Moapa Band To Host ‘Cannabis Cup’ Event

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

Some high times are coming soon to the area around Exit 75 of Interstate 15. The event grounds directly across from the Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza is hosting the huge Cannabis Cup Las Vegas event on March 4-5. The event is expected to draw more than 20,000 people from all over the country for each day of the festival.

The Cannabis Cup will be the first of its kind held in southern Nevada. The festival will celebrate the state’s recent legalization of recreational marijuana use with a whole line-up of cannabis-related expositions and activities.
In addition to being hosted by the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the event is being presented by High Times, a New York-based organization which has published a monthly magazine since 1974. The publication is devoted to the legalization of cannabis and has been influential in the marijuana-using counterculture.

In staging the Las Vegas event, High Times is also partnering with Ultra Health, a company involved in producing, researching, dispensing and advocating for medical-grade cannabis products.

Tickets to the event range from a $55 one-day pass to a full-weekend VIP treatment for $420. Participants are being encouraged to buy a shuttle pass to ride a bus to the event from the Las Vegas Strip. But parking is also available at the event for a $40 fee on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The Cannabis Cup will offer a number of marijuana-centered attractions including a “Taste of Cannabis” chef competition, kitchen demonstrations on preparing edibles and concentrates, a Cannabis career fair, testing lab exposition, a vape pen clinic and more.

The festival will even feature a “one-of-a-kind living grow room” where participants are encouraged to “stop and smell the flowers,” according to the festival website. Experts in cultivating and growing the plant will give demonstrations on “nutrients, lighting, room conditions, harvesting and more,” the website claims.

Leaders from the Moapa and Moapa Valley communities expressed concern about the huge festival and the effects it may have on their neighboring communities.

Local Metro Sergeant Bret Empey said that regional law enforcement was aware of the event and making plans for handling any incidents that may occur, both north and south, along the I-15 corridor during that weekend.
“It is being held on tribal land, so we really don’t have any ability to affect any change in what happens out there,” Empey said. “We can only deal with the results and the aftermath of whatever occurs. So the department is working on a plan through our major events section to address what can be addressed.”

Empey said that those plans are similar to what is done for events like the Electric Daisy Carnival and other similar fringe festivals in Las Vegas.
“I do see that it could adversely affect the communities where our resources are,” Empey said of the Northeast Resident Section of Metro which includes the communities of northeastern Clark County.

Moapa Town Board chairman Ryan Udall said that most residents of the Moapa community he has talked to are leery about having the event so nearby.
“No one I know is very excited about it,” Udall said. “There isn’t anyone I know of who will be attending. But they recognize that there is not much that can be about it. It is happening. So I’d just say that people need to be aware of it.”
Udall added that unofficial conversations he had had with unnamed individual members of the law enforcement community, both on and off the reservation, indicated that law officers would prefer that it not take place.
“I think they kind of feel like they spend most of their time trying to clean stuff like this up in the community,” Udall said. “Now it’s just being invited in and they are forced to deal with it. I think that is the general feeling out there with a lot of people.”

Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board chairman Gene Houston had similar feelings. He said that he has watched quietly as more and more fringe groups had sought a place on the reservation where they could skirt customary regulations and hold events that increasingly push the boundaries. He wondered when it would be enough.
“How far do things have to go before we as a neighboring community have to stand up and say ‘no’?” Houston said. “What we have here is a huge pot party that goes on for two days right next door to us. It will be a hazard to our residents coming in and out of the valley and trying to travel back and forth. It is not a good thing for these communities and it truly worries me.”

Houston acknowledged the fact that the tribal land is considered as a sovereign nation. That makes it difficult for neighboring communities to carry on a meaningful dialog or to give any input regarding these concerns, he said.
“I am not sure what we can do about it, probably nothing,” Houston said. “But there must be a way for the reasonable interests of our communities to be heard and listened to in these things.”

In the meantime, Houston urged local residents to exercise care in travelling during that weekend. “I just advise that people be watchful and extra careful with travelling through the traffic in and out of town that week,” he said. “I just hope that we don’t have any tragedies.”

No one from the Moapa Band of Paiutes answered calls regarding the festival. Requests for information from High Times officials were likewise left unanswered.