Global Ganja Report

After a one-year hiatus for just the second time since 1973 (the other being the pandemic year of 2020), New York City's Cannabis Parade returned to Lower Manhattan on May 3. The event had become increasingly mainstream in recent years, even drawing big-name politicians—like Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2021 and '22. The next year, the NYC Department of Small Business Services' new cannabis office issued a statement marking the event's 50th anniversary, and paying homage to its Yippie founders! The year after that, 2024, the City became an official partner in the event. But in 2025, the City would not grant a permit for either Washington Square Park or Union Square, the two traditional locations, and instead held a more commercialized NYC Cannabis Festival & Resource Fair outside the Harlem State Office Building on 125th Street. This year, however, downtown activists succeeded in getting a permit for a rally in Washington Square and march to Union Square, where a concert was held featuring the punk-reggae-hip-hop fusion bands Ricanstruction and Rebelmatic. The adversarial spirit, in spite of New York's legalization, brought the event back to its radical roots.

The event was secondarily dubbed the Million Mushroom March, taking up the call for greater access to psychedelics like psilocybin and Ibogaine as well as cannabis. A special focus was demanding freedom for Dana Beal, the veteran Yippie who had long been the central figure behind the Cannabis Parade, later became a zealous promoter of Ibogaine—and is now in prison in Idaho on a marijuana charge.

No arrests were reported, with the police taking a hands-off approach. In contrast, at the unpermitted 4/20 celebration 12 days earlier, police barricaded off Washington Square, prompting revelers to retreat to Tompkins Square, several blocks to the east. 

Graphic: Cannabis Parade

Follow @GlobalGanjaRpt