Ann Arbor hosted the first Hash Bash in April of 1972 in response to activist John Sinclair being sentenced to 10 years in prison for the possession of two marijuana joints. The inaugural event happened a few months after the Michigan Supreme Court declared the state’s cannabis law unconstitutional and Sinclair was freed from prison. The festival became a protest against the criminalization of cannabis and has brought tens of thousands of enthusiasts to University of Michigan’s Diag annually, even after Michigan voters decriminalized the plant for adult use in 2018.
In 2021, the progressive city started Entheofest in honor of September’s Entheogenic Plants and Fungi Awareness Month and as a way to discuss the legalization of psychedelic plants.
From 1:11-4:20 p.m. on Sept. 17, the third annual Entheofest will be held at The Diag at 913 S. University Ave. offering education and entertainment. The free-speech event has the goal to help create a base of equity in the growing industry of using “entheogenic” plants and fungi.
There will be live music performances, community organization booths with educational information and resources, harm reduction tools, cannabis expungement help, and a collaborative psychedelic-style art experience.
Sinclair will speak at the event, along with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, State Senator Jeff Irwin, Detroit cannabis advocate Anqunette Sarfoh, and many others.
Nationwide, Oregon and Colorado are the only two states that have legalized the recreational use of psychedelics. Outside of that, over a dozen cities have decriminalized psilocybin and other “naturally-occurring entheogenic plants and fungi.”
In 2020, Ann Arbor became the first Michigan city to do so, when City Council unanimously adopted a resolution declaring “the use, growth, possession, and distribution of entheogenic plants (i.e., natural psychedelics) to be ‘the lowest law enforcement priority for the City of Ann Arbor.’” Washtenaw County as a whole also will not prosecute the use of psychedelics.
Similar policy changes have been passed in Detroit, Hazel Park, and Ferndale in the years since.
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