Santa, we’ve been very good this year…though we admit that legalization has helped. Still, we should be on the “nice” list, and one of the things we want the most next year is a great 420 rally. This event should be a jewel in the Colorado crown: We’ve led the nation in the fight for marijuana rights, serving as a voluntary laboratory in how to successfully integrate pot into a law-abiding city and state populace, and that leadership alone is reason enough for an annual celebration.
While the new license-holder for Civic Center Park on April 20, 2018, begins working out the details, we wanted to submit our very particular 420 wish list to Santa:
7. Free Munchies
Is it too much to ask for a Cheetos table? Or maybe have the whole event sponsored by Taco Bell? If we can get free tacos when the Rockies hit a few homers, then surely we can get the Bell to offer some for 420 participants. Hand out Ganjaritos: You know we’ll be running for the border later that night anyway, so you might as well prime the pump, inferno-sauce style.
6. A Specific Strain That Makes Us Want to Pick Up Trash
Look, this isn’t Woodstock, and this isn’t some farm way upstate. This is Civic Center Park, right downtown, and people are going to notice if there's garbage left behind. Since we’re there to smoke and socialize, why not work toward a hybrid weed that makes us want to clean, like Monica Geller on Friends? Hell, name it after her and her coaster-using, cleanser-fetish inspiration. “Hey, man, you holding some Monica Geller?” Puff, puff, polish.
5. Kindly Cops
Can Denver maybe hire some of those old-time, black-and-white movie cops on the beat? Not the ones who think that rousting minorities is a way to keep the peace, but those who respond to some harmless tomfoolery (like social consumption) by saying “faith and begorrah,” smiling knowingly and whistling as they move merrily along and keep an eye out for, you know, real crime.
4. More Doors, Quicker Screening
There are precious few wish lists in this world that include more TSA-style security personnel, but this one does. Not because we’re seriously into bag checks, mind you, but because the 2017 rally had too few entrances manned by too few security people to handle the crowds.We get that lines are inevitable, but it’s called the 420 rally for a reason: If we’re still waiting to get in when the clock strikes 4:20 p.m., that’s seriously going to harsh our buzz.
3. Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg and the Ghost of Bob Marley
The 420 event is used to bringing in some pretty big names; recent musical guests have included Rick Ross, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz. But let's shoot even higher in 2018, with pot-music big guns like Snoop, who lives and breathes pot, literally, and Willie Nelson, whose name is the correct retort to anyone claiming that pot will hurt you. (“You know, pot will ruin your life.” “Really? Willie Nelson.” “Well argued. My bad.”) And the ghost of Bob Marley because...come on, because there’s no arguing that this would be flat-out legendary. Don’t argue metaphysics: Just book them.
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2. Everyone Gets a Lava Lamp
They can be like door prizes, like baseball-game giveaways, whatever. Find a ’60s-era sponsor willing to donate to the cause, and make them battery-operated — or else plan to run a hell of a lot of extension cords. Think of the light show we’d have once the sun goes down: a smoky haze backlit by the purples and pinks, the colors of the lava lamps shining out into the Mile High air. We can make that golden dome shine in a whole new way.
1. Couches
Sofas are the perfect marijuana furniture, except maybe for hammocks, which are really just makeshift couches that require trees. Picture it: Civic Center Park filled with nothing but couches, maybe some chairs and coffee tables, just a jigsaw of living rooms in various layouts and arrangements and composition, inviting everyone to slide right in the gates, grab some free eats, slump comfortably into a cushioned seat, turn on their new lava lamp, listen to Willie, Snoop and Bob Marley, and light up. Is this heaven? No. It’s 420 Denver.
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