The Innovative Ways One Puerto Rico Hotel Is Using Cannabis to Help Residents Heal After Hurricane Maria

Tres Sirenas, one of Puerto Rico’s most stylish and intimate boutique hotels, has come up with a creative way to bring the community together post-hurricane, and it involves the incorporation of a versatile ingredient — cannabis — into its programming.

Just months after the state legalized the use of the plant for medical purposes, the idyllic, five-room Rincón hotel rolled out a marijuana dinner series and cannabis-infused yoga program, both of which take place about once a month.

Image zoom Courtesy of Tres Sirenas

Emily Masters, a certified yoga instructor and the daughter of Lisa Masters, who, along with Wanda Acosta, runs the beachfront property, is the mastermind behind the concept.

“It’s created a sense of community for a lot of people,” says Emily, who has taught yoga for nearly a decade. “After the hurricane, there’s a lot of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. But through the yoga and the dinner parties, people are finding a natural, medication-free way to start over.”

Image zoom Courtesy of Tres Sirenas

Emily reached out to celebrated chef Christopher Klos, who closed his popular Rincón restaurant Saltaire post-Maria, to devise the dinner series’ locally driven, five-course menu. Sample dishes have included a calabaza soup with cannabis-infused honey and a papaya salad with peanut sauce and vinegar laced with the all-star ingredient.

For the yoga, Emily partnered up with a handful of local dispensaries to curate a sampling of products she recommends for the healing class, which is held on the hotel’s breezy, pool-facing yoga deck.

Image zoom Courtesy of Tres Sirenas

“To ensure it’s a comfortable environment for everyone, we’ll start the class by talking about the various products we’ve selected,” says Emily. “From there, we move into a blend of vinyasa flow and yin yoga, which has a rigorous start but ends on a restorative note.”

Because Puerto Rico is a reciprocal cannabis state, travelers holding medical marijuana cards in other states, like California and Florida, are able to partake.

“I’ve gotten great feedback from friends who have visited the island,” says Emily. “You don’t need to be recovering from a hurricane to reap the benefits of cannabis.”