| Joe Winn |
| The 2011 Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards (OMCA) First Place trophy |
By Charlie Bott
Toke of the Town
Oregon Correspondent
The marijuana strain Mad Scientist, grown by first-time entrant Ray Bowser, captured top honors at the 10th Annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards on Saturday, December 10, at the World Famous Cannabis Cafe in Portland.
The highest THC content flowers overall measured an impressive 23.9 percent. Better keep this stuff out of New Jersey (where the limit is 10 percent) and the Netherlands (limit 15 percent)!
Overall Winner: Mad Scientist — grown by first-time entrant Ray Bowser
2nd place: Medicine Woman — grown by David Verstoppen
3rd place : Blueberry — grown by last year’s winner, Jessi James
The ceremony also included the presentation of the Freedom Fighter of the Year awards to Lori Duckworth of Southern Oregon NORML, and presentation of the Dr. Ric Bayer Award to Paul Loney, legal counsel for Oregon NORML, for his years of service to the medical cannabis community.
The awards banquet was the final event in a day full of activity including a holiday shopping bazaar, a sustainable fashion show, and educational events including a grow seminar by High Times Senior Cultivation Editor Danny Danko and a soil seminar by Dru West, author of Secrets of the West Coast Masters.
| Joe Winn |
| Green Leaf Lab provided analysis for all the strains, but never knew the identities of the strains until they were revealed at the banquet. |
The contest’s 28 judges turned in their voting sheets as they arrived at the banquet, and the determination of the top three strains came down to the very last evaluations turned in.
The judges had all been provided with one gram of each strain a month before the banquet took place. The individual strains were labeled only with barcodes to ensure a double-blind process in which neither those voting nor those counting the votes knew which strain was being evaluated.
During the month leading up to the awards banquet, the judges were expected to test one strain a day and provide it a rating in several categories, with ribbons awarded for Appearance, Aroma, Taste, Potency, and Smoothness.
This year, for the first time, each of the entered strains was chemically analyzed by event cosponsor Green Leaf Lab.
“Green Leaf Lab is proud to be the official testing laboratory for the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards,” affirmed Rowshan Reordan, who represents the cannabis-testing laboratory. All samples were given the Green Leaf Lab Full Spectrum Cannalysis™, which includes testing for potency, pesticide residue and a microscopic mold inspection.

“The OMCA was the first awards ceremony in the medical marijuana community; incorporating testing of all the entries will make our results much more meaningful,” said Madeline Martinez, owner of the World Famous Cannabis Café.
| Joe Winn |
| Ray Bowser, winner of the 2011 OMCA for his strain, Mad Scientist. |
The potency levels for THC, CBD and CBN for all of the anonymously-numbered strains were on display all day for visitors to inspect. When the strain identities were revealed, Verstoppen’s 2nd place Medicine Woman came out on top with the highest THC content at 23.9 percent, and Lloyd Kern’s William’s Wonder recorded the highest CBD level at 1.06 percent.
Medicine Woman’s THC content is more than twice the legal limit of New Jersey’s new medical marijuana law, a fact that was not unnoticed by Diane Fornbacher, visiting dignitary from NJ NORML and managing editor of Skunk Magazine, another co-sponsor of the event.
Comic Todd Armstrong served as the evening’s emcee, and the celebration continued well into the night with music from Portland’s own Hot Tea Cold.