If you are a weed advocate and you have not heard about Woodstock, you should definitely find out more about it. After all, it is one of the historical events in the world of American pop culture. Woodstock associated with cannabis refers to the Woodstock Festival that took place back in August of 1969. According to several reports, witnesses, and news sources, 99% of the attendees were smoking weed.
What Happened During Woodstock 1969?
The Woodstock Festival was so popular that there was a movie made out of it, detailing what happened during the event. It was a three-day celebration where people enjoyed camping out and listening to live music. The festival was successful mainly because it comprised of three ingredients that turned it into a massive event: sex, rock n roll, and drugs.
The Woodstock Festival was open to the public so everyone could enter the gates for free. It was estimated that the total number of attendees at that time was 500,000. About 50,000 of these people arrived at the venue two days early. It was indeed a phenomenal festival that everyone talked about for months – even after it was over and other festivals took place.
The Woodstock Festival provided freedom to the goers. There were people running around without their clothes on, and there was alcohol all over the place. Even though the event organizers had set up security to watch over those who were in the event, there were still a lot of people who openly smoked marijuana. Aside from marijuana, there were also others who were taking hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD. These things happened as the participants watched, sang along, and listened to their favorite bands like The Who, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and Grateful Dead.
Cannabis in Woodstock
Even though there were a lot of other drugs during the festival, cannabis was considered the most prevalent substance at that time. For those who smoked it, they felt free. It was true that there was security personnel around, but no one got arrested or harassed. The officers were lenient to the participants who smoked pot mainly because there were so many people who were smoking it openly. Therefore, it would have been impossible to fit them all in the county jail.
Also during that time, it was not a secret that the festival goers were there smoking weed. There was a music video by Arlo Guthrie called “Coming to Los Angeles, ” and from there it was shown that the people in the concert were lighting up pipes and joints. The footage was taken during the festival and was included in that music video. However, the video did not show an actual scene where marijuana was clearly visible. Arlo’s music video also showed some cops in the festival, and there was one officer who was happily eating a Popsicle stick along the weed-smoking crowd.
The legalisation of marijuana was not yet passed during that time in New York, but it was still highly common among the hippies. Despite the drugs going around and up for sale to several people, the event was actually quite peaceful.