It wasn’t the volcanic rock, the palms dancing in the Atlantic breeze, the black-sand beaches, or the azure water that defined my time in Lanzarote. It was improvisation. Tenacity. Community.
The kind of resilience required to launch a grassroots cannabis cup… with surprisingly little grass.
Like many other attendees stepping off the plane onto the scorching tarmac, whether from the neighbouring islands or the other side of the world, I arrived with a mental itinerary mapped out. My photographic shot list. Conversations I hoped to have. Moments waiting to be captured.
It wasn’t long before I realised the schedule and reality weren’t always on speaking terms.
The Lanzarote THC Cannabis Cup unfolded across several Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) over three days, an ambitious format that relied heavily on communication and coordination. For judges, competitors and media alike, SMS messages arrived sporadically, sometimes seemingly bypassing half the people who needed them. Plans shifted; transport became a daily jigsaw puzzle of where to and how much. Somewhere along the way, coffee proved almost as elusive as the flower we had all travelled to celebrate.
Ordinarily, those things would become the story of an event. Its defining characteristics. Its personality. Here, they became the backdrop. Sometimes events deliver exactly what they promise. Sometimes they deliver much more.
Anyone who has spent time on a small island will be familiar with the phrase island time. It’s less a schedule than a state of mind. Clocks become suggestions, plans become more of a checklist. They’ll happen… eventually, and tomorrow, or mañana, is often just as acceptable as today. Whether it’s the sunshine, the heat, or simply the rhythm of island life, Lanzarote fully embraced the concept.
Yeah, it was frustrating at times. But it was also strangely liberating.
Attending the 2026 Lanzarote THC Cannabis Cup
By the time I’d finally navigated my way to my accommodation—after an unintentionally comedic detour brought about by my almost total inability to speak Spanish—I could already feel my own pace beginning to change.
Then I met my first roommate. Dabby (@dabbydesign).
Dabby had travelled from Germany to judge the resin and rosin categories. A grower, dabber, and content creator, she brought a seemingly endless supply of enthusiasm that balanced my own more cynical observations perfectly. We started as strangers sharing an apartment, but by morning, we’d shared enough smoke and stories to feel as if we’d met years before. I was now well refreshed and rested to take on whatever new challenges came our way.
Kerry Murray is a UK-based, New Zealand-born photographer and writer whose work explores cannabis, music and counterculture through intimate portraiture and documentary storytelling. He is particularly interested in the people, places and communities shaping the evolving cannabis culture across the UK and Europe.
