Italian cannabis cup history

Competitions called cannabis cups are events where growers, geneticists and cannabis enthusiasts participate and compete with their strains in order to elect the best cannabis strains in the world.

The oldest and most famous cannabis cup in Amsterdam is certainly the high times cup , founded by Steven Hager which had its beginnings in Holland in 1988. Having started with a family organization, it was immediately understood that this competition would soon become an event recognized throughout the world.

This was also thanks to the cannabis seed market and coffee shops, the real driving force of the nascent cannabis market in that period. For an event that began with humble intentions, there was no escaping the fact that the popularity, commercialization of cannabis and the scale of the event, demanded a change.

By the 2000s , the cup had outgrown its size and was moved to America. There had always been a number of flaws inherent to the competition format. Flaws that had never really been addressed and could no longer be ignored by introducing serious investment.

The suspicion that the competition was not so clean and transparent began to spread among the participants. The fact is that in the Netherlands buying quality cannabis cheaply, "branding" it with your own brand and registering it in the cups was now an established fact.
This means that none of the participants had actually grown marijuana in the competition. This was a serious blow to the credibility of the high times cannabis cup, but despite this this event is still active and always has a lot of participation.

Indoor ranking

Outdoor ranking

Most awarded strains in the cannabis cups in amsterdam

It is not easy to search through the archives of the most awarded Cannabis Cup Amsterdam varieties and we apologize in advance if we forget some genetics. Certainly among the most awarded ever if we consider the early 90s in the Amsterdam cannabis cups how can we not mention:

Skunk n1 from “sam the skunk man”,
The super skunk from sensi seeds,
The epic strain launched by Dutch coffee shops in the late 90s White Whidow by Shanty Baba,
The super silver, the northern light 5 x haze by nevil,
Original Blueberry "Dj Short", Dutch Passion seeds, legendary variety proposed by the famous Dutch Seeds Bank,
Mother finest, jack herer, shiva shanty, crystal

Only after a decade did varieties such as amnesia, critical, or kush appear, but already in 2013 we began to hear about US and Canadian varieties .
Even in Italy the echo of these new US genetics was starting to arrive.

Spain and Barcelona, new frontier of the cannabis cup.

With the advent of clubs, the market and attention of cannabis culture moved from Amsterdam to Spain and so did the major cannabis competitions. The Spannabis fair with over 500,000 visitors becomes the cultural attraction in this sense, with a highly attended competition and above all sponsored with rivers of money by seed banks.

Even in the Basque country and Andalusia there are plenty of cannabis cups which at a local level always maintain their transparency, purity and beauty.

We remember in addition to the Cannabis Cup of Amsterdam, the Copa Bela Flora, Professional Grower Cup, Canary Island Cup, Breeder Irun Cup etc etc.

Even Portugal, and especially the Czech Republic, are no exception, each of these states celebrates 2, 3 events every year, dedicated to the competition of cannabis varieties. As we always like to underline, the smaller cannabis cups, where commercial interests are less pressing, are the ones that realize the true meaning of this competition.

The cannabis cup should above all be a reclamation of a right, political activism and a meeting between enthusiasts and professionals . But as we know, prohibition and the commercial aspect obscure these true messages.

Cannabis cup italia a truly incredible story

… There is no trying, there is only doing or not doing! It was the motto of the Italian cannabis cup

When in 2008 a group of heroic cannabis activists gave life to the first cannabis cup in Italy in Rome at the csoa forte prenestino, they certainly never imagined where this event would end up, they knew full well what risk they would expose themselves to. An extremely prohibitionist and dark decade lurked on the horizon for Italian prohibitionism, in this context the most loved, imitated and acclaimed cannabis competition in Italy and beyond was born.

The anti-prohibitionist cannabis cup was born quietly with a couple of local editions in the legendary csoa Forte Prenestino , a temple for political activism not only of cannabis culture. With the rise of grow shops and seed banks in Italy, the cup immediately grew quickly and in a couple of years it registered presence and competitors from all over the peninsula.

After a few years its popularity crossed the Italian borders , and famous European breeders and renowned seed banks began to appear among the jurors at the Cannabis Cup in Italy . Some foreign sector newspapers begin to write about this event. It was surprising that an event of this kind organized 6 km from the Vatican, in one of the most prohibitionist countries in the world (at the time of Fini-Giovannardi) was something that had never happened before.

You may be wondering : how was it possible to organize a cannabis cup which saw the participation of more than 50 judges with 40 varieties in progress and a final awards ceremony attended by over 6000 people in one of the most prohibitionist countries in the world? We'll tell you about it!

Italian cannabis cup jury 2009

Italian cannabis cup jury 2012

Italian Cannabis Cup how it was organized and why it was the most loved and credible.

At the time, Facebook didn't exist , there were grow shops and some magazines, but talking about weed was practically impossible, if not thanks to the Cannabis Forums, the real driving force of this event, in addition to the grow shops. If it is true that Italy was the worst country in the world for cannabis, there were forums frequented by the best experts in the sector . It was here that people exchanged photos, cultivation experiences and kept our passion alive.

Forums like Marijuana.it, Enjoint, Overgrow and Icmag , just to name a few, were "relatively safe" places to nurture and transmit this culture. It all started like this , in closed rooms of the Forum or in the grow shops, where the registrations of the competing herbs, the bookings of the judges and the organization of the event took place.

Photos of the judges of the Italian Cannabis Cup: Franco Casalone and Franco Loja of Green house Seeds. Winner of numerous cannabis Cups.

The competition was initially divided into outdoor and indoor grass, only later was the section dedicated to resin extractions added. The peculiarity of the Italian cannabis cup , (perhaps the real flagship ever practiced anywhere in Europe), was the "blind" mode .

This means that the judges voted without knowing the name of the competitor and the manufacturer . This method was highly appreciated for its transparency , without the judges being influenced in their voting by the fame of the strain or the seed bank.

Cannabis cup and political movment in Italy

The Cannabis Cup reaches its peak when in 2012 40 types of marijuana and 20 types of extractions compete . In that edition there were more than 35 judges and a final awards ceremony with over 6000 people present.

We can say that the cannabis cup was talked about almost throughout the cannabis world, since this event conveyed many other meanings, beyond that of the competition. The Italian cannabis cup was an anti-prohibitionist event, a vindication of individual freedoms, the cup was a heroic act of indomitable fighters for the passion of cannabis.

Italian cannabis cup THC Test

Like all good things in life, the conclusion came for the Italian cup.
The real reasons why such a popular and successful event was interrupted have never been known .
Certainly the competition, the jealousies and the "currents" of the competitors were beginning to deteriorate the harmony and reputation of this competition, however the interests of the seed banks were becoming more and more demanding.

The fact is that after the 2014 event, the cup was definitively and reluctantly suspended for all fans.

However, as the legend of the phoenix teaches us, very often heroic acts recur in other forms. Furthermore, in this period there is a need for Freedom and it is not certain that the Italian cannabis cup will not be proposed again.

Cannabis cup Italia: the legendary winners

It is difficult to list all the winners who have followed one another over the years of the cannabis cup and we apologize to those who will not be mentioned.