San Francisco has served as the soul of 1960s counterculture, the launching pad for the medical-cannabis movement, and the host city for 4/20 on Hippie Hill for decades. But things changed this past weekend when the city’s Outside Lands music festival became the first locally permitted, state-licensed major music event to allow cannabis sales and consumption at Grass Lands, the festival’s curated cannabis experience.
Whether you’ve smoked herb at Outside Lands every year since its 2008 debut or gotten high at Golden Gate Park even once, this is a very big deal.
Described on the event website as spotlighting “the celebration, education, and integration of cannabis products into daily life,” Grass Lands was introduced at last year’s festival as the first event of its kind, to much fanfare. While Grass Lands allowed plenty of cannabis education, brand-to-consumer outreach, and THC-free candy samples, sales and consumption weren’t allowed. That left cannabis newbies and stoners to fend for themselves by secretly bringing their own stashes, buying through illicit means, making a stop at a dispensary, or scheduling an at-home delivery after leaving the park. Event organizers knew they had to push further to make sure the law was on their side this year.
“It looks beautiful…This is the best that cannabis has ever looked.”
“We helped gain support for Assembly Bill 2020,” explained Salwa Ibrahim, cofounder of Highland Events, the event company behind Grass Lands. “Once that kicked in, the natural next phase was to see how sales perform in this environment.”
Signed last year by governor Jerry Brown, AB-2020 granted local jurisdictions the power to decide which venues could receive temporary licensing for events allowing adult cannabis sales and consumption. As of January 1, cannabis events are no longer limited to far-flung locations, such as county fairgrounds, but instead can now be centered in the 420-friendly cities that are most enthusiastic about hosting them.
However, nothing worth having comes easy. Grass Lands organizers had to apply and wait for approval, which didn’t come until August 7, just two days before Outside Lands’ kickoff. It was one aspect of a complicated, multi-tiered process with a lot of logistics. The fact that they managed to make the experience completely seamless for visitors was nothing short of miraculous.
“It took a lot of people to get [Grass Lands] completed,” Ibrahim explained. “It was a monumental lift, and the organizers worked super-hard to get it all done — a true labor of love,” she said, taking in the scene of a group of people near us passing joints in one of the designated outdoor consumption areas.
“It looks beautiful,” she continued. “This is the best that cannabis has ever looked.”
To enter Grass Lands, participants had to flash a white wristband verifying that they were 21 or older. If you had a beer or cocktail in hand, you had to chug it or throw it out. In the ultimate turning of tables, alcohol was not allowed.
It was clear from speaking with the brands involved that this was about more than just getting people blazed in time for Childish Gambino.
Signs featuring fun factoids, like a pro-hemp quote from George Washington and a reminder that San Francisco was once called Yerba Buena (Spanish for “Good Herb”), lit the path into a place that exists simultaneously inside and worlds away from the rest of Outside Lands—and the reported 90,000 other attendees who were with me there on Saturday.
Grass Lands felt like a festival in and of itself, with brands presenting a range of interactive experiences to engage and educate visitors about all things cannabis. You could enjoy an augmented-reality experience with Loud + Clear, take $10 dab shots at the MOXIE Gas Station, or check out the Flow Kana Grass Lands stage for a hash-making demo hosted by Bong Appétit’s Vanessa Lavorato and hash consultant The Dank Duchess™. Or you could ignite your advocacy by learning about social equity with Equity Sessions or by signing Jetty Extracts’ petition so that cannabis companies may once again be allowed to give away free weed to patients.
Brands with products to sell were able to do so in their respective booths, though customers also had the option of making purchases at the main budtender hub on the other side of Grass Lands. Smoking was allowed in designated consumption areas only: large outdoor spaces with plenty of tables, benches, logs for sitting, and ashtrays.
Even with the good vibes emanating from this place, it was clear from speaking with the people involved that this was about more than just getting people blazed in time for Childish Gambino.
“This is a big step forward for the cannabis industry,” said KIVA Confections cofounder Kristi Knoblich Palmer, who added that the event “helps normalize, wash away stigma, and elevate the whole experience of cannabis so it’s not dark and scary anymore.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Jason Guillory, marketing director at NUG. “We’re here to normalize cannabis,” he told me as I munched on a non-medicated sample of their tasty Matcha Chocolate Bar.
“This is a lifetime achievement for all of us,” said Jason Pinsky, Chief Cannabis Evangelist with Grass Lands sponsor Eaze. “Everyone worked tirelessly to get this approved, and it got done. That’s why it’s historic.”
For a self-proclaimed stoner like me, the experience of being able to buy a couple of pre-rolls and get high in public was overwhelming.Sure, drifting aimlessly into the main festival after a puff from a GG4 pre-roll had its own challenges (even though this was at a park, you’d be amazed by how hard it was to find a tree to lie under and zone out). But even more profound was the realization that I was actually free to enjoy cannabis outdoors without fear of judgment or arrest. For anyone who grew when weed was illegal, even in the progressive Bay Area, this is huge.
“I used to have a drug dealer,” said 21-year-old Daroda Brown from Hayward while lighting up during a break from budtending duties. “Now we’re around hundreds of thousands of people and can legally smoke weed. It gets doper and doper every time I think about it.”
