Dead People Need Weed Too: Día de los Muertos

October 31st gets all the hype. Candy, $12 pumpkin spice lattes and Tim Burton movies running on  loop. What’s not to love? But November 1st and 2nd? That’s when the real ghosts arrive. The border between worlds gets hazy, the veil thins, and the dead come home for a visit. And no, it’s not on a late-for-Halloween tip. It’s an ancient Mexican tradition called Día de los Muertos––Day of the Dead. An OG Halloween of sorts. More fiesta than funeral, it’s a sort of cosmic family reunion. 

As part of Day of the Dead, families build beautiful altars to their departed loved ones called ofrendas with symbolic traditional items and offerings. Offerings which sometimes include our favorite plant on either side of the cosmic divide: cannabis. 

The most important parts of the ofrenda are pictures of the people you loved and things they loved during life. That can mean things like foods, cards, or books and if you’re like us, some killer weed. 

Dankness for the Dead

Your beloved loved to blaze? Cough it up. Did your abuelita smoke to ease her arthritis? Pass the dutchie to the death hand side. 

The belief goes that the dead trek through nine levels of the underworld to make it back. Imagine crossing the cosmic highway, navigating the liminal depths, and arriving back to earth to see … *gestures broadly at 2025.* Yikes. Do you think your dead would want to re-enter this dimension sober? Hook them up with a pre-roll or a nug or two and a bowl. Use a bong as a vase for your marigolds.

We may have freedom fries and subsidized beef patties galore, but Americans don’t really have any rituals for coping with grief. Weed helps, but so does building an ofrenda. Putting them together might just be the sweet spot. This Día de los Muertos, why not give it a try?

Build Your Own Ofrenda

• Marigold flowers (to guide them home with their bright orange petals) 
• Water (water the element and cuz interdimensional travel is dehydrating)
• Salt (for spiritual protection)
• Ornately cut tissue paper (to symbolize wind and the fragility of life). 
• Beautifully decorated skulls made of sugar (to symbolize the sweetness of life and acceptance of death) 
• Pan de Muerto (round bread with bones crossing over the top to symbolize the cycle of life and death)
• Candles (the fire element and also to light the way home)
• Food (the earth element and for the dead to eat)

Anyway, this Dia de los Muertos we at District Cannabis wish you the best in life and beyond. We’d do well to take note of traditions that connect us to our dear departed. Or just forget your fears, spark up a preroll, and throw on Coco.

Weed The People