Hundreds Attend Medical Marijuana Festival In Las Cruces

CANNAville took place over the weekend at the Southern New Mexico State Fairgrounds. Hundreds were in attendance on Sunday at New Mexico’s largest medical marijuana festival. The goal of the festival is to reduce the stigma associated with marijuana.

All ages were welcome and no medical marijuana card was required for admittance, according to KVIA ABC News 7. Doctors were available to speak to potential new patients and provide evaluations for recommendations. Marijuana products were not available for consumption at the festival.

Event organizer, Ray Vigil, said, “This is the fifth event of its kind within New Mexico in the last year. We’re bringing together the general public and the patients so we can bring awareness and education.”

Vigil also said, “We think it’s important, that everybody knows, it’s not about – they have a stigma that it’s just for hippies, and things like that. We have patients anywhere from one year old, all the way up to 90 years old. We want to make sure that everybody understands that it’s real beneficial.”

A glass blower, Steve Alva, said, “We’ve seen all sorts of people, from young adults to older people. It’s been a good group – a mix of different types of people.”

Alva is from El Paso Texas, where sales suffer since it’s a tobacco market over there and medical marijuana is not yet legal. He comes to New Mexico to festivals to provide his glass creations to New Mexico medical marijuana patients.

He said, “I’m definitely pressed to come over to [New Mexico] because of that. It’s all tobacco use in Texas and over here, I can get a lot more use out of these. It’s definitely something that brings me out here.”

CANNAville will be held in Roswell later in March.

Marlo Flores of Southwest Vapes said, “We’re getting rid of that taboo that cannabis is just bad. It’s not. It’s helping so many people.”