We know you love cannabis, but do you love it enough to search for a higher calling at a cannabis church?
If we just piqued your interest, you’re in luck—The International Church of Cannabis, a church that revolves around all things pot, opened up shop in Denver on April 20th this year. The church is more spiritual than it is straight religious, and aims to be a place where weed-lovers can go to be around other like-minded stoners.
But, according to local reports out of Colorado, the church may not exactly be all that it seems—and the problems stems not from being pot-friendly, but from what the church does with its other green: money. According to the Denverite and Denver Metro Media, the church hired PR company, Bang Holdings, to handle social media engagement for them, to the tune of $10,000 a month. While organizations shelling out major cash to get internet-popular is nothing new, the thing here is that the CEO of Bang Holdings is also one of the founders of Elevation Ministries, the owners of The International Church of Cannabis. It’s worth noting here that the church requests members to make donations. So, the church may be using these donations to pay a company that its founders also own. Yikes.
An earlier version of this piece noted that the church is open to smokers in the afternoons and evenings. However, the church is actually open to the public Thursday through Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m., when visitors can’t consume cannabis, but can enjoy the art and photography the space has to offer. Currently, private, invitation-only events where congregants can consume cannabis are on Fridays. (They plan to expand cannabis consumption-friendly programming, and will send updates to those who register at elevationists.org.)
