Everything in moderation. Including moderation.
That’s the idea behind the Colorado sober movement, an unofficial yet growing trend away from alcohol, and toward plant-based and psychedelic drugs.
But how can one be considered sober while, for example, smoking pot and taking LSD?
Because “Colorado sober” — a spin-off of the similar term “California sober” — isn’t about abstaining from all substances, but rather the ones that are known to have lasting effects on your body and brain, advocates say. That includes drugs such as cocaine and opioids, but also alcohol, which has waned in recent years as the standard social lubricant for young people.
“Weed and mushrooms have a lot less next-day negative effects than alcohol,” said Marissa Poppens, a Denver resident who considers herself Colorado sober. “I’m new to the term but I think people are starting to realize what it means on their own. It’s a version of ‘natural high.’ ”
Poppens regularly uses cannabis and microdoses psilocybin — the active psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms — not only for recreation, but also to help treat chronic pain and symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
As executive director of the 9-year-old nonprofit MSterios Miracles, Poppens wants to help advocate for and provide resources to people living with MS. She said a flare-up two years ago led to one of her medical professionals suggesting psilocybin. The drug has proven itself as an effective alternative to psychiatric medication, according to licensed psychedelic therapists and researchers, with studies bearing out its transformative effects on depression, PTSD and addiction.
As of 2025, the state’s Natural Medicine Division has begun licensing psilocybin healing centers, which follows Colorado’s recreational legalization of cannabis for people 21 and over in 2014. The combination of those actions — magic mushrooms have been decriminalized since 2022 so it’s not a crime to grow or ingest them, though retail sales are not yet here (as they are for cannabis) — and cultural acceptance has helped Poppens feel better about abandoning alcohol, she said, and find allies in her quest for nontraditional relief.
“I was able to get off my prescribed depression medication, which I hated taking, after I started microdosing,” she said, adding that her regimen is based around wellness, not recreational highs.
In that way, it’s not just a cheeky term for non-drinkers, said Josh Kesselman, owner of the cannabis magazine High Times. It’s an evolving descriptor for people who want to explore, not pummel, their minds.
Research compiled by the Cleveland Clinic has shown that the movement away from alcohol is rooted as much in alcohol’s deleterious effects as increased emphasis on education, mental wellness and healthier lifestyles.
“Alcohol is a depressant and never the answer to a bad day,” said addiction psychiatrist Dr. Akhil Anand in the Cleveland Clinic report. “Gen Z seems to understand that concept, and they’ve moved in a different direction.”
“It’s a great place for many of us to dwell,” Kesselman said. “Cannabis expands the brain, the neural network fires, and synapses connect. We have an endocannabinoid system for a reason.”
Gen Z’s alcohol consumption is dropping rapidly, with a Journal of American Medicine report showing that the percentage of college students abstaining from alcohol was 28% in 2022, as compared with 20% in 2018. Sales of beer have dropped year-over-year, and Pew Research and other reports have shown that the youth movement away from alcohol has rippled out to all age groups.
“I broke up with wine!” reads a testimonial for Feals cannabis gummies, which is categorized under Health/Beauty on Facebook. The image on its social media campaign shows a spilled glass of red wine next to an orange packet of THC and CBD gummies.
“Ten years ago, I would go visit friends in New York, and I could never handle two nights in a row of drinking, because by the third night I’d be useless,” Kesselman said. “Alcohol is) something that takes your life force and gives you nothing in return. Plus, when people drink they do terrible things. Nobody’s like, ‘Let’s get stoned and rob people.’ ”
Kesselman, who also founded the Raw Rolling Papers company, has a strong business reason for encouraging others to drop alcohol for cannabis. But it’s no smokescreen, he said: There’s not an objectively right or wrong way to be sober, and that can easily include abstaining from substances altogether.
That would not, however, be considered Colorado sober, or even sober-curious. Rather, Colorado sober describes intentional consumption based around wellness, said Ricardo Baca, who was appointed to the state’s first Natural Medicine Advisory Board last year by Gov. Jared Polis.
“The California sober movement was really born out of recreational cannabis, but also the medical movement before it,” Baca said of that state’s pioneering cannabis laws. “So I was glad when I first heard of the Colorado sober movement, because there was space being carved out for our home state to stake this claim around intentional consumption.
“It’s not about restriction or prohibition or a purity test, because we’ve seen how that goes,” he added, “but about redefining sobriety and aligning with plants and mushrooms and chemical-based alternatives.”
That covers purely synthetic substances that have shown positive, peer-reviewed results as medical treatments — but that can also have their own party-ready uses as recreational drugs. Think ketamine, MDMA (a.k.a. ecstasy or molly), kratom and DMT.
Baca has long studied the subject, both as the former editor of The Denver Post’s groundbreaking Cannabist journalism site, as well as founder and owner of Denver’s Grasslands PR and marketing agency. His clients include cannabis, psilocybin, kratom and other companies — including High Times’ Kesselman. He’s delivered TEDx Talks and keynotes at South by Southwest and other conferences detailing how cannabis works in pain management and the ripple effects of its legalization.
He acknowledged his company benefits by boosting the Colorado sober trend, but said that it’s more about harm reduction than profit.
“We’ve seen the California sober movement co-opted by brands and businesses, and we will absolutely see the Colorado sober movement co-opted by similar brands,” Baca said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it, that myself and other marketers and businesses will take advantage of this to help tell their own stories. It’s still an organic trend that came from the community.”
On the other hand, the idea of being Colorado sober soft-pedals the potentially addictive effects of cannabis and psychedelics, said Alton P. Dillard II, a media consultant for the One Chance to Grow Up nonprofit. The Colorado organization includes a number of top medical and academic advisors advocating against drug use for young people.
“We recognize the intense toll of alcohol addiction and understand that adults make choices that they think best support their health,” he said. “The problem for youth is that they are already getting confusing messages that marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms are healthy, natural medicines.
“In fact, they both present significant risks to young brains, which are growing until age 25,” he continued. “When weed and mushrooms are presented as part of a ‘sober’ lifestyle, teens may get the impression that they’re harmless. They’re not.”
High Times’ Kesselman said the Colorado sober movement is not about pushing anyone toward drugs.
“Just like with anything else, people have to consume within their own limits, and we at High Times do not recommend any kind of overconsumption,” he said. “But what that means to one person might be different than someone else, and you have to find that balance in your own life. This is a way to change your thinking, not just your chemistry.”