The annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival was held Saturday and Sunday, attracting thousands of people to downtown Madison to inform the public about why marijuana should be legalized.

This year’s festival, the 31st annual, was clearly a success from the standpoint of the event’s organizers. Speakers, such as Elvy Musikka, Steve Silverman and Valerie Gremillion spoke to large, receptive audiences, inspiring debate and widespread intelligent discussion.

Lining a gate running through Library Mall were posters of incarcerated families who had been part of marijuana conspiracies and sheets of statistical research claiming to prove marijuana is a harmless drug.

Protesters of all ages stood earnestly next to the gates, with signs bearing slogans like, “DEA are the real terrorists” and “Is my medicine legal yet?”

Gary Storck, who proudly carried the latter sign, was born with glaucoma and has been an unofficial patient of medicinal marijuana for his entire life.

“In 1979, my doctor said he would prescribe it for me the minute it became legal to do so … 23 years later, I’m still waiting,” asserted Storck, who is vice president and director of communications for an organization entitled, Is My Medicine Legal Yet?

“Cannabis can save my eyesight,” Storck maintained.

While certain people were protesting for strictly medicinal legality of marijuana, many others, like Will Levin, were campaigning for completely free use.

“It’s a safe substance, and I see no reason it shouldn’t be legal for all uses,” Levin declared.

Organizers believed all the information one would receive through posters, word of mouth and personal testimony to the benefits of marijuana could lead one to walk away from Harvest Fest with a different perspective on marijuana.