The famous Weedmaps, Los Angeles-based cannabis technology, and media company are announcing their plans to launch a new museum, which is aimed to open this summer. The company hopes that with the new museum, it will destigmatize marijuana.
“We’re at this point now where there is some cannabis normalization,” Weedmaps CEO Chris Beals announced during a news conference, “where they’re already starting to forget that there have been people who have been in jail (because of prohibition).”
The new facility, called The Weedmaps Museum of Weed, is said to be open Aug. 3 till Sept. 29 at 720 North Cahuenga Boulevard. The museum is set to take visitors on a chronological walk through history, from the first consumption of the cannabis plant to the “Reefer Madness” and “War on Drugs” eras, up to the present day legalization milestones.
“Frankly, it feels like we’re at an inflection point … where the outcome isn’t fully decided,” Beals noted.
Weedmaps also hopes to capture the real minutiae of the cannabis plant with an “interactive Plant Lab.” However, the exhibit will not be fully interactive, the museum will not allow any consumption of cannabis or CBD.
Just like other snapchattable exhibits, such as Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco, the Weedmaps team worked hard to create a balance by incorporating culture and actual history like those dedicated to civil right movements.
According to Weedmaps, their team has been working on the multimillion-dollar exhibit for more than a year, noting that most of the time was spent securing the copyrights to art, photos, and videos. They were able to obtain Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign from the 1980s and anti-weed film clips from the ’40s and ’50s.
Beals said social justice and advocacy are themes composed throughout the entire exhibit to capture every audience.
“[Legalization is] most definitely not a panacea for all of the social issues that have been associated with prohibition,” he added, highlighting stop-and-frisk policies and lifelong sentences for drug convictions. “I think there’s a bit of a myth that once you legalize cannabis that the disparate enforcement of cannabis laws disappears.”
The museum will be charging $35 and limited to people 18 years of age and older. Weedmaps installed a restriction to meet permitting and insurance requirements, saying that, “that was a good indicator that the stigma around cannabis continues.”
This isn’t the first museum pop-up of its kind. However, it will not join a handful of existing for-profit and non-profit cannabis museums that are open across America. If the Weedmaps museum is successful, they plan to expand their exhibit to other California Cities.
