Now is the perfect time to plan yourself a pot pilgrimage.
The first thing you seeupon entering theCore Social Justice Cannabis Museumin Boston ’s Jamaica Plain neck of the woods is a digital defile glass windowpane stamped “ Cannfessional . ” Behind it is a small phone booth , wrapped in cloud - print wallpaper , with a beam neon professorship and a mike dangling from the cap . Facing the chair on the wall is a TV with a tv camera wax on top . This is where you discover your truth .
With the Cannfessional , the museum encourage participant to immortalise themselves telling stories of cannabis use of goods and services , prompting dialog with questions like “ How does cannabis help you ? ” and , “ Describe your first cannabis experience ” ( you could alsobear witness online from home plate ) . response instance the reach of those who touch — from recreational to medical cannabis usance and everything in between — and they are collected for succeeding vitrine in a bid to destigmatize the plant life . When you ’re done “ confessing , ” pop in your email address , and receive a copy of your video recording in your inbox .
The Cannfessional stall mirror the aim of most of the museums on this lean : to normalise cannabis use and thwart whatever stigma still remains . Be it by come in it in the context of account , illustrating its social proliferation , advance its benefits , creating a museum of art fueled by it , showing how drug laws have disproportionately bear upon minority communities , or simply maintain it in the public conversation . Because it ’s not going anywhere .
So many ways to interact with weed.|Carlos Hano / Courtesy of THC NYC
And yet , only in recent history has the drug make so much disputation . When hemp was first introduced to the US in 1619 , a law was passedrequiringit to be raise on farm in Virginia . Later , THC was used in medicines and sell openly in pharmacies . Even Chief Executive beget in on the military action . James Monroe was an avowed smoker , and both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington cultivated the plant on their nation ( though the powers that be at Mount Vernon are adamantine that for Washington , it wasjust for the fibers ) .
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It was n’t until Mexican immigrants start using cannabis recreationally around 1910 that dread of the drug reared its foreland , heavily propelled by xenophobia . Propagandists called it the “ Marijuana Menace , ” and by 1931 , 29 state had outlawed it . In 1937 , Union law of nature instantly banned its cut-rate sale and use in the US . Fast - forward to 1986 — after the debut of the filmReefer Madness , a rise in countercultural exercise , the macrocosm of the DEA , and the ecesis ofHigh Timesmagazine — and President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti - Drug Abuse Act , instituting mandatory sentences for drug - relate crimes , a move that was reinforced by President Bush ’s notorious War on drug .
But the tide started to grow back in THC ’s favor in 1996 , when California legalized the drug for medical use . There ’s still a way to go , of course of action , to get back to … the 1800s . The museums on this list are add a new , energized representative to the larger conversation by creating dedicated spaces for give-and-take and engagement . And , in at least a couple of them , you could also bribe weed .
Here are the best , most piquant , and just plain coolest cannabis museum in America .
Tell all your secrets… within reason.|Art Velasquez at Imagix Studio
Core Social Justice Cannabis Museum
Boston , MassachusettsPortland , MaineThe locating of Boston ’s Core Social Justice Museum is important . Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of immigrants , a population that usually find itself a fair game of drug enforcement official and one who rightfully looked askance at the initial idea of being associated with a museum revolve around on hemp . But the founders of Core persisted , and with leading spanning 72 % charwoman , 82 % local investors , 81 % minority investor , and a collective 10 year of drug - tie in incarceration — plus curators including Ivy League professors and bestselling authors — the free museum opened in 2021 in conjugation with theSEED dispensary . A second location of the museum opened a year later in Portland , Maine .
Through personal perspectives , the exhibits canvas how drug policy have disproportionately affected low - income and nonage populations while ca-ca a ton of money for those at the top . There ’s also a wheel of paraphernalia ( take care for the Cookie Monster pipe ) , a replica of an illicit basement grow room , mugshot of the remarkable people who ’ve been arrested for drug possession , and a breakdown of the different effects of terpenes — all the well to inform your selection when murder the attached dispensary .
THC NYC: The House of Cannabis
New York , New YorkOpened on April 20 , 2023 in a landmarked construction in SoHo , the 1910 facade of THC NYC negate the multisensory , futuristic exhibits within . Here , covering 30,000 satisfying base and four floors , there issomeserious education , like an instalment of interviews with those negatively pretend by drug law project in collaborationism with theDrug Policy Alliance . And 20 % of the employees are formerly lag people , hired throughA 2d U Foundation . But the point of THC NYC is to celebrate , enthrall , and maybe even make you a lilliputian lightheaded , with an interactive — and psychedelic — fine art funhouse , creatively mastermind by a former experiential trafficker for Disney , no less .
Though no THC is sold on premises , there ’s pile to get you to a high state of matter . TheCulturefloor look at hemp through the lens of popularity , setting the scene with a distorted mirror installation calledDisorientation , before a video fourth dimension - warps through 600 years of marijuana history . A hazy elbow room with a massive whirl L-P serving as seating combines music , light , and movement , followed by a splay artistic production - meets - hemp exhibit .
A floor below , The Agriculturehouses the first urban grow farm , an interactive olfactory showing on terpenes , trippy macrophotography by Chris Romaine of Kandid Kush , and an immersive picture poem by Curren$y calledSeed to Soul . Then there ’s theHypnodrome , an audiovisual “ point levitation ” by Australian creative person Benjamin Gordon . Set to a soundtrack , images ripple and develop like a motivate Rorschach tryout in an effort to answer the question : Is it potential to feel in high spirits without being gamey ? You ’ll have to try it to find out .
Tell all your secrets… within reason.|Art Velasquez at Imagix Studio
just the ticket are $ 40 a pop and there is an selection to get Mary Jane delivered through a partnership with Union Square Travel Agency : A Cannabis Store . you could also hang on the first floor for free , catch some coffee from Jamaican roaster Sangster ’s , and shop cannabis - related accoutrement — including items from Seth Rogen ’s brand , Houseplant — watch glass bong - blow demonstration , and take photo at a high - minded stair and repeat backed by photo by cinematographer Ryan Postas for a series calledThe artistic production of Smoke . It ’s enough to belike — okay , unquestionably — leave you wondering where the time go .
Creswell Mansion
Denver , ColoradoHome to members - only cannabis clubTetra Lounge , the trippyInternational Church of Cannabis , and the very trippyMeow Wolf : Convergence Station , Denver already make a strong guinea pig for a stoner ’s paradise . And now there ’s also the Creswell Mansion , formerly theMarijuana Mansion . Opened in 2021 in a landmarked , probably frequent straightlaced land , it ’s part event blank , part immersive experience with elaborated photo - ops , and part history lesson . This was the headquarters of the Marijuana Policy Project as well as the birthplace of Amendment 64 , which in 2012 made Colorado one of the first states to legalize recreational hemp . It was later the office staff of cannabis law firmVicente Sederberg , which has played an influential role in the legalization motion .
The DEA Museum
Arlington , VirginiaShould the DEA museum be on this listing ? Sure , because if you ’re looking at our nation ’s criminalisation story , this is where you ’ll find the hard grounds . Renovated in January of 2022 , the exhibit hunt the initiation of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973 as well as the science behind drug habituation . Displays include Taking Down El Chapo , unadulterated with the Mexican cartel drawing card ’s prison uniform , original court drawings , and intensegold - plated weapons system , and Disrupt , Dismantle , and Destroy , which shows off a shiny reddened Harley Davidson as an example of the form of asset forfeiture involved in toppling kingpins .
A bulwark of honorremembers those who ’ve conk out in help , while online exhibits cover everything from the coca , cannabis , and poppy plants used to manufacture drug to the history of drug use , image of artifacts like the ( highly addictive)morphine syrettesgiven to soldiers in World War II , anda sprightliness maskof Pablo Escobar , made when he was behind prevention . For a playfulness clowning on your friends , stop by the gift shop and pick yourself up some branded apparel .
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Dockside Cannabis Museum
Seattle , WashingtonYou’re probably well mindful of Colorado ’s pioneering 2012 cannabis legalization lawmaking . But there was another nation that legalized the recreational use of goods and services and sales agreement of marijuana that twelvemonth : chill , unassuming Washington . In fact , it was thefirststate in the US to do so , a full three hour before the Centennial State .
And so it lay down sense that Seattle is also the dwelling house to a museum dedicated to the hooey . The Dockside Cannabis Museum celebrates cannabis ’s short - lived golden age before its prohibition in 1937 , with the Wirtshafter Collection of pre - prohibition epoch cannabis point ( named after curator and aggregator Don E. Wirtshafter ofThe Cannabis Museum ) . See the glass apothecary bottles that domiciliate tincture used to treat everything from hemicrania to anxiety to Parkinson ’s ( plus our favorite , melancholia ) . When you ’re quick to recover some medication of your own , just get across down an onsite budtender : The museum shares a outer space with the SODO location ofDockside Cannabis Recreational Dispensary .
Cannabis Museum
Ohio / VirtualAmong the 10,000 items or so in the Cannabis Museum are many , many bottles . They call them Apothecary Glass Vessels , and they date to the 1830s when marihuana - infused medicine was sold over the tabulator freely in pharmacies . Scanning the range of these chalk bottle , you get a common sense of the drug ’s hidden mainstream chronicle before its federal ban in 1937 . Add in the quietus of the collection — prescriptions , medical criminal record , books , magazines , photograph , posters , and hemp processing tools , among others — and the timeline , not to mention context , becomes nothing unretentive of visceral . The research museum is open by assignment only , but there ’s also an informativeblogandInstagramfor those who want to dabble . Keep an eye on the website , as they ’ll occasionally advertise prowess show and result .
Cannabition Cannabis Museum
Las Vegas , Nevada ( opening soon)The massivePlanet 13weed superstore in Las Vegas is the site of the upcoming 12,000 solid foot Cannabition , an immersive ganja museum that satisfy in any gaps in noesis Sin City may have when it come to the more serious side of ganja consumption . But this is Vegas , so not only will it be educational , it promises to be an instagrammable , immersive doozy . At the helm is originative director David Korins , whose credits includeHamilton , Beetlejuice , and Immersive Van Gogh . presently open for private events , yack on the street suppose the space will open to the public May 2024 . There ’s also talk of a 14 - foot bong .
The Core Social Justice Cannabis Museum|Art Velasquez at Imagix Studio
Step into the Hypnodrome at The House of Cannabis in NYC.|Carlos Hano / Courtesy of THC NYC
They say the Creswell Mansion, formerly the Marijuana Mansion, is also haunted. What a combo.|Creswell Mansion
The Psychedelic Art Experience show at the Cannabis Museum.|Cannabis Museum
