Magic Ellingson, AKA "Henry Hemp", talks with Levon Arushanyan, left, at the Glass Source 420 booth during the HempCon 2010 Medical Marijuana Show at San Jose Convention Center Saturday Aug. 7, 2010. (Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News) ( Patrick Tehan )
There was one thing you couldn’t do at the HempCon Medical Marijuana Show in San Jose on Saturday: smoke marijuana.
But you could step across the street away from the convention center’s South Hall, nestle back in the shade and light up — as dozens of devotees did.
The event was one of those modern-day meetings of the minds where medical marijuana users, cannabis growers, paraphernalia peddlers and even insurance companies that specialize in coverage for the marijuana industry rubbed shoulders to help promote medical marijuana — and it was all legal.
Young people mingled with old. Counterculture types talked with the button-down. And anyone with a medical marijuana ID card was allowed entry to a marijuana goods emporium, which was screened off from the general crowd.
There you could meet Magic Ellingson — also known as Henry Hemp, who wore a marijuana headdress, with a hole in the middle for his face — and sniff various marijuana bud samples and edibles on display but not for sale.
“In the future, if it becomes legalized nationally, we will have a marijuana event,” instead of a trade show, said Matthew Fox, HempCon coordinator. Like most people there, Fox is a medical marijuana user, smoking it for “everything from stress to depression.” He said the three-day show is part of the movement to legalize marijuana for medical use in the U.S.
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