Dab-o-ween in Denver celebrates a year of cannabis legalization in Colorado

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Leslie Simon.

It’s been one year since the State of Colorado passed Amendment 64 legalizing recreational marijuana for adults over 21, and it’s still every bit as exciting to see people smoking freely at an event. Last weekend the people of Grassroots California joined up with dispensary search engine Weedmaps.com to celebrate the year-old laws and Dab-O-Ween at popular local dance club Norad.


The two companies teamed up this past summer and held the 7IO Cup, a very successful and popular competition that had tons of highly concentrated THC entries, videos of which were shown at last night’s costumed celebration.
Beginning at 7:10 p.m., the first thing party goers saw when they entered was a glass dabbing rig with free dabs of a wax the astronaut manning the butane told me was Golden Goat. A line quickly formed as people eagerly tried out the goods then moved on to the stacks of free pizza, courtesy of local Denver company Sexy Pizza. Excellent combo to start the night.

Grassroots California hats.

Grassroots California had a great selection of hats out; candy corn print fitting for the post-Halloween event, and two cool looking all-over print options for Big Gigantic fans, amongst others. Grassroots is a great progressive clothing company that donates proceeds to charity, and on top of that it is really high quality, well designed merchandise. Many attendees throughout the night were treated to free Grassroots T-shirts in giveaways, far better quality shirts than what you see shooting out of t-shirt cannons at sporting events.
Miss Mary Jane Co. was in attendance, a female oriented glass and clothing line created and ran by Madison Alvarez. Cute cropped tanks that don’t look like the typical “pot culture” clothing and pastel colored glass pipes gave a warmly welcomed estrogen boost to the often male dominated scene, and she couldn’t be sweeter or more passionate about what she’s doing.

Leslie Simon.

“I moved out here in Jan just as the marijuana laws were changing, Alvarez said after the event. “I started to notice more females that were not only open about smoking marijuana but also pretty, hardworking, and proud about cannabis. It is as if this group of females were the complete opposites of the ‘pothead’ stigma, but did in fact still use marijuana in its many forms. So I decided that I wanted to create a brand that these types of females, such as myself, could identify with.”
Artist Vincent Gordon impressed the audience with a full display of Technicolor paintings and the coolest coloring book I’ve ever seen. This local artist is seriously impressive, and his prices were very reasonable, big paintings going for around $250 and smaller prints available for $20. Images from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” abound, everything was very intricate and psychedelic. Gordon painted as the music played and continuously had visitors clamoring for his stuff throughout the night.
“The surrounding foggy haze connected us all,” Gordon wrote to us in an email after the event. “I brought my monstas with & the art was welcomed with blown minds, wide glossy eyes and open hearts! We are the cure for the common white wall!”
The crowd was bustling as Eric Cartman, Max from “Where the Wild Things Are”, a Mile High airplane captain, sexy garden gnome and a sexy Boy Scout (male) lingered through the crowd competing in the post-Halloween costume competitions. Got to hand it to people- the one piece animal suits looked really warm, excellent Colorado costumes. Midnight Illumination from Grassroots spun a mix of chill beats and hip hop lyrics, at one moment sounding like “Also sprach Zarathustra” being sampled as the animals hit the dance floor. Music continued throughout the night with duo Krooked Drivers, Wyatt Lamond and more taking the stage. People actually showed up on time to the event, which was pleasantly surprising, so the party was hopping from the get-go.


The timeliness of people’s arrivals had every bit to do with the free concentrates being offered at the beginning of the night, and they had the rig going for a pretty good while. What a state we live into be able to get free dabs at the door. They had universal nails that fit onto any rig for sale for $170, as well as these soft, rubbery containers for wax that work better than the hard plastic ones they give you at the dispensaries.

Leslie Simon.

Attendee Chris, 24, said “I’m really stoked to see how far the dab community has come just in the short year since the passage of Amendment 64. Props to event organizers on the super heady micron dab kick downs!”
Overall the event was a warm, inviting time that kept their audience through the whole night, always a sign of a good party when people stay beyond the free stuff. The atmosphere when people are predominantly smoking instead of drinking is far more relaxed, people weren’t screaming over the music, and everyone was very supportive both emotionally and monetarily of all the companies that worked together to put on the event.
For anyone planning to hit up future events put on by these companies- bring extra cash, they always have vendors with really cutting edge stuff that you really feel like you need after a few free dabs.
Toke contributor Leslie Simon is a music and culture blogger in Denver. Check out more from her at BackBeatBlog.com and LeslieLoudspeaker.com

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