How stoned is San Francisco? Well, for one, we have more cannabis dispensaries than McDonald’s. Sure, maybe we’re not quite at Colorado levels, but San Franciscans sure do love their weed — and they love celebrating it on 4/20, too, even if no one seems to know where this holiday came from. (Supposedly, it started with a group of teenagers in Marin.)
I visited stoner havens Hippie Hill and Dolores Park on 4/20 to shoot San Francisco’s stoner celebrants; here’s what I saw.
I hit up Hippie Hill first, and it wasn’t quite what I expected. It felt like an open-air weed market: sellers were walking around with poorly Sharpied cardboard signs, pushing weed treats, brownies, blunts, dabs, joints and tinctures.
This guy told me he makes zombie movies. Of course he does.
Oh, so that’s where the Force comes from.
I thought this woman was dressed as Shiva, but she told me she was actually the “genie of pizza.”
You have to wonder, do these people have these clothes on a regular rotation, or do they keep them in the back of the closet in a box labeled “WEED STUFF”?
I’m not sure if this was for a fundraiser, as the plastic bag indicates. In any case, slanging Krispy Kremes on 4/20 is the most ingenious business plan ever.
This is what $20 looks like in blunt form.
This guy showed up alone and started spinning electronic jazz. He had his own little DJ station with an umbrella, suitcase, snacks and a laptop attached.
“Contentment,” the Buddha famously said, “is a pack of menthols, a High Life, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, a bong and a pair of pink cannabis socks.”
(Her tattoo — of course — says “love” in Arabic.)
Some time travelers from 1972 showed up. “The future just has stronger weed,” they said. “And better kettle chips.”
Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the scene was any different from any other day in Dolores Park. I mean, the “Buddha treats” people were out in full force, but then again, they usually are during nice days. I’d say people were doing their thing, but a little more stoned — whereas Hippie Hill was more of an all-out, open-air weed market.
She gets 10 points for blunt-holding posture.
Right before I took her photo, this woman put out a spent roach in her friend’s beer bottle. “You know that wasn’t empty, right?” her friend asked. She started laughing right as I took the shot. “It’s OK,” her friend said, and then drank the roach-infused beer anyway.
4/20 is an all-ages affair.
The self-styled “King and Queen of Dolores” were having a 4/20 barbecue. But when I stopped to talk to them, they had only one hot dog on the grill.
How many of these people are “working from home,” do you think?
