The combination of barbells and bud could only happen in San Francisco.
This Spring, the world’s first cannabis-friendly gym called Power Plant Fitness will allow members to consume marijuana on-site while working out. The gym’s mission is to reverse the lazy stereotypes about pot users.
“It won’t be a place to get high and just screw around,” says Jim McAlpine, founder of the cannabis event series 420 Games and cofounder of Power Plant Fitness. “We are focused on the athletic side, not the cannabis side.”
Just like the ‘420 Games – an Olympics for stoners’, the company hosts athletics events nationwide where pot enthusiasts and their families compete in triathlons, obstacle courses, mountain bike races, golf tournaments and the signature 4.20-mile (6.8 km) run.
McAlpine explains that the gym looks to cannabis as a tool for focus recovery. Under the supervision of staff, new members will take a “cannabis performance assessment” to determine the “most optimal ways to consume”.
A pot brownie may give some the push they need to complete a circuit-training workout, while others find it knocks them on the floor.
“We will be helping our members figure out the best way for them to ingest their cannabis”, McAlpine says.
Although San Francisco city and county law currently prohibits smoking weed inside most public venues, the facility will allow members to opt for edibles and vaping on-site. They are also looking to add an outdoor smoking deck for those who want to smoke in the future.
Partnering with a medical marijuana delivery service that will facilitate the weed transactions with gym members, Power Plant Fitness guarantees that these pot-infused goods will arrive at the front desk within five minutes of ordering.
For pre-workout and post-workout recovery, a produce line of edibles including apple fruit leather and a bloody orange and chia seed energy gel will also be available.
Neither gym memberships and the facility being a safe haven for cannabis users is clear, as it is hard to ignore the potential health-related risks. Anyone who has ever toked on the devils’ lettuce and experienced dry mouth knows that marijuana can be dehydrating. For new users, marijuana can lead to everything from dizziness to panic and it is hard to say what will happen when you throw in some physical exercise.
However, McAlpine hopes the cannabis performance assessment will help promote good habits on the gym floor.
Like Power Plant Fitness, these organisations are designed to make earnings for welfare of the patients rather than profit.
