Dope Cup
A Seattle magazine's cannabis competition and festival, best documented through its fairground-themed 2015 edition.
- 274results on record
- 2015–2018years in our data
- 4editions
- 128matched to strains
- Staver Locomotive, Portland, Oregon, USAlatest location
01Beginnings
The Dope Cup belongs to DOPE Magazine. Its publisher, Dope Media, also hosts events and curates products, as co-founder Trek Hollagnel described the company in a 2016 interview1. The magazine started in 2011 to fill a gap in Washington's market for cannabis advertising. The name came first, and the acronym was fitted to it afterwards1. The company's five founders had been running an entertainment magazine and a dispensary, and by 2013 they chose to concentrate on DOPE Magazine alone1.
No source in the pack gives a founding date for the Cup itself. A Leafly report calls the 2015 edition the fourth annual2, which would point to a 2012 start. That is an inference, not a stated fact. Wikipedia's list of cannabis competitions names the Dope Cup among United States events but offers no description of it3.
02The story so far
The best-documented chapter is 2015. Over that year's 420 holiday weekend, DOPE Magazine held its fourth annual Cup at 7-Point Studios in Seattle, with Leafly as sponsor2. The venue changed at the last minute, but visitors still turned out for the state-fair-themed event2. Judging was open to the public. A $99 judge's pass came with a half-gram sample of each of the ten anonymous entry strains, plus a vote in the People's Choice category2.
Prizes covered flower, concentrates, edibles and topicals, with separate People's Choice and Judges' Choice awards2. Concentrate prizes were split by extraction style: BHO, CO2 and non-solvent2. Individual winners and category results are left to the cannalib database.
The magazine's acronym also shifted meaning over time. It began as "defending our patients everywhere" and later became "defending our plant everywhere"1. The sources do not say when that change happened.
03Culture and community
The 2015 Cup had a fairground feel. Leafly's account lists infused cotton candy, a mechanical joint to ride, magicians, performers and artists2. Alongside the competition, the showcase featured flower, concentrates, edibles, topicals, glass artists and accessories from regional makers2. Visitors could also enter raffles or get a massage at topical company booths2.
The dab bar drew the biggest crowd of the day, serving solvent and solventless concentrates from local extract artists2. Another showpiece was a crystal skull piece by local artist Scott Deppe at the X-Tracted bar, which carried a six-figure price tag2.
For the publisher, the Cup is part of a bigger brand. In 2016 Hollagnel said the Dope Cup and the Dope Industry Awards help build Dope's cannabis lifestyle brand1. As of July 14, 2016, the magazine was distributed in 24 states, with more than 100,000 copies published each month1. The company employed about 70 people across four offices: its Seattle headquarters plus offices in Colorado, Oregon and California1. It also sold its own branded accessories in limited runs of 5,000 to 10,000 units about every three months1.
04Where it stands now
Current status is not documented in the sources. Wikipedia still lists the Dope Cup by name among United States cannabis competitions, but gives no date, venue or status for it3. The Leafly write-up of the 2015 results shows a last-updated stamp of August 24, 2022, and does not say whether later Cups took place2.
A related-news headline on the NCV page refers to High Times extending its cannabis media network through an $11.2 million Dope Media acquisition. The pack contains no article text or date for it1, so the deal and any effect on the Cup are not documented here.
05What comes next
No announced plans for the Cup were found in the sources. The only forward-looking note concerns the company rather than the event: as of July 14, 2016, Dope Media was considering a project called Dope TV to boost its video presence1. Whether that happened, or whether it touched the Cup, is not documented.
The results, in our data
CannaLib holds 274 results from this cup across 4 years (2015 to 2018), 128 of them matched to a strain in the catalogue.
Recent first-place strains
| Year | Strain | Category | Entrant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Mac1 | Best Indoor Grown Hybrid Flower | Wicked Kind |
| 2018 | Garlic Breath 2 0 | Best Indoor Grown Indica Dominant Flower | Godsden Gardens Inc |
| 2018 | Purple Reign | Best Pre-Roll | Three Finger Farms |
| 2018 | Animism | Best Sun Grown Hybrid Flower | Benson Elvis |
| 2018 | South Fork Kush | Best Sun Grown Indica Dominant Flower | Benson Elvis |
| 2018 | Jack Herer | Best Sun Grown Sativa Dominant Flower | Frontier Farms |
| 2018 | Alien Rock Candy | Most Potent THC Flower | Wicked Kind |
| 2018 | Tropical Trainwreck | Best CBD Distillate | Winberry Farms |
| 2018 | Banana Split | Best THC Shatter Taffy | Artifact Extracts |
| 2018 | Tangie | Best THC Wax Budder | Pangoea Extracts |
| 2018 | Sour Tangie | Best Vape Cartridge | Buddies Brand |
| 2018 | Acdc | Best CBD Distillate | Doctor and Crook |
| 2018 | Cbd Dream | Best CBD Live Resin | Olala |
| 2018 | Shurman | Most Potent CBD Live Resin | Solstice |
Editions on record
- 2015 · 7-Point Studios, Seattle, Washington, USA (420 weekend 2015)
- 2015 · Refuge PDX, Portland, Oregon, USA (October 2015)
- 2016 · Oregon, USA
- 2017 · Oregon, USA
- 2017 · Colorado, USA
- 2017 · Seattle, Washington, USA (23 April 2017)
- 2018 · Staver Locomotive, Portland, Oregon, USA
- 2018 · Seattle Hempfest, Seattle, Washington, USA (18 August 2018)
Sources
- The Evolution of Dope Media as it Celebrates its First Five Years – NCV Media
- The 2015 DOPE Cup Winning Cannabis Strains, Concentrates, and Edibles | Leafly
- List of cannabis competitions
Written from the sources above and checked on 2026-10-29. Spot an error? Tell us on the contact page.