{"id":7353,"date":"2017-04-19T12:43:23","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T12:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2615945"},"modified":"2017-04-19T12:43:23","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T12:43:23","slug":"denver-420-in-the-trump-era-marijuana-celebration-or-political-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/denver-420-in-the-trump-era-marijuana-celebration-or-political-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver 4\/20 in the Trump era: Marijuana celebration or political rally?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/denver-420-in-the-trump-era-marijuana-celebration-or-political-rally\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>There was a time \u2014 before the vendor\u00a0booths, before the concerts with famous headliners, before the documentary crews and before the cannabis tour groups\u00a0\u2014 when 4\/20 in Denver meant a simple protest rally.<\/p>\n<p>Eleven years ago, only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2006\/04\/20\/briefing-421-2\/\">a couple thousand people<\/a>\u00a0gathered in Civic Center park\u00a0for the annual marijuana smokeout in defiance of state and federal laws. The rally planned for\u00a0Thursday could hardly look different \u2014 250 vendor booths, tens of thousands expected to attend and the rapper 2 Chainz scheduled to perform.<\/p>\n<p>But organizers also hope that this year, especially, will bring a renewed commitment to activism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe rally is by definition a coming together for the common good,\u201d said Miguel Lopez, who holds the permit for the rally and has been its most vocal advocate for years. \u201cBut we can\u2019t be that effective if we\u2019re not engaging a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even by the standards of marijuana festivals, these are strange days.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>On one side of the law, Colorado\u2019s marijuana industry <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/11\/colorado-marijuana-sales-stats-february-2017\/77088\/\">is booming<\/a>, more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/17\/north-dakota-medical-marijuana-dispensaries\/77432\/\">states<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/14\/canada-marijuana-legalization-legislation\/77314\/\">countries<\/a> are legalizing, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2017\/03\/29\/public-support-for-marijuana-legalization-surged-in-2016\/?utm_term=.c1377e97c7b1\">public support<\/a> has never been stronger. On the other side, the new administration in the White House has signaled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/03\/15\/jeff-sessions-marijuana-federal-law-enforcement-opioids\/75602\/\">a hostility<\/a> toward legal marijuana and a desire <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/03\/23\/federal-marijuana-trump-administration-tough-talk-jeff-sessions\/76000\/\">to do something<\/a> to blunt its rise, meaning that legalization supporters could soon face their greatest challenge yet.<\/p>\n<p>And that leaves Lopez and others in the marijuana movement with something of a problem\u00a0this time around. Should they view the\u00a0pot-smoker\u2019s holiday as a chance to show strength? Or should they lie relatively low in the hopes of not attracting unwanted attention that could spur a crackdown?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think both sides are going to get something out of the 4\/20 rallies,\u201d said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/08\/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-marijuana-scenarios\/73321\/\">an expert on marijuana policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For the cannabis movement, Hudak said rallygoers may decide to emphasize the event\u2019s\u00a0political roots and tap into the broader protests against President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis resistance movement that has really taken off \u2026 is something that\u2019s really going to motivate a lot of people to come out and make this a pretty significantly sized rally,\u201d Hudak said.<\/p>\n<p>For anti-marijuana groups, the 4\/20 rallies will probably provide an opportunity to criticize the excesses of marijuana legalization.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s something that the (U.S.) attorney general can point to and say, \u2018Look at this, the state can\u2019t even control public use,&#8217;\u201d Hudak said.<\/p>\n<p>Both approaches could have their drawbacks. Talk of a crackdown could be confronted\u00a0by the sheer number of people at the rally, demonstrating just how much money and energy the federal government would have to spend to push back against\u00a0legalization. Meanwhile, a raucous rally could undermine the mainstream credibility that marijuana supporters have tried to build over the past several years.<\/p>\n<p>This is a tightrope that the cannabis industry is particularly familiar with. While individual stores and product companies have embraced the glamour of 4\/20, the National Cannabis Industry Association, one of the industry\u2019s lobbying groups, has traditionally shied away from the events, even as it has expressed support for\u00a0marijuana consumers. Taylor West, the NCIA\u2019s deputy director, spoke of the 4\/20 events as similar to the Great American Beer Festival in producing both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2016\/10\/04\/first-timer-gabf-2016-guide-tips\/\">positive<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2013\/10\/09\/great-american-beer-festival-bigger-than-ever-but-is-it-better\/\">negative<\/a> images.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the larger context of 4\/20, it\u2019s always been a little bit of a mix, and I think it will be the same this year,\u201d West said.\u00a0\u201cThere\u00a0will be some things that come out that maybe aren\u2019t as good for the image of responsible use. But there will also be a tremendous amount of political activism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>West said the NCIA prefers to save its own major activism push until May, when it holds annual lobbying events in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez, too, said Denver\u00a04\/20 rally might not be the best place for marijuana supporters to fight the feds. For those who wish to battle\u00a0Washington, Lopez had another suggestion: an annual Fourth of July \u201csmoke-in\u201d at the White House that he helps organize.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s 4\/20 rally in Denver, meanwhile, will mark the launch of a new group\u00a0he is calling 420 Revolution. The group will be focused on local issues and on trying to strip away social stigma around cannabis use by encouraging one-on-one conversations in the community, Lopez said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t see us particularly focusing on Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would be focusing more on a self-pride issue and on self-preservation as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should organizers of 4\/20 pro-marijuana events view this year as a chance to show strength or should they lay relatively low in the hopes of not attracting unwanted attention that could spur a Trump administration crackdown? The answer is complicated. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5502,6811,6957,6813,77,6815,9,5019,1,3,6923,61,1736],"tags":[5505,6816,6960,6818,2655,6820,5022,6924],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}