4/20 Tourist Packages Hit Pot-Friendly Colo., Wash. After Legalization
Instead of rolling up with your coworkers behind the Ale House dumpsters, you could smoke your reefer the true American way this 4/20: Head west and light a spliff for freedom!
Big post-legalization celebrations in Colorado and Washington state are planned for Saturday's "holiday," and pot-package-tour marketers have sprung up to capitalize on the influx.
Marijuana tourism is nothing new—the Amsterdam-based Cannabis Cup has been around since 1987—but now you don't have to be a Euro-socialist fellow-traveler to do it. High Times magazine is launching a US version of the weed competition in Denver on Saturday, complete with a Cypress Hill/Slightly Stoopid concert at Red Rocks and a ceremony at which Snoop Lion will be given an award for lifetime achievement. (1994 for the win!)
That's given Matt Brown an opening to help create "My 420 Tours," which offers vacation packages up to five days, including events, transportation and safe, pot-friendly lodgings in Denver. "People are fascinated by what's happening here, and they want to see it up close," Brown tells the AP. "We want to make sure people don't come here, land at the airport, rent a car and drive around stoned all weekend."
Things sound a little more subdued for the DOPE Cup competition in Seattle this Saturday. But that's because everybody's saving it up for Hempfest 420, the Emerald City's really big bash In August. Why is a 420 festival held in August? Because they're fucking stoners, that's why. [NPR]
[Image via AP]