Cannabis Athleticism

When Jim McAlpine was contemplating the creation of what would become his 420 Games — athletic events “that promote the healthy and responsible use of cannabis” — he knew what he didn’t want the active gatherings to look like.

“These are the antithesis of the Cannabis Cup,” McAlpine told The Cannabist this week. “I want this to be the exact opposite of that. I look at those events as consumption-based events. They’re really focused on weed, on ‘Let’s get high.’ My events from the outside look like your average 5K run.” […]

With my gym and the 420 Games, people are like, ‘It’s a stoner run’ or ‘a stoner gym’ — but actually we’re fitness first, cannabis second. And we’re using fitness to show that people can incorporate cannabis into their lives and still be active. […]

Yeah, everyone calls it the stoner gym. But it’s a calculated fitness program. People can’t come in and start smoking just anywhere. There’s a room for consumption, and we work with people to understand if cannabis is something they should be using in their workout regimen. I want people to understand that this isn’t a place where you can come in and smoke weed anywhere. It’s a place where our trainers understand cannabis and athletes, and they’ll work with each person to examine how cannabis affects them. There will be some people we’ll advise to not use it. […]

When you sign up for our gym, every member will go through a CPA, or a cannabis performance assessment. Your first workout with a trainer is sober and without cannabis in your system. On your next workout you can consume cannabis and you’ll be asked about how it affects you, does it make you faster and better — or slower and not as strong — because everybody is affected differently.

Responsible cannabis-integrated athleticism is an exciting, interesting, and smart approach to educating and encouraging proper cannabis use.

I logically maintain that vaporization is a better fit than smoking on this front, so that integration is a great set of sources to ignite the likely mainstream preference for vaporizing cannabis.

A major plus is such athletic quality righteously negates the alcohol comparison. Cannabis is not alcohol plus (or such) by a long shot. This psychedelic plant is a dramatically different — including highly flexible — experience.

Cannabis offers a wide and deep variety of options for consumers (I predict there will be many sub-cultures within the cannabis-using domain), and the industry has only begun traveling down that awesome path.

As Massachusetts tends to focus upon healthier living, I hope this message reaches them prior to voting on recreational cannabis legality during the upcoming presidential election.