12pm Friday 1 May to 2pm Sunday 3 May
@ Nimbin Town Hall & Garden, and Indica Arena
About our Speakers
Link to Program
As usual MardiGrass offers full tilt ideas and education all weekend at this year’s HEMPOSIUM where we pull back the curtain to reveal creative and abundant places around the globe basking in the post-prohibition green glow. As Australia is just waking up to the benefits of medical cannabis, the MardiGrass HEMPOSIUM aims to inspire, as we learn and share knowledge about our favourite plant ally and healing herb.
There is an impressive line-up of speakers who will share their cannabis expertise and experiences, and reveal the gains made in both Australia, and throughout other cannabis loving communities around the planet.
In 2019 we are excited to host a medical cannabis pioneer from North America, Elvy Musikka,who relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the US Federal Government’s Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program [IND] in 1988, and was approved to get legal cannabis cigarettes later that year. Elvy is currently the only woman still receiving her allotted 300 joints a month in the program. She says that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine. Elvy has become one of the most recognized activists for Cannabis in the nation. She is an honored speaker, traveling whenever she can to be present, wherever her voice is needed.
From The Netherlands, Charly Bedrossian, head gardener at the Cannabis College in Amsterdam will offer advice on the safe use of recreational and medicinal cannabis while also educating about the many industrial uses of the hemp plant. Eternally curious, Charly’s motto is to learn something new every day & share this knowledge with others, so we’re very happy he’s decided to visit Nimbin for the first time.
Other new speakers in 2019 include two impressive plant heads, glass artists and craftsmen: David Nickles and Partrick Vrolyk AKA Red Beard.
David Nickles is an underground ethnobotanical researcher and glassblower based out of North Carolina. Operating under the name Oneiros Glass, he has been pursuing the craft of borosilicate glass. Specializing in lathe-work, David primarily fabricates concentrate rigs, water pipes, and custom scientific apparatus used in botanical extractions. David also explores the ways in which intentional and deliberate use of plants can transform our world.
Red Beard, is an Okanagan-based glassblower who specializes in handmade pipes and bongs. He owns one of the only licensed cannabis accessories business in the area, and operates Red Beard Glass, from a home studio with his own kiln. Every year Redbeard holds an event in Birken, BC, ‘humbly’ named ‘The Great Canadian Glass Gathering’, the GCGG. This is an event not only for the blowers to create great art on their own, but also an opportunity for them to make larger, intricate collaborative pieces.
Revisiting MardiGrass, we welcome back Adela Falk from POW420 a Californian based advocacy group for cannabis offenders suffering life sentences in American prisons. Virtual local, Canadian WeedWoman, Mae Moon will share the highs and lows of legal recreational cannabis in Canada, and we’re excited that Sita von Windheim, Canadian cannabis rights activist, will return to Nimbin in 2019.
From around Australia, we welcome experts and passionate educators for medical cannabis and drug law reform: Steve Bolt, “Dr Pot” Andrew Katelaris, Ray Thorpe [Happy Herb Company], Dr Deb Waldron, Nick Wallis [Australian Psychedelic Society], Martin Williams [Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine], as well as advocates and families from the medical cannabis community.
Political Cannabis: It’s Time To Inhale! Politicians joining us include David Shoebridge Greens MLC NSW, and Fiona Patten Reason MLC Victoria. Fiona will discuss how cannabis law reform has reached a tipping point in Australia and will detail her plans for legalisation in Victoria. David will educate us about our rights with police.
This year’s Mardigrass HEMP Expo will promote global & local hemp solutions for medicine, food and industry featuring: Dylan [Broadleaf Hemp/Hemp for Horses] speaking on the regenerative aspects of hemp farming, Martin Ernegg [Hemp Fibre Fusion], Andrew Kavasilas [HEMP Party], Dolph Cook [Australian Cannabis University], and don’t miss Glen Ossy-Orley, a hemp farmer Western Australia sharing tips on growing hemp on trellises. On Sunday, Kog and will share the truth about cultivating Cannabis at his annual Grower’s circle.
The Hemp Embassy’s Medical Cannabis workshops held in Nimbin over the last three years have attracted large numbers of the newly emerging and increasingly visible Australian cannabis demographic – families with extremely ill children, and people dealing with chronic pain and often terminal illness. The HEMPOSIUM will include real world stories from the Australian medical cannabis community, including families whose lives have changed dramatically for the better thanks to medical cannabis.
It’s time this magnificent herb was welcomed into mainstream Australian life, and the persecution and prejudice to stop. Medical cannabis has been a growing international phenomenon over the last few decades, and Australia is only now starting to catch on and catch up. The HEMPOSIUM aims to expand the mind as much as that special weed herself, and is a space to inform, learn, agitate, inspire and connect in this massively important green revolution. Join the GREEN VEST MOVEMENT and help us OVERGROW THE GOVERNMENT!
Check out the Hemposium programs from the last few years:
