CannaBuffs Want to Rebuild CU's Relationship With Cannabis

When Maya Bliss and Josh Serure arrived at the University of Colorado Boulder from opposite coasts in 2022, neither was surprised to find beautiful mountains and a welcoming student population. But one thing was missing.

"Many of the [University of California] schools out there have cannabis clubs, and I was pretty surprised to see that CU didn't, especially since weed was legalized here first," Bliss recalls.

Not only was recreational cannabis legalized in Colorado first, but CU Boulder had a strong role in the movement. It was one of the first major universities in the country to make on-campus cannabis penalties the same as alcohol penalties. Around the same time, CU students began holding public smokeouts at Farrand Field on April 20, or 4/20, giving the school a famous-but-undesirable reputation in the eyes of university officials.

Sprinklers were set off on the field in 2005, photos of 4/20 crowd members were posted online by CU police in 2006, and in 2007 a barricade was erected around Farrand Field. None of that stopped CU students, who moved the smokeout to the Norlin Quad. The 4/20 event there eventually grew to around 10,000 people, helping earn CU a top ranking in Playboy's party schools of 2011, so the CU administration responded by applying smelly fertilizer to the lawn in 2012 and shutting down the area entirely in 2013. The CU 4/20 celebration hasn't returned since, but its presence and photos will always be a part of the state's journey.

"I definitely appreciate what happened here, and while I wish that I was around when those 4/20 smokeouts were happening — they look insane — it definitely added a barrier for cannabis education on campus. That made it a little challenging in getting it started," Bliss explains.

But Bliss and Serure were undeterred. Both would like to work in the cannabis industry upon graduating this year, and thought that CU students would benefit from learning more about the laws, business and science behind cannabis. They eventually secured approval as a registered student organization with the school in 2022, and the CannaBuffs were born.

In the two years since the club's inception, the CannaBuffs have amassed over 800 members and now regularly hold educational lectures, social gatherings, music shows and tours of local cannabis businesses. According to Serure, Boulder is a treasure trove of cannabis insight, with longtime cannabis business owner Wanda James sitting on the University Board of Regents and a long list of accredited cannabis researchers working at the school.

"We're able to host educational talks in lecture halls, and guest speakers are usually people like CU researchers and industry professionals. We've talked about the War on Drugs, hemp sustainability, cannabis biology, genetics and cultivation and things like that," Serure says. "We've had a lot of fun at our off-campus events, too. We've done grow tours to see behind the scenes and how a whole seed-to-sale operation works."

A 22-year-old senior from New York, Serure is about to graduate with a business degree focusing on real estate. Aware of Colorado's current cannabis industry recession, he still hopes to work on the property acquisition and management side of legal pot. Bliss, a 21-year-old senior with a psychology degree, would like to work in cannabis tourism, which is struggling to establish itself in Colorado under restrictive state and local regulations.

"Seeing where the industry is going, depending on the day or who you talk to, sometimes it's encouraging, sometimes it's not. Colorado has been at it for a while, and it seems like we're in a little bit of a stalemate right now," Serure says. "This has been an awesome experience from the organization and operational side of things. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work Maya and I have taken on, and now we're learning about task delegation, marketing, advertising, compliance, event coordination and stuff like that."

It took more than just operational gusto at the beginning for Bliss, who wasn't yet 21 when they founded the club. But the California native "grew up around cannabis, and both of my parents grew it when I was growing up," she says, so being around the plant wasn't necessarily taboo.

"For a lot of meetings with local dispensaries, I would have to wait outside back then. The owners were so kind, though, and they'd come out to speak with me," she remembers.

The CannaBuffs are now hosting weekly social gatherings and educational lectures once a month. Events off campus don't have as strict a no-consumption policy, Serure says, so the club has been able to hold outdoor hiking meetups and DIY cannabis cooking sessions, among other gatherings on the lighter side. Both CannaBuffs founders say that overconsumption and cannabis-use habits are part of club conversations, too.

"Focusing education around harm reduction and advocating for everything in moderation is important. At the end of the day, cannabis is medicine, and it's not for everyone, as much as we can we try to say otherwise," Bliss says.

"By no means are we the experts, so we try to go to experts in these respective fields," Serure adds.

The club is working on hosting a cannabis career fair in Boulder in March, and is also co-organizing the 2024 Cannabis and Psychedelics Symposium on campus this April with the University of Colorado Boulder Psychedelic Club, another new registered student organization at CU. Bliss and Serure plan to continue working with the CannaBuffs in advisory roles after graduating this semester, but their time as heads of the club will be over.

Wherever they end up professionally, both students think they'll be more prepared for life outside of college, thanks to their CannaBuffs experience — and the school might be better off for it, too, they argue.

Boulder and CU will always have a skunky reputation no matter how hard administrative officials try to distance the school from it. Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders said he routinely smelled burnt cannabis during home games last season, and Boulder is home to around 25 dispensaries and a number of the state's most esteemed cannabis brands, including Green Dot Labs and Eclipse Cannabis Co.

Serure believes the CannaBuffs can create a bridge between cannabis culture and the university for years to come, and he hopes that one day his fellow cannabis users will be able to enjoy themselves out in the open at football games instead of hidden in the stadium crowds.

"We're in an interesting place with Colorado and Boulder. We're in a legal state, but cannabis is federally illegal, so the university can't endorse certain cannabis things. But we're excited to be in this place and time, and are optimistic for the years to come," he says. "In the same way they can have a beer truck at the stadium before a football game in the fall, maybe cannabis can have something like that when the time comes."