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The motto of this year's Oregon State Fair is "Here Comes the Fun."
This could be pointing to the Milk Chug-A-Lug or the Art of Non-Shaving contest. This year also marks the first year that fair-goers will be able to see pot plants.
Not all fair-goers are allowed, though. The plants will be in a guard-protected greenhouse that only people 21 and over will be able to enter.
2015 was the first year that cannabis had any role in the State Fair, when the Oregon Cannabis Business Council brought an educational exhibit to the fair, but no plants.
"Last year, we were mindful that there might be a public response to cannabis there, but there were no complains externally or internally about the exhibit," says fair spokesman Dan Cox. "There was a lot of interest, frankly."
Now, the Council is doing an educational exhibit and including live plants. The State Fair agreed, says Cox, "following the lead of the OLCC and…the legislature to treat cannabis like any other agricultural commodity in the state."
Marijuana still will not be in included in the fair's official agricultural competitions. There will, however, be an informal 4-H-style competition within the exhibit itself.
"The fair is taking it one step at a time and following the lead of the public and the OLCC and the legislature," Cox says. "To the degree that cannabis embeds itself into the fabric of the fair—this is an early stage."
Willamette Week