Ask a Stoner: Why Is Civic Center Park Denver's 4/20 Gathering Spot?

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Dear Stoner: Why is Civic Center Park such a hot spot on 4/20?
Mr. Meatwad

Dear Mr. Meatwad: Colorado's rich connection to legal cannabis is only a few decades old. We were an early state to legalize medical marijuana, and the first to legalize recreational marijuana. Denver was also the first major city in the country to decriminalize small marijuana offenses, as well as the first to approve psilocybin reform. And none of that would have occurred without what happened at Civic Center Park every 4/20.

click to enlarge

The Mile High 420 Festival returns to Civic Center Park on Thursday, April 20.

Jacqueline Collins

The concept of 4/20 started over fifty years ago in California, but Denver became a mecca for the unofficial cannabis holiday thanks to cannabis activist Ken Gorman, who hosted monthly "smoke-in" protests at Civic Center Park as early as 1995 before growing the protests into a full-fledged rally on April 20. Gorman was murdered in 2007 (the case remains open and unsolved), but his friends continued the tradition of gathering at the park, and even started the official Denver 4/20 Rally, the first incarnation of the free concert and smokefest we see today.

Police tolerance for this free and technically illegal celebration wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for Gorman's tenacity and willingness to get arrested for public pot use, so burn one for him on the high holiday.

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