Adult Entertainment Event Taints Medical Focus Of AMMA

I have deliberated for a couple of weeks whether even to mention this upcoming event.  It came to my attention when my husband brought home a slick postcard  from a stack that was set out at a neighborhood diner.  The promo certainly caught my eye, featuring several logos incorporating a cannabis leaf and silhouettes of shapely women in exotic dancer poses, the largest of which is wearing a green, cannabis leaf string bikini.

Because I believe that employer concern about medical marijuana is fueled by its frequent connection to the adult entertainment world, I decided it was worth mentioning, although I will try not to say so much that I will be promoting the event.

It is billed as a "girl contest" and medical marijuana expo, and promoted by an organization with the title Campaign Against Marijuana Prohibition in Arizona.  The Arizona Corporation Commission does not list that as a registered state entity, although there is an expired fictitious name registration for its acronym, CAMP 420, the number being a drug culture reference to the time (4:20 p.m.) when cognoscenti gather at a designated location to smoke pot.  

The event will be held next Saturday at an outdoor entertainment venue in north Tempe, AZ, 910 Live, which opened in March 2010.  The party and concert venue's opening was noted in the Arizona Republic, and  its operator stressed that it was not a strip club.

It is billed as a "classy, fun, adult event," which will focus on the Arizona medical marijuana "industry, its patients and its advocates."  In addition to the "girl contest," the expo supposedly will have music, vendors, beauty and fashion, and bills itself as a fundraiser for CAMP 420's mission to educate and make a change to current legislation.  What change to the newly effective Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) that might be cannot be discerned from the postcard or the organization's website.

Arizoneout's view, for what it's worth, is that medical marijuana patients and their advocates hurt their cause when they connect themselves with adult entertainment activities that are far removed from the compassion toward those suffering debilitating medical conditions that likely prompted Arizona voters to adopt the AMMA in the first place.