All Good Festival: Not so Good For Some

   For those of you young fans of jam bands, peace and love who travel to the beautiful hills of West Virginia for the All Good Music Festival, beware; while the bud may be kind, the Maryland State Police are not.

            After my own failed attempt at Rock N’ Roll stardom, I did the logical thing instead: I went to law school and became a criminal defense attorney.  Last year I started receiving a steady flow of marijuana possession cases in Western Maryland. After speaking to some other fellow attorneys, they reported a similar influx of such cases.  After some further investigation, the source of this rainmaking was clear: The All Good Festival.

            Local law enforcement has found that thousands of young jam band fans traveling up Interstate 68 to West Virginia for a weekend of peace and love provides a real turkey shoot for drug interdiction.  Choosing the right cars to stop for drug searches is like shooting fish in a barrel. Police just look for shaggy haired kids in vehicles with a plethora of multicolored Phish bumper stickers.

            As a young, 19 year-old, long haired, crunchy kid driving a beat up pick up, I too was once so naïve not to realize that a “Steal Your Face” on my back windshield and a “National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws” sticker on my bumper was an open invitation to be pulled over by the man.  I eventually traded those stickers in for one from the F.O.P. and another from some local Bible Radio station.  

            Unfortunately young people are often prone to occasional brain farts. There is no bigger brain fart that driving up Interstate 68 to the All Good Festival with a car full of weed.   In Checking out the All Good Festival’s website, I was hoping to see a warning such as “No weed on Interstate 68”, but I found none and consequently the phone calls have already started from the kids who learned their lessons the hard way on the road to this year’s All Good Festival.

            For those young music fans heading out to West Virginia for peace, love and music next year, remember to drive 55, stay in one lane, wear your seatbelt and take those darn stickers off your bumper.  For those of you who can’t resist the urge to enhance your music listening pleasure with Mother Nature, thanks for the job security.

  For more concert info: Check out the All Good Festival.