Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Cannabis connection: Online matchmakers focus on shared love of pot

Cannabis Chapel

John Locher / AP

Natalie Rice, left, kisses her new husband, Lee Rice, beneath a canopy of faux marijuana plants during a ceremony at the Cannabis Chapel, Wednesday, April 20, 2016, in Las Vegas. Natalie and Lee Rice were the first couple to marry at the marijuana themed wedding chapel, which opened Wednesday.

“Isn’t it cute?” said Molly Peckler, holding a delicate gold-chain necklace adorned with a cannabis-leaf charm away from her neck. “It’s a perfect representation of my approach to cannabis.”

With sunlight pouring in through a sliding-glass door in the apartment she shares with her husband, Marc Peckler, a software salesman, Peckler explained how she believed a shared love of cannabis could be the spark in a relationship.

“Cannabis is almost an analogy for being authentic,” said Peckler, 32, the founder of Highly Devoted in Los Angeles, an online matchmaker that connects cannabis-using singles. “If this is a part of your life, then you should be open and honest about that, especially if you’re trying to start a romantic relationship with someone.”

Peckler, who lives in Venice, California, is among a number of such matchmakers who have emerged in recent years, though some medical experts are skeptical about the idea of building relationships around a psychotropic substance.

The My 420 Mate website and the mobile app High There are two of the other entries in the competition to connect people based on their mutual affection for cannabis. High There is Tinder-like, in that users choose potential partners based on their photographs and proximity.

Darren Roberts, a founder of High There and its chief executive, said the app was devised to eliminate dating anxiety for marijuana users.

“Now people can date without any type of judgment or stigma,” he said.

In September, at a Los Angeles event organized by Peckler on the rooftop of the offices of Green Street, a self-described “creative cannabis agency,” people mingled at a vape bar and enjoyed cannabis-infused hors d’oeuvres.

“I work with white-collar cannabis consumers,” Peckler said with a laugh. “That’s my bread and butter, for sure.” Later, she held a dating workshop seminar “about where to find cannabis-friendly partners and dating efficiently and how to get in the best mindset so you can really take advantage of the situation.”

“And then I’ll bring out the joints,” she recalled, “and then it’s like, ‘Oh, my God!’ People start opening up and chatting and they’re comfortable and that’s when you can start really forging those great connections.”

Jeffrey Welch, 31, a lawyer in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles who specializes in cannabis-related legal matters, had given himself only a 10 percent chance of meeting someone at the event, but he left with a potential love interest.

“I was shocked,” he said. “Everyone there was consuming responsibly and it was a very relaxed, open, engaging nonjudgmental vibe.”

His cannabis connection stalled, however; both he and his prospective partner had hectic schedules. “But if the opportunity arises where we both have the bandwidth to date each other, it would be great,” he said.

Peckler thought of the idea for Highly Devoted after meeting her husband when smoking with him and his friends while attending the University of Illinois.

“We were totally in the moment,” she said. “It just felt so much more natural because we knew we had this one thing in common. It ended up being so powerful in terms of building that bond between us.”

She worked as a matchmaker in her native Chicago, followed by a job with a cannabis consultation firm that advised medical and recreational marijuana dispensaries in emerging markets. She formed Highly Devoted in 2015.

“I want to help people build confidence and find love and really understand that if cannabis is an important part of their life, then they shouldn’t be ashamed,” she said.

With a recent Gallup poll reporting that 13 percent of American adults smoke marijuana, and with more states allowing its recreational use, Peckler said marijuana’s role in fostering new relationships was likely to grow.

For many couples, marijuana use, or non-use, is a point of conflict.

Michael Ortiz, 30, a New York tea distributor, said he had taken for granted that smoking marijuana would be OK with his girlfriend.

Not so. Now she is his ex-girlfriend.

Peckler helped Ortiz be upfront about his need for marijuana when meeting potential partners.

“It’s almost a deal breaker if they take a childish taboo viewpoint on marijuana,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I don’t think we’re going to really understand each other.'”

Dana Meyerson, 37, a publicist based in Chicago, also prefers dating marijuana smokers.

“Being on the same level together seems important,” she said. “For me it knocks down a wall where I don’t have to be so rigid.” Though she has her limits: “As long as they’re not the dude on the first date who whips out the vape at a bar,” she said.

Not everyone is a fan, though. Some medical experts say marijuana use can reduce the chances of making meaningful emotional connections.

“In relationships, where you have to have all your feelings available to be able to navigate intimacy, chronic marijuana use can be a downfall,” said Dr. John E. Franklin, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University.

Habitual marijuana users, he added, “have kind of a muted response to life’s simple pleasures. The drug becomes the narrow way of getting in touch with their feelings.”

In a 2014 article in Psychology Today, Dr. David Sack, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer of Elements Behavioral Health, an operator of addiction treatment centers, wrote: “Marijuana can sap the user’s interest in and commitment to an intimate connection, especially if use becomes heavy. In some cases, it becomes more comfortable for the user to have a primary emotional attachment with the drug rather than a person.”

But Peckler said marijuana could foster rather than suppress a connection, though she conceded that “moderation is key.”

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