We arranged our schedules to attend and speak at this nice 4/20 Festival in Las Vegas, and flew in on Friday, in time for my speaking slot. But, when we arrived, the event had significantly reduced. The venue, the Ice House, had been contacted by the authorities and were told that no vending could take place outside or inside, no speakers could speak, nobody could table or hand out literature.  There could only be music in a place that holds a thousand people. Police were riding bikes through the large parking lot area that only weeks before had hosted an event by Snoop Dog and others. When the scent of cannabis was sniffed in the outside air, the code-enforcement person cancelled the event, threatening the owners of the Ice House to suspend their licenses for 30 days if they didn't call off the 4/20 event.

On a personal level, it was humiliating that the town that celebrates and encourages drinking, sex, gambling, hedonism, and general "What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas"-style debauchery, would find us so undesirable that we don't even fit this category. Apparently all it took was a petition signed by 30 people supposedly from an influential Mormon group, to get the authorities to pull the plug and stop the peaceful partying of 5,000 cannabis consumers, and treat us like criminals, outlaws or undesirables. "Not in our town" was the message we got from the moral authority of Las Vegas. What makes cannabis use a behavior that can not be tolerated, when so many more harmful behaviors are embraced and marketed there? The hypocrisy is stunning. 

How dare they treat us this way? Ignorance. Discrimination. Scapegoating. In a way, this experience was like being refused lunch service at the counter in a Northern city! This is truly a civil rights issue. No speeches from the stage or handing out of literature was a blatant violation of our freedom of speech protections. 

Many people lost thousands of dollars on this weekend. Many vendors lost money, the Ice House lost money, the musicians lost money, attendees lost money, and we lost money getting there. Much money was to be generated at this event, tourist dollars were going to be spent all over town, and the message was to get out about legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis in Nevada in the near future. But, instead it was a big loss for everyone.

Before we left, my husband, Chris Conrad and I called the stragglers together and spoke from the back of a pickup truck about the situation. If we keep taking this treatment and don't demand our rights, we can expect more of this abuse. We are better than that, we are "the good people" and we must have the self-respect to stand up, call them on it, or we will get more of the same disgusting treatment again and again.

I hope people learned some lessons from that experience. I hope the organizers, Nevada NORML, especially will come back and demand justice.