phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES APRIL 7TH– APRIL 13TH, 2022 State Licensed Dispensaries & Doctor Certifications | CANNABIS | Light My Fire Errl Cup’s Jim Morrison announces award winners, focuses on product safety. BY CYRUS GUCCIONE M esa was unseasonably hazy late last month, but it didn’t have anything to do with the weather. For two days of cannabis festivities, live music, and some of Arizona’s best food trucks, cannabis lovers flocked to the East Valley for the sixth annual Spring Errl Cup cannabis festival. Held at the Scarizona Scaregrounds in Mesa, the Errl Cup is Arizona’s largest cannabis awards and festival event. Dispensaries, growers, and vendors show up from around the country to strut their stuff and participate in a competition for best-in-class cannabis. From topicals and tinctures to distillates and derivatives, the Errl Cup has spent years refining its laboratory testing process. The best part: The cost of entry is free to all medical marijuana patients and adults in Arizona. only thing that actually costs money), the Errl Cup Awards event is a major part of the weekend. Contestants are judged on a combination of laboratory tests as well as the preferences of MMJ card-holding judges. A full list of award winners appears below. Morrison found meaning in his endeavor to provide safe cannabis when he lost his sister to multiple sclerosis. “It was a way for me to focus my energy on other things,” says Morrison, whose father was an entrepreneur and encouraged Morrison to run his own businesses. Shortly thereafter, Morrison and his partner Jay Neri worked together to create a festival that promoted patient safety and quality cannabis. “When I first started, the dispensaries thought there was no benefit to them,” says Morrison. “They didn’t see the return on investment.” It took time for dispensaries and vendors to catch on to the idea of a free event, but Morrison’s passion and focus on community safety eventually garnered interest with dispensaries. Some are unhappy with his methods. “People make stuff just for my event and enter it,” says Morrison, describing how dispensaries enter the competition with top-of-the-line cannabis strains unavailable to the public for the sole purpose of winning the competition. For this reason, Morrison and Neri started a secret shopper program. The Errl Cup teams up with volunteer MMJ patents to shop for on-the- shelf cannabis to include in the competition. This has ruffled a few feathers in the dispensary community. “They don’t like The Errl Cup The Errl Cup is held at the Scarizona Scaregrounds in Mesa. “We give it all away for free,” says Jim Morrison, part owner and founder of the Errl Cup. Unless you’re a marijuana establishment licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services, it is illegal to sell marijuana in the state of Arizona. “You have to do it this way or else you’ll go to jail,” says Morrison, whose main focus is safe access to cannabis for patients in Arizona. Aside from two full days of getting toasty and shopping for new merch (the us,” says Morrison, describing the pushback he gets when some dispensaries find out they were entered into a cannabis quality competition without their knowledge. “I go as a consumer because I want to test what they have on the market,” he adds, explaining that dispensaries would have nothing to worry about if they simply sold what they said they were selling. “We blindly accept the samples and run the tests without knowing much about them,” explains George Griffeth, owner of Level One Labs, a Scottsdale-based and family-owned analytical cannabis testing laboratory. His team at Level One tests on a variety of categories including potency, flavor profiles, and any dangerous substances such as fungicides, pesticides, mold, and other hazardous >> p 43 41
