The 2020 High Times Cannabis Cup Colorado: People’s Choice Edition became one of the most consequential competitions in the history of the Colorado Cup—not because it was the biggest festival High Times had staged in Denver, but because it represented a fundamental change in what a Cannabis Cup could be. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down concerts, expos and large public gatherings across the United States, High Times abandoned the familiar festival-centered format and opened the judging process to ordinary cannabis consumers. Instead of a small group of invited experts deciding the winners backstage at a major event, hundreds of Colorado consumers received judging kits and evaluated products from home. High Times later described 2020 as the beginning of the People’s Choice era, a format that would become central to the Cannabis Cup for years afterward.
The competition produced several standout performances. Indico won two of the three flower championships, taking Indica with Mandarin Sunset and Hybrid with Sour Strawberry. Pagosa Therapeutics won Sativa with Jabberwokie, while High Level Health emerged as the most consistently decorated competitor, placing in all three flower divisions and winning Concentrates with Blue Skunk Live Budder. High Country Cones captured Pre-Rolls, Kush Masters won Edibles – Food, ReCreate took the Non-Food Edibles category, and Escape Artists won Topicals. High Times ultimately recognized 24 podium finishes across eight official categories.
From the Denver Cannabis Cup to Colorado People’s Choice
Colorado already occupied an important place in High Times history long before 2020. The company had staged major Denver Cannabis Cups during the medical marijuana era, and Colorado became even more significant after voters approved adult-use marijuana in 2012. By 2014, the state had opened the nation’s first regulated recreational cannabis stores, and High Times later identified the 2015 Denver Cannabis Cup as its first fully legal recreational Cup, where adults 21 and older could participate without needing a medical-marijuana card.
By the late 2010s, the Colorado Cup had developed into the familiar modern High Times festival: a large cannabis-industry gathering featuring competition entries, brands, vendor activations, entertainment and traditional expert judging. The 2019 Colorado Cup reflected that model, with Indico winning Indica Flower with Mandarin Sunset, Dank by Pank taking Hybrid with Orange Cookies and Den-Rec winning Sativa with Samoas. When the pandemic made another conventional event impossible in 2020, High Times did not simply cancel the competition. It redesigned the judging system itself.
The People’s Choice Format Changes Cannabis Cup Judging
The new format dramatically increased the number of people who could participate. High Times explained that traditional Cups generally relied on roughly 30 expert judges per product category, while the People’s Choice system expanded that pool to approximately 227 or 228 judges per category. Competitors submitted enough product to build hundreds of consumer judging kits, which were then distributed through licensed dispensaries. Judges evaluated qualities such as appearance, aroma, burnability, effects and overall experience, with product-specific variations for categories such as edibles or topicals.
For Colorado, High Times initially announced that judge kits would become available June 13, 2020, with judging beginning June 15 and continuing through July 16. A digital awards show was originally planned for July 18. The final winners were ultimately published on August 31, immediately after High Times’ digital awards presentation that weekend. The delay mattered less than the larger change: the Cannabis Cup had been transformed from a destination event into a statewide consumer competition that could function even when large gatherings were impossible.
Notable Guests and the Absence of a Traditional Festival
The 2020 Colorado Cup did not have the kind of celebrity guest list that had become associated with earlier High Times events. There was no packed Denver festival stage, no conventional concert program and no small celebrity judging panel. That was a direct consequence of the pandemic-era format. The awards presentation was digital, while judging happened largely at home over an extended period rather than over one festival weekend.
That absence is historically important rather than a gap in the record. High Times’ earlier Cups had featured celebrity judges and performers ranging from musicians and comedians to activists and cannabis personalities. The People’s Choice model intentionally shifted attention away from those insiders and toward Colorado consumers themselves. In 2020, the most important “guests” at the Cannabis Cup were the hundreds of local judges whose combined scorecards determined the winners.
2020 High Times Cannabis Cup Colorado Winners in All Categories
The official High Times results list eight competitive divisions for the 2020 Colorado People’s Choice Cup. Unlike later Colorado competitions, there were no separate solvent and solventless concentrate categories, no vape division and no dedicated gummy category. Those would become more common as the People’s Choice format expanded.
| Category | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indica Flower | Mandarin Sunset — Indico | MAC — High Level Health | Skunkberry — One Farms |
| Sativa Flower | Jabberwokie — Pagosa Therapeutics | Papa Smurph — High Level Health | Jungle Cheese — One Farms |
| Hybrid Flower | Sour Strawberry — Indico | Cake Crasher — GreenMan Cannabis | Deathstar — High Level Health |
| Pre-Rolls | French Whore Infused Pre-Roll — High Country Cones | Bitty Caviar Cones — Dadirri | Toke Premium Infused Cali-O Pre-Roll — Heartland Industries |
| Edibles – Food | THC Caramel Chews — Kush Masters | Peanut Butter Chocolate — 3Js Hice Cream | Dabba Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Indica Bar — Cheeba Chews |
| Edibles – Non-Food | Sleep Tincture 1:4 — ReCreate | Lemon Speed Strips — Escape Artists | 1:1 Precision Dose Tincture — ioVia |
| Concentrates | Blue Skunk Live Budder — High Level Health | Citrus Trifecta Live Diamonds — Kush Masters | Clementine Pure Live Resin — Lusso / Nectar Bee |
| Topicals | 1:1 Lavender Cream — Escape Artists | 1:1 Super Strength Nano Salve — Mary Jane’s Medicinals | 1:1 CBD/THC Transdermal Patch — Sirona |
Mandarin Sunset Wins Again for Indico
The most historically striking flower result was Mandarin Sunset from Indico winning the Indica division. The strain had already taken first place in Indica at the 2019 Colorado Cannabis Cup, meaning it successfully returned the following year and captured the same category under an entirely different judging system. In 2019 it had prevailed in the traditional Cup environment; in 2020, a much larger consumer judging pool put it back on top.
That repeat made Mandarin Sunset particularly useful as a test of the new People’s Choice model. A strain that had impressed conventional Cup judges also connected strongly with ordinary Colorado consumers. High Level Health’s MAC finished second and One Farms’ Skunkberry took third, producing a podium that mixed one returning champion with two strong Colorado competitors.
Indico Adds the Hybrid Championship With Sour Strawberry
Indico’s performance became even stronger when Sour Strawberry won Hybrid Flower. GreenMan Cannabis finished second with Cake Crasher, while High Level Health’s Deathstar took third. Winning both Indica and Hybrid made Indico the only company to capture two flower championships at the 2020 Colorado Cup.
The result also showed how quickly modern strain preferences had moved toward highly distinctive flavor identities. Sour Strawberry and Cake Crasher reflected the fruit-and-dessert-oriented naming and terpene focus that increasingly defined elite cannabis during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Deathstar, by contrast, represented an older generation of established potency-driven genetics, giving the podium an interesting mix of contemporary and earlier breeding trends.
Pagosa Therapeutics Takes Sativa With Jabberwokie
The Sativa Flower championship went to Jabberwokie from Pagosa Therapeutics. High Level Health’s Papa Smurph placed second, while One Farms took third with Jungle Cheese. Pagosa Therapeutics therefore prevented Indico from sweeping all three flower categories and gave the Sativa trophy to a company based outside the most obvious Denver-centered cannabis brands.
One of the strengths of the statewide People’s Choice format was precisely that broader reach. The Cannabis Cup was no longer tied entirely to whichever operators were able to dominate a festival environment in Denver. Products from across the state could be distributed through judge kits and evaluated by consumers beyond one physical venue.
High Level Health Becomes the Cup’s Most Consistent Competitor
Although High Level Health did not win a flower division, its overall performance may have been the deepest of the entire competition. The company placed second in Indica with MAC, second in Sativa with Papa Smurph and third in Hybrid with Deathstar. It then won the Concentrates category outright with Blue Skunk Live Budder.
That gave High Level Health four podium finishes across four different entries, including representation in every flower classification. Few performances better demonstrate the value of looking beyond first-place trophies when evaluating a Cannabis Cup. One strain can have an exceptional judging run; medaling across multiple flower categories and then winning concentrates points to broader consistency in cultivation and extraction.
Blue Skunk Live Budder Leads the Concentrates Category
Blue Skunk Live Budder from High Level Health won Concentrates, followed by Kush Masters’ Citrus Trifecta Live Diamonds and Lusso/Nectar Bee’s Clementine Pure Live Resin. The podium captured several major concentrate formats already common in Colorado by 2020: budder, diamonds and live resin.
Colorado had been deeply involved in the development of modern American concentrate culture for years, and earlier Denver Cups had helped bring products such as shatter, live resin and high-terpene extracts into mainstream competition. By 2020, concentrates no longer needed to be explained as an emerging side category. They were a mature sector of the legal market with specialist brands, sophisticated extraction techniques and consumers knowledgeable enough to evaluate differences in texture, terpene preservation and effects.
High Country Cones Wins Pre-Rolls
The Pre-Roll category went to High Country Cones for its French Whore Infused Pre-Roll. Dadirri’s Bitty Caviar Cones finished second, while Heartland Industries took third with its Toke Premium Infused Cali-O Pre-Roll. All three podium entries emphasized infusion or upgraded pre-roll formats rather than simple ground flower in paper.
That podium reflected another major change in legal cannabis retail. Pre-rolls had evolved from basic convenience products into premium products combining flower with concentrates, kief or other forms of added resin. The category would become even more specialized in later Cannabis Cups, with standard and infused pre-rolls eventually separated into different divisions.
Kush Masters Wins Food Edibles
Kush Masters won Edibles – Food with THC Caramel Chews, while 3Js Hice Cream placed second with Peanut Butter Chocolate and Cheeba Chews took third with a Dabba Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Indica Bar. Kush Masters also finished second in Concentrates, giving the company recognition across two very different product categories.
The Food division showed how far cannabis edibles had developed beyond the homemade brownie stereotype. Caramels, chocolates and precisely formulated bars were now mainstream regulated products judged on taste, texture, dosing and overall consumer experience in addition to cannabinoid effects.
ReCreate, Escape Artists and ioVia Define the Non-Food Edibles Category
High Times grouped tinctures, dissolvable products and other ingestible formats into a separate Edibles – Non-Food division. ReCreate won with its Sleep Tincture 1:4, Escape Artists placed second with Lemon Speed Strips and ioVia finished third with a 1:1 Precision Dose Tincture.
The category reveals how quickly legal cannabis was moving beyond smoking and traditional edibles. Consumers were increasingly buying products designed around specific cannabinoid ratios, measured doses, sleep-oriented formulations and discreet consumption. The People’s Choice model was particularly well suited to these products because judges could evaluate them in normal home environments rather than trying several tinctures or sublingual products during a crowded festival weekend.
Escape Artists Wins Topicals
Escape Artists captured the Topicals championship with its 1:1 Lavender Cream, while Mary Jane’s Medicinals took second with a 1:1 Super Strength Nano Salve and Sirona placed third with a 1:1 CBD/THC Transdermal Patch. Escape Artists also finished second in Non-Food Edibles, making it another multi-category medalist.
The presence of creams, salves and transdermal products illustrates how broad the definition of a Cannabis Cup had become. The original Amsterdam competitions were overwhelmingly about flower and hash. By 2020, High Times was judging products that were never intended to be smoked at all. Cannabis competition had become a reflection of the entire regulated marketplace rather than simply a contest between breeders.
Why There Was No Traditional Celebrity Lineup
The 2020 Colorado Cup is historically notable because that traditional guest structure disappeared. Pandemic restrictions made the large in-person festival model impossible, so the Cup moved into dispensaries, homes and a digital awards presentation.
That change actually broadened participation. Instead of asking a handful of celebrities and industry professionals to determine the winners, High Times gave hundreds of local consumers the opportunity to judge. The People’s Choice system would eventually become one of the defining Cannabis Cup formats of the 2020s, with later statewide competitions distributing thousands of judging kits across multiple categories.
Legacy of the 2020 High Times Cannabis Cup Colorado
The 2020 Colorado Cannabis Cup deserves to be remembered as much for its format as for its winners. COVID-19 could easily have ended High Times’ competition season. Instead, the company transformed the Cup into a distributed consumer-judging model and proved that the competition could survive without an expo floor, concert stage or exclusive expert panel. Later High Times retrospectives identify 2020 as the year the People’s Choice Edition was born, and Colorado became one of the first states to demonstrate the model at scale.
The winning products also captured Colorado cannabis at an important moment. Mandarin Sunset repeated its 2019 Indica championship, Sour Strawberry gave Indico a second flower trophy, Jabberwokie won Sativa, and High Level Health placed across every flower division before taking Concentrates with Blue Skunk Live Budder. High Country Cones led Pre-Rolls, Kush Masters won Food Edibles, ReCreate topped Non-Food Edibles and Escape Artists won Topicals. The familiar Denver festival may have disappeared that year, but the competition itself became more accessible than ever. In doing so, the 2020 Colorado Cup helped define the version of the High Times Cannabis Cup that would carry the institution into the next decade.
