420 Jars was just named the Official Stash Jar of the High Times Cannabis Cup… Amsterdam, here we come. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Cannabis Cup, Gary (the other half of 420 Jars) likes to say it’s the World Series of Marijuana. Every November, several thousand people (mostly from the US), go to Amsterdam for a week of smoking pot. Different strains of marijuana are entered into the contest by seed companies, growers and the coffee shops. Everyone votes on their favorite strains and that determines the winners of the Cannabis Cup.

This year, all 100 entries of marijuana and hash will be displayed in 420 Jars. The jars will have a special Cannabis Cup logo for the event and we’ll also be selling commemorative jars to the public.

It’s pretty crazy how this all came about… about 2 months ago Gary and I were talking about advertising in High Times. Until this point, we had only been advertising in a magazine that goes out to all the smoke shops in the country. Most of our sales are wholesale orders going to head shops and that’s where we focused our advertising budget.

I couldn’t find their ad rates, so I called our rep at High Times… as it turned out, they needed to fill a 1/2 page ad and were going to press in 2 days, so they offered it to us at 1/2 price. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity and quickly put an ad together. The next month, our ad rep (Matt) called because someone cancelled their ad at the last minute and he offered me another 1/2 price ad, which we again accepted.

Then a few weeks ago Matt showed our jars to Steven Hager, the founder of the Cannabis Cup. He loved our jars and suggested to Matt that 420 Jars be the Official Stash Jar of the High Times Cannabis Cup. Matt thought that was a great idea and called me up to tell us the news.

So we bought our plane tickets, found an apartment to rent for a week and started researching our trip. Neither one of us has been overseas before, so Gary had to apply for a passport and I had to search through some boxes to find mine. It has a wonderfully innocent picture of a 19 year old kid who had no idea where this passport would be taking him.

Our relationship with High Times and the Cannabis Cup is going to be huge for us. We’ve been steadily building our business for the past two years and right now is our time. I can’t wait to see all those beautiful buds displayed in 420 Jars and all the pictures that will be in the magazine.

If you want to see our ad, check out the September and October issues of High Times. The September issue just came out and we’re on page 101. We also decided to advertise for another 12 months (although no longer at 1/2 price) and we got to spend a little more time on our ad for the November issue, so watch for that when it comes out… we’re really pleased with our handiwork.