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The fog of four: Marijuana festival lights up Denver’s Civic Center

Nina Stewart likes to see the cloud — the cloud of marijuana smoke wafting into the air as thousands of people light up in the middle of Denver’s Civic Center on April 20. The smoke — and the recognizable smell that accompanies it — was the biggest giveaway that this was no ordinary day.

It was 4/20.

And the park was filled with people such as Stewart who flocked to downtown to celebrate marijuana at the FlyHi 4:20 Festival on a warm and sunny Saturday.

“I just like the event of a lot of chill people here to celebrate an herb,” said the 22-year-old from Aurora. “And not afraid to smoke at the same time.”

She was dressed in a Bob Marley T-shirt, and green beads featuring marijuana leaves were draped around her neck. She describes herself as a self-taught artist, and she held a sign promoting stickers she designed and was selling: a Colorado flag and mountains inside a marijuana leaf.

This year Euflora, the dispensary chain organizing FlyHi, called it a “celebration of cannabis,” an ode to the transformation weed has made in Colorado since recreational pot sales became legal in 2014. In the past, 4/20 was used for supporters to advocate for legalizing marijuana.

Before Saturday’s festival, organizers said they expected as many as 75,000 people to show up.

Seth McConnell, Special to the Denver Post

Smoke billows from the end of a blunt as Trevor Penney smokes it Saturday in Denver.

Stewart and other attendees said the annual marijuana festival was more organized this year. There was better music. And there were more vendors “instead of it just being a bunch of people in a field,” she said.

“It’s probably just as political (as before), but there’s more money in it,” Stewart said.

Vendors lined the middle of the park, with one stand grilling bratwurst and turkey legs. Across from the array of meat, another stand was showcasing cannabis-infused beverages, including cola, root beer and blueberry-lemon flavors. A long line of people stretched between the two booths as attendees waited to buy a drink from a lemonade stand, which offered a refresher as temperatures topped 80 degrees.

Many peopled lounged on the green grass in front of a stage and smoked weed, ignoring the police officers that waded through the crowd and the signs at the gate warning festival-goers that public consumption of marijuana is illegal. Jermaine Dupri and T.I. were scheduled to take the stage later in the afternoon.

Among those sitting on ground were John Wayne Protsman, 56, and Zachary Protsman, 31, of Colorado Springs. It was the father-son duo’s first time attending the marijuana festival in Denver, but they’ve been to others elsewhere. They said such events have become less political than in previous years as more states have legalized medical and recreational pot use. 

“It’s the longest war America has been in — against one plant,” John Wayne Protsman said of marijuana legalization. “And now they are giving up.”