At the outset, people attending Extravaganja could, in the immortal words of pop star Prince, “party like it’s 1999.”
In time, Extravaganja became a place where people could smoke marijuana in a public place, for a few hours at least, while police officers looked the other way.
But it’s 2016 now, and this annual spring fling is poised to go out with a whimper, not a bang.
Extravaganja is scheduled for Saturday at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton, having lost its longtime home on the Amherst common due to public safety concerns raised by the town’s police chief.
The move across the river, nine miles from the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, is certain to reduce attendance.
Students walking in from campus helped fill the common to overflowing in years past. Because it now involves transportation, it is likely fewer celebrants will find their way to Northampton. Last year, Extravaganja drew more than 6,000 people to the common. Its popularity sealed its fate, because emergency crews reported having trouble reaching people in need of medical help.
Extravaganja’s organizer, the UMass Cannabis Reform Coalition, fought the police chief’s call to relocate. The group struggled to find an alternative location and appeared to settle on the fairgrounds as a last resort.
That’s a let-down for the event, but there’s an upside for organizers.
The legalization movement, which the coalition has backed since its own founding in 1991, is poised to win.
The coalition bills itself as “the most chill RSO on campus” and the oldest of its type in the U.S. According to its mission statement, it works “to dispel the myths, lies and stigmas surrounding marijuana and to reform the unrighteous laws that surround it ….”
By the time 2017’s Extravaganja rolls around, its reason to be may be gone.
The November ballot in Massachusetts will give voters the power to join Colorado and Washington in removing prohibitions on the recreational use of marijuana. It will be the third time state voters set public policy on marijuana. In 2012, they approved use of medical pot by a margin of 63-37 percent. Four years before that, voters decided 65-35 to decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.
A recent poll by Western New England University suggests this fall’s referendum will pass, although the survey, conducted April 1-10, gathered opinion far ahead of the vote, before opponents of legalization, led by Gov. Charlie Baker and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, get a chance to make their arguments.
The WNEU poll of 497 registered voters found that 57 percent back full legalization, with 7 percent undecided. In western Massachusetts, support runs deeper, at 64 percent. For those aged 18-39 statewide, it is 74 percent. That all suggests the margin of this fall’s vote will be similar to results in 2008 and 2012. That may be part of why residents of the neighborhood around the fairgrounds seemed ready to accept this event when interviewed by the Gazette a week ago.
As recently as a decade ago, large events at the fairgrounds angered nearby residents, particularly when the Warped Tour brought noise and traffic jams. None of the nearly 30 people interviewed by Gazette reporter Amanda Drane raised objections about the morality of smoking marijuana. One local resident, a nurse, did wonder about the health consequences of legalization — at that is sure to be a focus, for good reason, of the campaign against the ballot question.
Unlike Amherst’s relatively small common, the fairgrounds offers enough space for this celebration’s speakers, bands and vendors. It is sure to play out under the watchful eye of Northampton police and paramedics. Because recreational use of marijuana remains illegal, at least for another seven months.