Mary Jane Berlin brought tens of thousands of people into one building and reminded them why they fell for this plant. Then came the other side of Germany’s cannabis story, a pharmaceutical grow so strict it took half an hour of biosecurity just to reach the plants, and a castle where the industry felt like a community again.
Everything about it was enormous. You could spend an entire day walking Mary Jane Berlin and still not see all of it, and somewhere in there, with people lighting up in every direction and a wall of noise rolling off the booths, Berner was trying to put words to it.
“Berlin’s fucking insane.”
He had barely stepped onto the floor before he started explaining what everyone around him was feeling.
“I love to see everyone from all over the place coming into one place to kind of boost each other on the weed business,” he told High Times. “It’s just cool to see so much unity. Everyone’s so excited. I kind of miss that excitement in the weed space.”
Then he smiled. “It feels like the old days. Like 2016.”
Interviewing Berner for High Times
That line stayed with me all week. I had been thinking it for years. Berner just said it out loud. Somewhere along the line, a lot of cannabis events stopped being celebrations and turned into business meetings. Not all of them. The High Times Cannabis Cup still feels like a party, and Mary Jane Berlin runs on that same current, community and vendors and musicians and artists all in one place, with a lineup this year that put Redman and Mobb Deep’s Havoc on the bill. But those are the exceptions now. Across most of the calendar, investors replaced enthusiasts, compliance replaced culture, …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
