Mississippi is having a cannabis festival but there’s just one concern that has eyebrows being raised.
The state hasn’t legalized the drug.
Plans for an event called the Cannabis Festival Mississippi have raised some eyebrows on the Coast and for natural reasons.
Natalie Bonner, one of the festival organizers, says people commonly react along the lines of, “You can’t have a marijuana festival in Mississippi — that’s illegal!”
While the event’s name may conjure images of Woodstock, there won’t be any consumption of illegal substances there — although you’ll still have to be 21+ to attend.
The festival will take place at the District Green, a downtown Biloxi outdoor event space that opened last year, on April 23. Tickets are priced at $35.
Bonner, owner of a boutique CBD shop in Biloxi, has said the festival is an educational opportunity for the merely “canna-curious” and regular aficionados alike, timed just a few months before Mississippi’s legalization of medical marijuana goes into effect.
The festival will include panels discussing subjects as disparate as science, business, politics, medicine, social equity and cooking — but all as they relate to cannabis.
Bonner first had the idea for the festival two years ago, she says, but she and the other organizers’ plans had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Plans for 2023 are already in the works, Bonner said.
Legal cannabis products like CBD, Delta-8 THC and hemp will be sold at the event.
