Harvest Fest Is A Real High Time Thousands Meet In Amsterdam For Annual Cannabis Cup

A whiff of Skunk? Some dazzling Northern Lights? How about a Great White Shark bite?

Different tokes for different folks were competing Thursday for the attention of the high rollers judging the 10th annual Cannabis Cup.

About 2,000 marijuana lovers, many of them from the United States, are in the drug-tolerant Dutch capital for their yearly blowout, a five-day “harvest festival” organized by the U.S.-based High Times magazine.

Before the cup presentation, judges puffed their way through bags full of homegrown weed as paying guests took a special bus tour of Amsterdam’s famous marijuana-selling “coffee shops.”

“You have to pace yourself,” said Jody Miller, the event’s publicist.

Miller said she doesn’t smoke - not that it matters. Sitting in one corner of a room thick with sweet-smelling smoke, she confessed to being high for three days on the secondhand fumes.

At a hazy awards ceremony in an Amsterdam night club late Thursday, marijuana-selling coffee shop “De Dampkring” snatched the top prize, the Cannabis Cup, for the second year running.

De Dampkring also won awards for the best Dutch-grown hashish and the best marijuana grown in soil, a potent strain called Peace Maker.

Popular strains Skunk and Northern Lights didn’t win any awards but Great White Shark grabbed second spot in the soil-grown marijuana award.

The festival, which began Monday, closes today.