Elevated Dining
Connoisseurs of both cannabis and fine food can indulge both passions with a four-course supper-club experience from Mass Cannabis Chefs. Customers can peruse menus a few weeks ahead and buy tickets online — prices range from $100 to $150 per person — but they don’t learn the address of the event until the day before. The food is far from traditional stoner fare: Past menus have featured stuffed sea scallops, filet mignon, and cherry clafoutis with fresh whipped cream. And there are occasional vegetarian nights. The cannabis infusion in each course is customized to the individual’s preference.
Beyond just offering a good meal, these events create community, says chef and co-owner Joseph Nelson. Diners share a family-style meal at one long table and inevitably find themselves making connections, he says. “It’s a bunch of people who have never met each other before, sitting down for a couple of hours,” Nelson says. “By the end of dinner, you’d think they’d known each other for years.”
508-821-6865, masscannabischefs.com
Growing Green
If you’re looking to make the leap from cannabis consumer to pot producer, Home Grown Academy in Carver can help. Owners Jason Cullinan and Paul Brennan offer classes for all levels, from the aspiring cultivator to the experienced producer. Learn the fundamentals in Intro to Growing Cannabis or discover how to tackle a bigger project with Grow Room Design & Construction. The four-hour classes cost $150; a series of five goes for $500.
Workshops are generally a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on demonstrations, so students should be prepared to get their hands dirty — literally. Mixing soil is a key element of the Methods of Cultivation class. Smoking is prohibited in the classroom, though vape pens are allowed. Still, the focus is on instruction rather than consumption, the owners say.
“The point of the classes is strictly educational,” Brennan explains. “We are trying to break the stigma of the stereotypical stoner.”
145 South Main Street, Carver, homegrownacademy.org
Ganja-Friendly Getaways
Add a dose of relaxation to your weekend escape by choosing an inn that embraces cannabis consumption. For an immersive adventure, head to Maine Greenyards in Auburn, which offers comfortable suites, an indoor pool and hot tub, and breakfast featuring its own farm-fresh eggs. Guests can bring marijuana, and they’re encouraged to tour the innkeepers’ cannabis gardens and learn about the diverse strains under cultivation.
Closer to home, the Irving House and Harding House, in Cambridge, welcome guests to partake as long as they don’t smoke inside or create a ruckus, says owner and manager Rachael Solem. If you prefer homier accommodations, try searching budandbreakfast.com, an Airbnb-style online marketplace where people rent rooms, apartments, and even seaside cottages to those looking for a ganja-oriented getaway.
Maine Greenyards, 207-558-1782, mainegreenyards.com; Irving House at Harvard, 617-547-4600, irvinghouse.com; Harding House Bed & Breakfast, 617-876-2888, harding-house.com; Bud and Breakfast, budandbreakfast.com
Get Artsy
Cannabis reputedly helps unlock the creative parts of your brain. Put that theory to the test with a pot-friendly night of art at Puff, Pass and Paint. The $39 cost includes all art supplies and instruction. Attendees must bring their own cannabis, but smoking, edibles, and vaping are all encouraged as part of the creative process and the social experience. The Colorado-based company offers classes in six states and the District of Columbia. In Boston, they’re available one weekend per month, and the company hopes to launch a weekly schedule soon. During the two-hour class, the instructor provides an example of painting and teaches participants how to re-create the artwork. Attendees are urged to follow their THC-heightened inspiration wherever it leads, says national director Tyler Joyner.
“We typically encourage all of our participants to go on their own creative journey,” he says. “Painting is about self-expression and creativity, and cannabis helps us step into that space a little easier.”
Locations vary, 303-420-8687, puffpassandpaint.com
Smoke and Stretch
Grab your marijuana and your mat to enjoy the mind-body benefits of weed-enhanced yoga. “I call it contemplative cannabis,” says Stacey Mulvey, owner of Marijuasana, a sort of traveling yoga studio that offers classes in states where the laws allow, including Massachusetts. Practicing yoga under the influence can help advance students’ abilities, Mulvey says. She believes the drug can alter the connection between mind and body just enough to break damaging or limiting patterns of movement.
Mulvey’s standard class costs $29 and lasts 90 minutes, about 50 of which is spent stretching and posing. Before instruction begins, students are given time to mingle, offered hemp tea, and encouraged to smoke and share weed. A break during class allows more socializing and consumption. The communal periods are essential to her goal of helping cannabis lovers connect without judgment or stigma, Mulvey says. “My mission is to bring it to the community and remove the shame.”
833-420-9642, marijuasana.com
Muscle Toning
Feeling achy? Hit the massage table. At E-motion Sports Massage in Everett, clients can loosen up with a cannabis-infused ointment that many say boosts the impact of the treatment. Massage therapists use a cream infused with cannabinoids, compounds derived from the cannabis plant. They don’t cause a high, but they do have powerful anti-inflammatory and pain-killing effects, says E-motion owner Mercedes Diaz. And because the cream reduces pain, she says, therapists can work muscles more intensively — and effectively. “It is really great for muscle and joint pain, arthritis, sprains, strains,” Diaz says. “With cannabis, we can get in there and do so much more.” The ointment comes in different concentrations, so therapists can choose the right one for each patient’s needs. E-motion offers cannabis cream as a $25 upgrade to any of its regular massage services, which run $100 to $120.
459 Broadway Street, Suite 204, Everett, 857-261-5279, e-motionsportsmassage.com
Sarah Shemkus is a Globe correspondent. Send comments to [email protected].This article has been updated to add in a sixth activity that was inadvertently omitted from the file.