Higher Heights

Cypress Hill clocks in 20 years pushing the green agenda

The Cannabis Cup is coming to America on April 20, and who better to headline the two-day event than Cypress Hill. The inaugural US Cup takes place at the EXDO Event Center in Denver, while nearby Red Rocks Amphitheater hosts the concert. Cypress member Sen Dog, who attended a few Cannabis Cups in Amsterdam, sees the U.S. event as a celebration of social change.

“I remember back when we were just kids hanging out and how negative the whole cannabis issue was wherever you went,” says Sen, who remembers Christian groups picketing early Cypress Hill shows. “Now I see the progress that we made and the barriers we broke and the doors we knocked down, and I’m talking about everyone who took part in the struggle, like Snoop Dogg, High Times, Redman and the Black Crowes. As a community of activists, we opened the eyes of the country, and now most Americans want marijuana to be legal. To have our own show at the Cannabis Cup in the name of [such progress] is a great honor.”

Begun the same year as Cypress Hill, the Cannabis Cup has been an annual event in Amsterdam since 1988, and it gives coffee shops and seed manufacturers the chance to vie for top bud honors. In 2011, the Medicinal Cannabis Cup launched in San Francisco and traveled to Denver and Los Angeles in subsequent years. When Colorado voters legalized cannabis last November with Amendment  64, it opened the door for the first US Cannabis Cup. The competing strains will still come from the MMJ industry, but non-MMJ patients can now participate.

The night before the Red Rocks concert, Cypress Hill will throw a 420 pre-party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco. Sen Dog remarks “We always get a great response from the cannabis community up there. The whole 420 [party] idea came up, and we thought it was perfect to do a show there and continue to spread the word.”

The Los Angeles-based group has sold over 18 million albums worldwide since releasing its eponymous debut in 1991 and breaking big with 1993’s Black Sunday. Their popular cannabis-themed tracks include “Dr. Greenthumb,” “Hits from the Bong,” “Stoned Is the Way I Walk” and the Grammy-nominated “Insane in the Brain.” While the music embraces all elements of cannabis, the group strongly supports medicinal use.

“I will take it first for a headache or if I have an upset stomach, and it always helps me out a lot,” explains Sen Dog. “Medicinally, it is proven to help cancer patients, AIDS patients, glaucoma patients and even people with muscle spasms. The list goes on and on, and doctors have backed it up with science. You cannot deny its effectiveness as a medicine, but people still do in other professions because they know cannabis can compete with pharmaceutical companies. Cannabis allows people to do more healing at home without having to pay a lot for medications.”

Following the 420-themed shows, Cypress Hill heads out this summer with 311 on the Unity Tour with dates in San Francisco, San Diego, Orange County and a return to Red Rocks. The July 20 show in Atlanta corresponds with the 20th anniversary of Black Sunday, and fittingly, tickets for that show go on sale April 20.

“I do recognize the social impact that a band like Cypress Hill has had, and it makes me proud of myself and the guys,” Sen Dog concludes. “We believed in a certain way of living and thinking and stuck to it, and now we are seeing the social changes that went behind it.”

www.cypresshill.com