‘We’re making history’: What it’s like to smoke cannabis at the California State Fair

The California State Fair’s new cannabis consumption lounge is boosting small businesses and recognizing marijuana’s contribution to the state’s agricultural industry.

Although the fair has hosted a cannabis exhibit since 2022, this is the first year it allowed the sales and consumption of marijuana on site, and Sacramento dispensary Embarc is helping to turn the spotlight on capital region firms in the industry.

Dustin Moore, co-founder of Embarc, says the fair’s lounge is “a watershed moment for the (cannabis) industry.”

Embarc is sponsoring the sales and edible consumption area, calling it the Embarc Oasis. Vendor stands for various brands and lounge chairs with overhead misters are set up in a blocked-off, outdoor space adjacent to Expo Building 6, where the age-restricted California Cannabis Exhibit is being held.

The brand is working with the Equity Trade Network — a program aimed at amplifying small cannabis businesses owned by people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women and members of other marginalized communities — to help raise brand awareness of smaller companies in the industry.

According to Moore, over half of the roughly 70 brands represented at the fair are social equity, craft marijuana companies or legacy brands, which he said helps honor and celebrate “those who paved the way” toward legitimized medicinal and recreational use of the narcotic, which remains outlawed under federal law.

California voters first legalized the medicinal use of the drug in 1996 and backed a ballot initiative for recreational use 20 years later. Both propositions passed by mid-50% majorities.

Eight years after Prop. 64’s approval — as 23 other states including Colorado, New York and Michigan have decriminalized personal consumption and more-conservative states like Florida, Utah and 35 other states have lowered the boom for medicinal use — the industry and its fans have a place to test products.

“We’re making history. This has never happened ever, anywhere in the world,” Moore said.

Lamar Walker, co-founder of Sacramento-area cannabis brand Ellis Greens, said the opportunity to build relationships with customers and introduce the community to marijuana is “unmatched.”

“We’re taking the stigma out of it,” he said. “That’s the greatest joy of being in this industry, being able to have (sales) on this scale at this type of event with exposure to so many different types of people.”

Walker said Ellis Greens’ priority at the fair is to educate users of all experience levels about consuming cannabis and to provide a positive experience to all visitors.

This year marks the first time any state fair has hosted a space for legal marijuana sales and consumption, and for Moore, it hits close to home.

“My dad was a (medical marijuana) patient when I was child,” he said. “I have worked in public policy my whole life and have really advocated to normalize cannabis in a responsible way because for me, it was dad’s medicine.

“For me to be able to bring this to 600,000 to 700,000 people, you know, it’s hard to believe.”

Cannabis restrictions at the State Fair

Visitors who plan to take an edible or light up a joint at the State Fair have to follow strict safety and security rules devised over the last 18 months by Embarc and the Cal Expo Police Department.

Everyone who enters the cannabis exhibit and sales area must be 21 or older and show ID as proof at the door. Brands can only sell low-dosage products meant for single-session consumption, and visitors are prohibited from bringing in any outside marijuana products. If the rules are broken, a visitor will be ejected according to the State Fair’s zero-tolerance policy.

Those hoping to inhale marijuana are not allowed to smoke near the sales site. The rules only allow inhalable cannabis use in the southwest corner of the fairgrounds, near Heart Health Park, to limit younger fairgoers from seeing or smelling any commercial cannabis activity.

If customers do want to smoke their products, they must show identification again and walk nearly a quarter-mile to reach a large tent with several couches to lounge on, turbo fans running in the background and turf underfoot.

There, visitors can light up and relax.

Dale and Siobhan Stansbery, Sacramento residents and fairgoers for the last 20 years, said they were excited to check out the new consumption lounge.

“It’s interesting. In our lifetime, we never thought we’d see something like this at the fair,” Siobhan Stansbery said.

The married couple thought the historic addition of marijuana at the fair was a net positive but there was still room for improvement.

“We’re stuffed back here in the corner,” Dale Stansbery said about the placement of the lounge. “But it’s baby steps.”

Accessibility issues

Christine Trimble, a fair visitor who participated in smoking at the tent, said the space was “perfect,” and she loved having the space available.

“(Smoking weed is) what I do for my pain, it’s like medicine,” she said. “It’s better to go to the fair with no pain.”

However, Trimble, who said she uses a wheelchair most of the time, noted that there were certain accessibility issues with the way the Oasis and inhalable space were erected.

To purchase products in the Oasis, Trimble said she had to climb two steps to access the stands, and then had to make the trek under and around the soccer field bleachers to reach the smoking area.

Trimble said the staff in the Oasis were accommodating and offered accessible solutions, but said she would prefer if the issues were addressed by the fair and lounge organizers to help all visitors.