World's first cannabis gym where you can get fit and high to open in San Francisco

Founders say that cannabis is good for 'focus and recovery'

420 Games

Fitness enthusiasts who need a little bit more than an endorphin kick can look to a new gym in San Francisco to burn calories while they burn cannabis.

Power Plant Fitness, scheduled to open in the fall, claims to be the first marijuana-themed gym that will allow members to consume the herb using their facilities, Tech Insider reports.

“It won’t be a place to get high and just screw around,” co-founder Jim McAlpine said in a blog post. “We are focused on the athletic side, not the cannabis side.”

Mr McAlpine is founder of 420 Games, a cannabis-based athletic event launched in 2014 to destigmatise the lazy stereotype often associated with marijuana users. The gym will act as an extension of the 420 Games’ mission.

According to Tech Insider, the gym’s approach to cannabis will be as a source of focus and recovery, and offer an array of edibles and concentrates.

“We will be helping our members figure out how is best for them to ingest their cannabis,” Mr McAlpine said in a statement.

Power Plant Fitness will allow its members to use vaporisers, in addition to ingesting edibles, after it opens. They also plan to build an outdoor deck for members who wish to smoke their marijuana. Under current San Francisco law, smoking marijuana indoors is prohibited.

Recreational marijuana use has not been fully legalised in California yet - although voters will have a chance to vote on a legalisation referendum on the 8 November ballot. As such, Power Plant Fitness may have to register as a dispensary if it wishes to sell the cannabis products. However, medical marijuana dispensaries are generally non-profit entities.

But Mr McAlpine thinks Power Plant Fitness will lead to more acceptance of marijuana use within the fitness industry - as well as of sports in the marijuana industry.

“It’s very much in line with the idea that people and society are starting to understand that marijuana is medicine,” he said.

“Marijuana, if you use it in a responsible way, accentuates the parts of sports that you love and helps you to do them better.”