My Job Was to Smoke Weed!

You would not believe how many times I’ve heard people exclaim “You have my dream job!” and I did. For seven years, it was my job to hang out and smoke weed all day long with tourists. It was the most unique and amazing experience I have ever had the honor to be part of. It took a pandemic to stop the party.

Flashback to December 12, 2012, when Colorado’s residents, thousands just like myself voted to legalize recreational cannabis in the state of Colorado. History was made in the world was ready to come to visit Colorado and toke up. But where would they? That was the big question, one that my husband and I had an answer to. We thought “Let’s open a smoke lounge and invite everyone we knew to come in, hang out, eat snacks, listen to music, and toke on some ganja.”

Word spreads fast, and before we knew it we had 15- 20 people a day coming in to hang out. A wake-n-bake idea turned into a historic concept and surprisingly enough, it was going to work. There’s a whole bunch of legal loopholes that we were able to find, thanks to my law school studies… But I won’t bore you with those details.

Every day was a party. We opened at 10 AM for a wake-n-bake and didn’t close till midnight. Conveniently there were dispensaries within a 2-mile radius, tourists and locals flooded in. The greatest perk was, they would bring weed with them… And of course, there is always someone who wanted me to smoke with them. I had my own weed and so did everyone else, but we always shared.

I smoked hundreds of different kinds of cannabis during those seven years, from all over the world. Local and non-local growers would bring in nugs to have people try. Companies would bring in free samples of new products. I even had somebody all the way from France send me a Thank You card, with two joints in it.

The toys were amazing. I had a snorkel set that I could smoke a bowl or even do dabs with. We had at least 26 different types of bongs and rigs that you can choose from, every type of rolling paper you could imagine, 300+ pipes… All were free for members to use, placed all over the club for easy access. We had a 6-foot bong and would have competitions to see who could clear it the fastest. At least once a month we made a gravity bong out of a watermelon or a pumpkin. We had birthday parties, weddings, holiday parties, and field trips together. Members would bring in stoner board games and movie nights we had medicated popcorn. Once a week at 7:10 PM, we pulled out a dab hookah, 15 to 20 people at a time would dab one, two, three, or more grams, and hotbox the whole place. It was epic.

When we closed there had been over 100,000 members who entered the door. I met thousands upon thousands of really cool individuals, from all different walks of life and 23 countries. We had homeless members and we had members who worked for NASA. The people who walked thru the doors all left a special kind of joy behind. It might have been the Mary Jane, but the peace was abundant there.

I have a handful of friends that I walked away with that I am so thankful to have in my life. I’m going to keep them around for a few more decades. Because finding a good stoner who doesn’t bogart your weed is always hard to find.