California sober
adjective
abstaining from alcohol but using cannabis
What does California sober mean?
California sober, often styled Cali sober, describes someone who does not drink alcohol but instead uses cannabis (sometimes in addition to psychedelics such as LSD).
Examples of California sober
The rehearsal room backstage is choked in the damp smell of cannabis. It is LA after all, where “California sober” is a thing. Hemp drinks and gummies are de rigueur, and getting lightly stoned takes the edge off for many gathered here.
—Jane Rocca, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 4 July 2025
I’m content with being cali sober. Alcohol had severe negative consequences for me. Weed doesn’t affect me the same way.
—Last Sunday, Dinner At Mary’s, a cannabis-focused event company, celebrated High January with a slow-flow yoga class and complimentary Levia brand cannabis-infused seltzer (served before the downward dogs start, but available throughout the class). “I’ve been Cali sober for going on a year,” said owner Sam Kanter.
—Go Brewing makes the best [non-alcoholic] beers out there, and as somebody who’s California sober, I’ve tried most of them.
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Where does California sober come from?
Use of California sober is often credited to journalist Michelle Lhooq, who wrote about her lifestyle choice in 2019.
I decided to quit all drugs, including alcohol, except weed and psychedelics for a year. (Psychedelics encompass a wide spectrum of drugs, but for my purposes, I’m limiting them to LSD, psilocybin, DMT/ayahuasca, and other trippy varietals; I am definitely not doing molly.) I call this “Cali sober,” a term some people also use when they quit everything but weed. I’d experimented with month-long stints of total sobriety before, so I knew I could survive it.
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How is California sober used?
California sober may describe someone who chooses to use cannabis instead of alcohol for any number of reasons (such as personal preference or to overcome alcohol addiction).
The medical definition of sobriety is abstinence from intoxicating substances, so California sober is a bit of a misnomer. When people identify as sober, they usually do so in the context of overcoming addiction to alcohol or other substances. Sometimes, people who say they are California sober (such as Demi Lovato, who identified as California sober in the docuseries Dancing with the Devil before later opting for total abstinence) mean that they use weed while attempting to stop using a different substance. They may not be “capital S” sober, but they’re using the California sober life choice as a method of harm reduction.
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