Catchin’ some air at the 420 Games. All photos by Mr. Ubetchakoff.
Organizers of the 420 Games say one of their goals is to break the stereotype of the lazy, slob stoner who eats Doritos and watches TV all day, which, let’s be honest, is kind of a real thing. It sure as hell was in my high school hippie days. We would smoke joints and then hide out, listen to records and basically not do shit. But of course the lazy, sensitive types like me and my friends aren’t the whole story. I also knew some hippies who would smoke a joint and decide to go climb mountains, or hike for days with only a backpack and a compass.
These games are for those people. They can run 4.20 miles and check their time and high five each other and then smoke a vape pen while cooling off near the ocean. They can do stunts on their BMX bikes and medicate their sore limbs with CBD meds. I can dig it. And even for a determined non-competitor like this author, just wandering the midway made for a most pleasant afternoon by the sea.
Now that weed is everywhere and not just used by jazz musicians and zoot suiters, you’re starting to hear the word “lifestyle” used a lot in conjunction with herb. “Lifestyle” used to mean, “I’m in the Pot Smoking Lifestyle, therefore I must have some kind of pot, any old kind will do, as long as it works.” Those days are long gone–now the number of options becomes paralyzing. So you have to think about what choices make sense in the context of a Cannabis Lifestyle.
We even talked to one company with a booth at this event whose whole existence is based around designing your Cannabis Lifestyle for you–a curated series of purchases based around your personal preferences, so you don’t have to stay abreast of which brand is the best and whatnot. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Side note: If you are the kind of person who is willing to pay someone to curate your cannabis lifestyle, please contact me via this publication. I’ll go to the store with you and tell you what to buy, and you can just pick me up an eighth, doesn’t even have to be top shelf.
Alternatively, you could learn about the good products by reading my column for free, but if you are the type of person who hires a Lifestyle Consultant, there’s probably a long list of things you pay people to do for you that could be done for free, so fuck it, I’ll take your money. But I’ll save you a shit ton over market rate AND I bet I know better than those people where the good dope is.
Anyway, I digress.
It was a lot of fun to peruse miles of aisles and see what the future holds for weed users, the medical, the recreational, the natural body products, and all of the varieties imaginable. Stunt riders had a lot of people saying “Whoa!” although it was one of those days where people were walking around exclaiming “whoa!” in general.
To my observation, there was less actual, detectable pot-smoking going on than at your average PTA meeting — it’s all about those vape pens now. Discretion is the new preference for many different Lifestyles. To that end, we met a number of concentrate companies with interesting options. OMG Farms and Lola Lola are rolling out disposable pens that don’t require a battery to be charged, just pick up and puff. Green Kings, Humble Extracts, Hotnife and Aces Extracts all displayed solvent-free THC cartridges and other extracts that could make chemically-derived oils obsolete.
Old-fashioned types could check out the varieties of Lowell Smokes’ pre-rolls and get a first look at the line of Willie’s Reserve products, which should be hitting LA shops this spring. Health and beauty products were in plentiful supply, with displays from High Gorgeous, Quanta, the Releaf Station, and our friends at CannaKids. We also got to check out a bumpin’ live set from Tha Native, the hip hop artist that runs Native OG Moonrocks.
Product sampling was not as rampant as we would have preferred. There was a long line for the Lola Lola truck, one place where you could sample some essential oil-infused THC vapes. If this was a disappointment for for the vendors, who seemed really anxious to show off their wares in all their glory, just imagine how we in the audience felt. But nobody complained too much. The day was more about making friends and seeing what was possible. A farmer’s market for these kind of folks, where one could actually buy and sample on a wide basis remains just out of reach, but we hope to see that day.
