The High Times Cannabis Cup will return to Illinois this month -- or, as it's sometimes known, "The Oscars of Pot."
Mark Kazinec from High Times said it's a competition for licensed cannabis brands in Illinois to put their best products to the test.
"Judges across the state to get a sample platter of all these brands to judge them over the course of 60 days," he said. "And to figure out who has the best cannabis products in multiple categories all across the state of Illinois."
The kits of products the judges receive are organized by category -- flower, concentrates, vape pens, edibles, and topicals.
"They take that home complete in a High Times backpack, and then they have an online at scorecard portal where they can go in and rank each product on how it looks, tastes, smells, fields, and the whole effects and experience around it," Kazinec said.
But weed affects different people in different ways -- so how can people accurately judge these things? Kazinec said that's the beauty of it all.
"This is now the people's choice. So in the past so I've been doing this since the 80s, started in Amsterdam," he said. "Now today, 2020 pandemic hits, people are being paid stimulus checks and given the right to consume cannabis from the comfort of their own home. Cannabis is deemed essential. So we made the people's choice model, which allows anybody -- no matter what walk of life you're from -- to be a judge."
Judge kits are limited and go on sale for loyalty members on Saturday, July 23, and for the rest of the public the day after that. Pricing will be released next week.
Listen to the whole conversation from Total Information AM:
