Add one more thing to the list of mainstream, standard-American activities that cannabis is a part of …

When grandmas stream through the doors of weed shops buying salve for their slipped discs, and weed chains contemplate buying naming rights to the football stadium, it's clear that cannabis has come out of your shady friend’s sock drawer and into regular culture.  

Now, you can add one more thing to the list of mainstream, standard-American activities that cannabis is a part of: blue-ribbon judging at the state fair. 

In a worldwide first, the Oregon State Fair will include nine cannabis plants this year. They’ll be judged just like any other crop, for color, quality, healthfulness, beauty and aroma. There won’t be any sampling, so the winner will be based on looks only, and not its "stickiness" or its "fire" or its “ability to enhance Reggie Watts videos.” The weed will be in a separate pavilion, for 21 and up only, and a security guard will watch you like a hawk. 

But, yes, along with best sow and best apple pie, a cannabis plant will win a blue ribbon this year. And the 4H club will now stand for Healing Herbs Harvested Here. 

America. Fuck yeah. 

Sixty growers will enter plants; the top three in each category — sativa, indica and hybrid — will go on display to the public.

Several phone calls to the Oregon State Fair this afternoon were not immediately returned. But Don Morse, chair of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council, told leafly.com this week that, “We regularly reach out to the community with some form of education, to de-stigmatize the industry and the plant. For the people at the state fair to let this happen is really groundbreaking.”

Why shouldn’t cannabis be part of a state fair? Cannabis is a crop like any other. Oregon dispensaries have sold $60 million in pot already this year, through June. Colorado had sold nearly half a billion dollars worth just through May. 

Plus, it’s not like the fair is averse to mind-altering chemicals. There’s already a celebration of Oregon wines, which you can actually drink — unlike cannabis, which you can’t actually smoke at the fair, despite any fair's perfect conditions for being stoned, including proximity to funnel cake and availability of fuzzy sheep to pet. 

Along with other state fairs, the Colorado State Fair hasn’t yet embraced this idea. The Denver County Fair had in 2014 a “Pot Pavilion” which featured — get this — no actual pot. Just “edibles” with no cannabis and joint rolling with oregano. Same with the Colorado State Fair. It was like going to the swine show and seeing nothing but German Shepherds.