Marijuana and Yoga Come Together at a Retreat in the Rockies

The 420 Yoga Retreat set to take place in Colorado's Rocky Mountains this fall will not be your typical meditative getaway. The retreat will invite its participants to combine the relaxing effect of yoga with another well-known stress relief provider - the intake of cannabis.

The event is scheduled for the weekend of Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 at the Aspen Canyon Ranch - which made the news early in March for opening as "America's first cannabis resort." Guests can smoke marijuana publicly at the mountain ranch, up in the Rockies about 1.5 hours away from downtown Denver, CO.

Note that such behavior would normally be prohibited - while recreational marijuana use is legal in Colorado, public consumption is illegal. But "thanks to its small number of rooms and secluded mountainside location," BusinessWire notes, the ranch is able to allow the smoking of marijuana on its public areas, which include the walking trails, riverside, hot tubs, bonfire circle and restaurant.

Sounds like the right place for the 420 Yoga Retreats, which aim to provide "a creative mix of yoga, movement, meditation, massage & marijuana.... Yogi D & his crew will lead you on a relaxing journey thru five sessions with a mindful, pot-friendly crowd."

"Yogi D" is the name of the 420 Yoga Retreat organizer, a veteran yoga instructor who is going by an alias to avoid flack from his corporate clients. Yogi D has 25 years of experience doing yoga, and first got into blending yoga with marijuana some 20 years ago, he says in a Westword interview.

"In the past I always kept my 420 yoga on the down low, but it just feels like right now. It's ready to pop, and it's ready to be accepted in the world.," he tells Westword reporter Lindsey Bartlett.

He may be right. Marijuana is gaining widespread acceptance, and medical science has been able to show that it does offer stress relief. Cannabis gets the brain to produce endocannabinoids, mood-related chemicals that decrease in supply under chronic stress, PositiveMed reports. When taken at the proper doses, cannabis not only relaxes you but induces a feeling of euphoria.