Grateful Dead offshoot's SF shows to be a historic first for legal weed

OG Article By Lester Black, Cannabis editor Watch Today's LIVE Episode on YouTube, X, and Rumble

July 23, 2025

The Grateful Dead is almost synonymous with cannabis. The band is likely the reason 420 became an international code word for cannabis, and for over half a century, the band’s fans have been buying, selling and smoking marijuana in the parking lots surrounding its shows.

But for the first time in history, fans at next month’s Dead and Company shows in Golden Gate Park will be able to purchase cannabis legally, according to Robby Saady, a vice president at Holistic Industries, which is the parent company for the Garcia Hand Picked cannabis brand. 

The Dead and Company shows are slated to take place at the park’s Polo Field and feature a cannabis consumption lounge and marketplace, similar to how the Outside Lands music festival has set up a legal place to buy and smoke pot. Saady called the upcoming legal cannabis sales a “major milestone” for cannabis culture. 

“It’s hard to overstate how symbolic it is to offer legal cannabis at Golden Gate Park, where the Dead once played for free to crowds gathered on the grass. What was once underground and countercultural is now out in the open. That shift says a lot about how far things have come,” Saady said in an emailed statement to SFGATE.

The city expects up to 60,000 people to attend each of the sold-out Dead and Company shows, which are also scheduled to include performances by Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson and Trey Anastasio. Dead and Company features original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, as well as new members like John Mayer. The band has been touring since 2015.

This year’s shows are also slated to mark the California return of Garcia Hand Picked, a cannabis brand created by Jerry Garcia’s surviving family members. Despite Garcia growing up in San Francisco and being an iconic California cannabis celebrity, the brand left the state in 2023. Its unexpected departure was seen as a bellwether for the major challenges facing California’s legal cannabis companies, which have complained about high regulatory costs and competition from the illicit market.

The Garcia Hand Picked brand is partnering with local retailer Solful for a limited-edition run of three different pre-roll varieties, with packs of Orange Sunshine grown by Alpenglow Farms, Klamath River Chemdog from Terapin Farms, and Green Lantern grown by Greenshock Farms. The retailer plans to sell the joints at Golden Gate Park during the Dead and Company shows and at its three locations. Single pre-rolls will be $12, with five-packs selling for $40.