Pot advocate who inspired Hash Bash 54 years ago honored in Ann Arbor

The Ann Arbor Hash Bash returned on Saturday for a 53rd year, flooding the city’s streets with thousands of people repping the famous five-fingered green leaf. But sadly, this year’s event took place without the man who inspired it all over five decades ago.

John Sinclair, a counterculture icon whose personal fight against the war on drugs significantly helped to decriminalize and eventually legalize marijuana in Michigan, died Tuesday morning at 82 after years of declining health, just four days before he was scheduled to read one of his poems at this year’s Hash Bash.

Sinclair would’ve taken the stage among the dozens of other artists and activists who stepped up to the microphone to share their stories about how marijuana has made an immense impact on their lives, sometimes helping to ease their mental illnesses or alleviate chronic pain.

Instead, family members and longtime friends joined the stage as speakers stood and remembered Sinclair and others who devoted their lives to the fight to legalize marijuana.

“Last year, we were here, he was in a wheelchair in the rain, but we made it. He smoked right here,” said Sunny Sinclair, one of Sinclair’s two daughters who helped to care for him in his final years, while pointing to a spot on the stage. “It’s so nice that everyone’s thinking of him.”