Journalist Randi Kaye reported CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live from Denver, Colorado last night.
During her segment of the larger show hosted by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen in New York City, she toured with revelers on a ‘Cannabus’ and attended a ‘Puff, Pass and Paint’ party.
Recreational marijuana usage has been legal in Colorado for adults of at least 21 years of age since January 2014, with the formal enactment of Colorado Amendment 64.
The amendment was passed by voters 55 percent to 45 percent in November 2012.
Randi Kaye, 50, hosted CNN’s 2017 New Year’s Eve coverage from Denver, Colorado. At one point, she showed viewers a gas mask connected to a bong. She then passed it off to a reveler, who took a hit from it
At another point, she offered a joint to Andy Cohen, who was reporting with Anderson Cooper from New York City. Recreational marijuana usage has been legal in Colorado since January 2014
Cooper covered his face at certain points and comically shrugged during others in connections to the marijuana-laced shenanigans of Kaye and company
One segment saw Kaye joining revelers on a ‘Cannabus’ tour. She is pictured waving smoke away after a man behind her exhaled smoke straight towards the camera. Kaye did not smoke herself during the evening
Back in 2014, Cooper was left chuckling during a segment in which Kaye, 50, was at a marijuana dispensary in Colorado.
Through laughter, she said: ‘I think I need to come home, I think I need to come home.’
Last night provided similar comedy as viewers were left wondering whether Kaye might have gotten something of a contact high over the course of the evening.
Not inhaling herself, the journalist was nonetheless surrounded by smokers on the ‘Cannabus,’ a touring bus on which revelers can enjoy marijuana.
‘We have the party started here. There is a little bit of purple haze. We call this the magic bus. The CannaBus, get it?,’ Kaye tells Cooper and Cohen around 9pm Eastern Time, or 7pm Mountain Time.
A man behind her is seen lighting up as she talks while the bus is traveling near a dispensary called Medicine Man.
Kaye is pictured observing the ‘Blazy Susan’ owned by a man named Mikey. The circular tray provides an easy place to keep all apparatuses necessary for the smoking of marijuana, Mikey explains
Kaye previously did a segment on a medical marijuana dispensary in 2014. She laughingly told Anderson Cooper at the time: ‘I think I need to come home, I think I need to come home’
Kaye said at one point during the New Year’s Eve telecast: ‘I think I got a little high. I’m trying to remember where we are. Where am I?’
‘Whoa,’ she says, as the man blows smoke right at the camera.
She then speaks to a man called Mikey about his ‘Blazy Susan,’ which has all the apparatuses needed for smoking marijuana on one circular tray.
At one point, Kaye says: ‘I think I got a little high. I’m trying to remember where we are. Where am I?’
A reveler reminds her.
She also asks Andy Cohen is he wants her to pick anything up for him, and he requests Cheeba Chews, which are a marijuana-infused taffy candy.
Cohen wonders if she might eat any herself.
‘Dose yourself properly, Randi. We don’t want any trouble from you,’ he says.
After her segment ends, Cohen turns to Cooper and asks: ‘Is Randi Kaye like, a notorious stoner that I don’t know about?’
‘No, not at all. She’s just very game to report and go to the front lines on things,’ the more serious Cooper replies.
Catching up with Kaye later in the evening, viewers learn that she has earned the nickname ‘Kush Kaye’.
She holds up a gas mask for Cooper and Cohen to observe and says: ‘I thought maybe I would bring a gas mask with me, so I wouldn’t get that contact high. But look at what’s on the other end of the gas mask. Yes, a bong!’
Kaye also attended a ‘Puff, Pass and Paint,’ party. Pictured are some of the paintings from said party
Cohen at one point warns: ‘Dose yourself properly, Randi. We don’t want any trouble from you’
Cooper at one point chides: ‘Oh goodness. You’re just giggling now, Randi’
She helps a man light up the gas mask bong, at which point Cooper, in New York, covers his face.
‘I don’t think this is really what a gas mask is used for, but, wow! Okay! This is New Year’s Eve Denver style,’ Kaye says.
Kaye is pictured with a Golden Retriever
Cooper quickly reminds viewers that what they are seeing is legal in Colorado.
Later, at a ‘Puff, Pass and Paint’ party, Kaye is shown laughing quite heartily.
Cooper says, with a slight shudder and shrug: ‘Oh goodness. You’re just giggling now, Randi.’
Meanwhile she holds out a joint and says it is for Andy, who is more than 1,600 miles away.
She then gives it to a party attendee and describes how the marijuana the partiers are smoking informs their creativity with regard to their paintings.
Twitter was divided on the segments, with some praising Kaye for her hilarity and others taking offense that she was in the presence of marijuana smokers on live television.
Love not Hate said: ‘#RandiKaye is the saving grace of the failing @CNN New Years Show. More Randi and more Don Lemon. A lot less Andy Cohen’
Twitter was divided on Randi Kay’s New Year’s Eve segments
Taunitz wrote: ‘I’m convinced Randikaye will be in 2018 before the rest of us, [tears from laughter emoji] she’s gonna float right into it #CNNNYE’
And Lee said: ‘So last #NYE @DonLemon got drunk on live tv & this year #RandiKaye is smoking pot?! O @CNN you are not doing yourself any favors. This is not news, this is trash tv. Stop it!’
Meanwhile, California ushered in 2018 by opening retail cannabis shops for the first time.