What is Dab Day?

If you’ve been seeing 7/10 everywhere on social media this week and had absolutely zero context, you’re in the right place.

What is Dab Day? It’s the cannabis community’s annual holiday dedicated entirely to concentrates, celebrated every July 10. It is 4/20’s more intense relative. More niche, more potent, very enthusiastic about glassware.

This is the full Dab Day deep dive: where it came from, who started it, how it grew from a niche internet reference into the third-largest cannabis shopping day of the year, and what it actually means to celebrate it right. If you want the full beginner’s breakdown on what dabs are and how to consume them, we’ve already covered that in detail.

Why July 10? The Origin of the Number

Flip 710 upside down. You get OIL, a cannabis slang for concentrate, specifically hash oil. That’s the whole trick. A visual pun built on a number, and an entire holiday followed.

There’s a small bonus theory worth knowing: some trace the 710 → OIL connection even further back, to automotive oil caps on older vehicles, where “710” appeared embossed on the cap and spelled OIL when flipped. Is that a genuine historical thread, or retroactive folk etymology that developed after the fact? Honestly, no one knows for sure. But it’s a fun wrinkle, and it makes the whole thing feel slightly more inevitable, like 710 was always going to mean something, one way or another.

The date (July 10, written as 7/10) follows naturally from the number. So what you have is a holiday built entirely on flipping a number upside down and squinting at it. That’s a pretty great foundation for a cultural moment. The cannabis community has always had a gift for this kind of thing.

Who Actually Started 7/10?

Here’s where the history gets interesting — and a little murky, as the best cannabis lore tends to be.

The most documented origin story traces to around 2010, when rapper and cannabis advocate TaskRok was part of an early concentrate community on TinyChat, a video chat platform that hosted some of the first dedicated online conversations about cannabis oils. The concentrate world at that point was genuinely underground — small, niche, and not yet visible to most cannabis consumers. TaskRok and his circle were in the thick of it.

In 2011, TaskRok and his group Task & Linus released an album called The Movement, which was loaded with references to cannabis oils and concentrates. Two tracks in particular, “7:10” and “Boil That Oil”, effectively planted a flag. Around the same time, the term started appearing publicly on cannabis forums like TokeCity and Urban Dictionary. That’s the earliest documented trail. Here’s the whole album on a YouTube video if you wanna listen while you read.

When asked about his role in creating the holiday, TaskRok’s answer is genuinely hard not to respect: “It belongs to the community now.” No ownership claim, no trademark attempt, not even a brand deal. He just handed it to everyone. In an era where people try to monetize their own birthdays, that’s worth noting.

One extra detail that doesn’t prove anything but is too good to leave out: the Grateful Dead’s communal residence in San Francisco, a counterculture landmark through the 1960s, sat at 710 Ashbury Street. Probably a coincidence. Probably.

How Dab Day Became a Real Holiday

The growth of 7/10 didn’t happen all at once. It unfolded over about a decade, and watching the timeline is actually a pretty clean mirror of how concentrates went from underground to mainstream.

• 2010–2011 — The underground years. The term spread slowly through early concentrate forums and online cannabis communities. Dabbing at this point required a blowtorch, a titanium nail, and a significant willingness to answer questions about what you were doing. It was a niche inside a niche.
• 2013 — The turning point. LA Weekly ran a piece declaring that “710 is the new 420” — the first time a mainstream publication gave the holiday real visibility. That same year, Denver hosted the first 710 Cup, a formal event dedicated entirely to cannabis concentrates. An industry recognized itself.
• 2014 — Official legitimacy. High Times added a concentrate category to their Cannabis Cup. If you know what the Cannabis Cup means to the industry, you understand why this mattered. It was the equivalent of a major culinary award show adding an entirely new food category. Concentrates had arrived.
• Mid-2010s — The retail moment. Dispensaries started running 710-themed deals consistently. Brands started doing limited drops and exclusive product launches specifically for July 10. Social media accelerated everything — the community was now visible, vocal, and growing fast.
• Now. 7/10 is the third-largest cannabis shopping day of the year, behind only 4/20 and Green Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving). More specifically, it’s the single biggest day for concentrate purchases. The holiday that started in a TinyChat session is now a measurable spike in cannabis retail data every July.

Dab Day vs. 4/20 — What’s Actually Different?

They’re both cannabis holidays. That’s where the comparison mostly ends.

4/20 is cannabis culture writ large. It covers everything — flower, edibles, pre-rolls, tinctures, beverages, whatever. It’s for everyone who consumes cannabis in any form, and it’s been building mainstream cultural weight since the 1970s. 4/20 has around 42.5 million Instagram posts. It’s in movies, in music, in mainstream news coverage every April.

7/10 is narrower and more specific. It belongs to the concentrate world — oils, waxes, rosins, diamonds, anything that came out of an extraction process. It’s a holiday inside a holiday. #710 has around 11.5 million Instagram posts. Still massive by any normal measure but smaller, tighter, more community-driven.

The energy is different too. 4/20 is welcoming and inclusive by design; it’s the day every new consumer gets introduced to cannabis. 7/10 skews toward people who’ve been around for a while and developed a specific appreciation for extracts. The concentrate community is passionate in a particular way; they talk about terpene profiles the way wine people talk about terroir, and they genuinely mean it. Sessions are slower. The equipment gets cleaned beforehand. There’s ceremony to it.

That dynamic is part of what makes Dab Day worth paying attention to, even if you’re not a concentrate person yet. You can watch exactly where cannabis culture is heading by watching where 7/10 goes.

And if you haven’t been to a 4/20 event, here’s what’s happening at a 4/20 dispensary party.

How Do People Actually Celebrate Dab Day?

A few different ways, depending on where you fall on the concentrate experience spectrum.

• The 7:10 tradition. One of the quieter rituals in concentrate culture is taking a celebratory dab at 7:10 AM or 7:10 PM — some people mark both. There’s no governing body enforcing this. It’s just something the community settled into, and it gives the day a shared timing that feels intentional. Think of it as a toast, without the glass.
• Dispensary deals. The most practical element of 7/10 for most people. July 10 is the biggest concentrate sales day of the year because dispensaries run their best extract promotions on this date — limited drops, brand pop-ups, percentage-off concentrate menus, BOGO deals. If you’ve been eyeing a specific live rosin or a new e-rig, Dab Day is genuinely the day to move on it.
• Brand activations and events. In larger markets, 7/10 weekend gets busy. San Francisco’s annual Hash Week runs across 45+ brands. Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon have hosted regional events and dab competitions for years. The 710 Cup in Denver was the first formal event of its kind back in 2013 and helped set the template for everything that followed.
• The home session. For most people, celebrating 7/10 means picking up something good from the dispensary and actually sitting down to enjoy it with intention. Clean rig, fresh terp pearls, quality concentrate, no rushing. The holiday’s spirit is about appreciating the craft of extraction — the flavor, the potency, the process that got the product to you. A slow session where you’re paying attention is more authentically 7/10 than just consuming more of everything.

How to Prepare for Dab Day

A little prep goes a long way. Here’s what’s worth doing before July 10:

• Check the menu early. Dab Day deals move fast, especially on limited products. Live rosin tends to go first; it’s the most labor-intensive to produce and consistently the most sought-after on the holiday. Browsing the menu ahead of time (or just calling the shop) saves you from showing up and finding out the thing you wanted sold out at 11 AM. Don’t be that person.
• Clean your equipment. If you’re running a dab rig or e-rig, clean it before the holiday. Seriously. A clean banger or ceramic chamber makes a real difference in flavor. You’re tasting the concentrate, not the residue from three sessions ago. Isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs, fresh water in the rig. Takes ten minutes. Worth every one.
• Charge your devices. If you’re using an electronic rig like the Puffco Proxy Core Onyx, charge it the night before. Nobody wants to be at 15% battery when the good stuff hits. Plug it in, it’s that simple.
• Have your tools ready. Dab tool for loading, carb cap for airflow control, and terp pearls if you’re running them. If you’re new to any of this equipment, our budtenders can walk you through the whole setup — that’s exactly what Dab Day is for.
• Know what you want to try. 7/10 is a legitimately good excuse to step outside your usual concentrate. If you always reach for live resin, try a live rosin. If you’ve been curious about diamonds, this is the day to ask about them. The holiday has an energy of exploration built into it. Use that.

So, What Are Dabs?

The short version: dabs are concentrated cannabis extracts with significantly more THC than flower — most concentrates land between 60 and 90%, compared to 15–25% for standard flower. They come in various textures and types, and they’re consumed using a dab rig, e-rig, or dab pen.

For the full breakdown — what every type means, how the consumption methods work, and how to know if dabs are right for where you’re at — we wrote an entire guide.

Come Celebrate Dab Day at Theo

Stop in at 3059 NJ-27 in Franklin Park on or before July 10. Our budtenders know the concentrate menu front-to-back — including what’s not for beginners and what absolutely is. Come find out which camp you’re in.

Browse the menu before you show up.