generations see the shiny new signs and packaging, and like moths to fire, they flock to the sanctioned events featuring celebrities and lots of free swag. That actual feeling of change and having purpose no longer seems to be needed.
Over the weekend of August 26-27, Michigan Marijuana Report was invited to two simultaneously planned caregiver events, the 7th Annual Clio Cultivation Cup, in Clio, and Gems n Genetics in Morley. Both were beautifully organized with vendors offering products ranging from metaphysical crystals to some of the most sparkly buds you will see. Music filled the air as live bands played at each event. The smells from the food trucks wafted by just in time to kick in the munchies from the last joint smoked. Most importantly, plenty of marijuana was being smoked.
There was one notable difference, it seemed, in both events. Attendance was at a low. “Where had all the hippies gone?” I thought. Gone are the shoulder-to-shoulder vibes from events of a decade ago. Don’t get me wrong. There was a decent turnout, but when compared to previous years or events we have attended, the count was just not there. Why could that be?
Well, though by no means am I an expert, my best guess after discussing this with the staff, is that the biggest factor is simply “We won!” At least here in the state of Michigan we have. Though we got our wish to free the weed, we failed to foresee the commodity cannabis would become once that big, dark money started to roll in. Our market has become so saturated with mass-produced weed, events for caregivers and patients almost seem obsolete.
When observing the attendees at the events, they were mainly the diehards. For those of us, like me, who fought for so many decades, it is saddening to see the shift. Yet in so many ways this shift was inevitable as the Cookies and Skymints moved in, just as Walmart killed so many local mom-and-pop stores.
Where will this leave the locally sponsored events in the future? I like to ask myself, “WWJGD?” What would Jerry Garcia, an OG of our counterculture, do? My hope is the shiny newness of the commercial brands will eventually wear down, and the nostalgic appeal of the local events will never completely fade away. I would hope that instead of letting these wonderfully unique and inspiring events full of small artisans and hippies fade away, they can withstand the shift into this next era. Jerry, I believe, would have embraced the commercial but never would have forgotten his roots. Plus, like mentioned at the Gems n Genetics event, our fight to end this war on drugs is not over, but rather refocused. So come, hippies of all ages, sizes and genders, we still need you! Next on the agenda: psilocybin!
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