The 420 festival in Denver Sunday shows how the legal marijuana cultural phenomenon is growing. But it's Colorado's success in keeping things safe and orderly that has some 'cautiously optimistic' about the industry.
 |
| Partygoers listen to live music and smoke pot at Denver's 420 Rally on April 20. |
Today is a big day for marijuana in the United States. April 20, in case you hadn't heard, is pot-smokers' national "holiday." The number 420 has been connected to pot smoking since the 1970s for reasons that have always been a bit, well, hazy. But that's never stopped marijuana aficionados from adopting the date as their own, and this year they have good reason to think they're on the winning side of America's drug war.
 |
| Partygoers listen to live music and smoke pot on day two of the annual 420 Rally in Denver on Sunday, April 20, 2014. 420 is a once clandestine term used in pot culture to refer to marijuana. |
 |
| A young woman smokes marijuana during a demonstration calling for cannabis to be legalized at a 420 Day event in Hyde Park in London on Sunday, April 20. |
For the people who have flocked to Denver for Sunday's 420 Rally, this weekend is nothing less than a celebration. Since Colorado voters legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2012, Colorado has become America's Amsterdam, with the first shops opening this Jan. 1.
 |
| Sarah Rader of Colorado Springs hula-hoops in Civic Center Park in Denver on April 19. |
The law is increasingly making the 420 Rally a Mardi Gras of the Rocky Mountains, packed with four different music festivals and the Cannabis Cup – a gigantic emporium for the world's best marijuana paraphernalia that sold out its 37,000 tickets.
Yet the potential success of Colorado's great pot experiment is not in the exuberance of those in Denver today. It is in dollars and cents and law and order.
No comments:
Post a Comment