If you were looking to smoke some pot in New York this week, the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition was the last place you would want to be.
Located in a downstairs corner of the Javits Center (a book convention took up the main pavilion), the sixth annual CWCBE promised attendees a host of seminars and exhibitions. For a $50 entry fee, one could peruse booths of vendors selling CBD dog treats, appetite-suppressing hemp, or “bliss”-inducing gummies.
One thing not welcome, as made clear on the trade show’s website and program: the mind-altering ingredient in cannabis, THC, was “strictly prohibited at the event.” To that end, a “Cannabis Vending Machine” on display spat out only empty shot glasses.
One half-joke among guests included a sophomoric inquiry best saved for Richard Linklater scripts: “Hey, do you know where I can find some weed around here?”
The answer: around the corner on 11th Avenue, where a small army of boomers dressed in tie-dye shirts played a game of pickup frisbee, annoying the “book nerds” from the adjacent conference trying to use the sidewalk. Nearby, a publicist whose business card read, “Sex, Drugs, and PR” attempted to woo reporters with a pre-roll.