A story from 1973
The Ann Arbor Hash Bash began in the 1970s when the majority of students at the University of Michigan smoked weed, or at least experimented with it.
Now, 43 years later, thousands of people still gather at the Diag.
Larry Gabriel, a columnist for the Metro Times, captures the essence of the gathering of some 8,000 people on April 4 and provides an amusing account of the day.
Here's a sampling of his writing:
“I like smoking weed,” said the guy wearing a bright, multicolored jacket with Batman’s nemesis “The Joker” on it. “Is that a bad thing?”
Not at the 43rd Ann Arbor Hash Bash, where marijuana was inhaled freely by the crowd estimated to be 8,000 strong under the sunny skies of a spring day. Guitarist Laith Al-Saadi opened up proceedings with a solo Jimi Hendrix-inspired version of the “Star Spangled Banner.”
That opened up the official proceedings. Unofficially, folks had been toking, vaporizing, and consuming brownies, cookies and other edibles for quite some time. Toward the back and the edges of the crowd, getting high was the main activity. That’s pretty much what they were doing up front too, except those folks were paying attention to what was being said from the steps of the library. The folks in back didn’t have a chance. The drum circle, which had been banging away since before I showed up early, never even flinched in recognition of the program.
I approached a guy off to the side wearing a T-shirt that read “Grow Your Own.” When I requested a little interview he agreed, but said, “Let me finish chewing my brownie here.”
His reason for being at the Hash Bash: “To support the cause of trying to get this plant and this medicine legalized. To revolutionize how people think about it nowadays and maybe erase some of the lies that have been told in society and to support my mother and Don, they’re both medical patients.”
Mom and Don were at his side. Mom said, “There are very, very healing properties to it.”
Don, who wore a hat that read “Kush Keeps Us So High,” said, “I agree with whatever they said.”
