Isla Vista residents packed into Anisq’ Oyo’ Park yesterday for the fifth annual Joint Rolling Competition and daylong festival in celebration of all things green and sticky.

The event, hosted by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, capped off a weekend of reveling throughout I.V. and saw several hundred students, vendors and marijuana enthusiasts relaxing in the sunshine to watch the festival’s main event – the joint rolling contest. The competition consisted of several categories – fattest, fastest, freestyle and primo categories for both joints and blunts, and a joint-only contest for medical marijuana and one-handed specialists.

Alexander Stemplewski, who registered for every competition category and won the race for most joints rolled within two minutes, said he felt the event fostered a sense of community.

“I think it’s an awesome competition,” Stemplewski, a second-year financial math and statistics major said. “It brings a great group of people together.”

Stemplewski also came out on top for the fattest blunt competition and took second place in the fattest joint competition.

The freestyle joint rolling competition proved to be a high point of the afternoon, as I.V.’s most visionary rollers went head to head crafting cross joints and braided joints. Ultimately, George Pelic was crowned the winner for his creation, the “Torpedo-Tulip.”

“I used to work in a cannabis club in L.A. rolling joints,” Pelic, a business administration major said. “I learned how to roll in Europe. I was the apprentice of a well-known joint roller there.”

As the event’s host, NORML used the festivities to promote their overarching goals, which focus primarily on changing marijuana laws, member Ruth Nichols said.

“As a club, we’re into reforming marijuana laws for personal and medical use and industrial hemp use,” Nichols said.

For students interested in getting involved in NORML activity, the group meets every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in 1930 Buchanan Hall.

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