Pubdate: Thu, 30 Oct 2014
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Copyright: 2014 North Coast Journal
Contact:  http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S POT

High Times, the venerable marijuana magazine found in headshops and 
behind cardboard at your favorite corner liquor store, turned 40 recently.

In celebration, the magazine released a coffee table book, which is 
generously reviewed in the New York Times by Dwight Garner. It sounds 
like a good read, chronicling the magazine's wild early days, the 
suicide of "crusading journalist" and founder Tom Forcade at 33, and 
the magazine's commercial bumps on its road to middle age. It's easy 
to forget that High Times has boasted genuine journalism, art and 
literature during its tenure.

According to the NYT, the greatest tonal shift over the 40 years of 
High Times' existence was away from "garish travel stories to a 
cheerful Home-Depot-like-do-it-yourself ethos." That is, no doubt, 
thanks to the semi-legalized status of marijuana that began to form 
around the nation in the early 1990s.

As decriminalization began to turn people away from dealers and into 
the hardware stores, those same green thumbs began to turn to glossy 
Sunset-like magazines and books with growing tips. Think Good 
Housekeeping with bud-porn instead of cupcake recipes.

At the same time, the anonymous nature of the World Wide Web began to 
give the same entrepreneurial types fora to share the vast body of 
anecdotal knowledge and lore surrounding marijuana cultivation, 
genetics, culture and community. High Times no doubt suffered from 
the print media circulation dip brought about with the rapid rise of 
Internet media.

While mainstream journalism has largely been able to adapt to an 
e-reader's world, marijuana writers have always had to work on the 
edge of legitimacy, thanks to the nation's war on drugs.

High Times was aware of that, writing bravely on the race and class 
implications of the war on marijuana, according to Garner in his 
review. In it, Garner says, "the war on drugs was always really a war 
on marijuana ... waged mostly on hippies and slackers and the underprivileged."

"Criminals dealing drugs like heroin and cocaine," Garner quotes from 
the book, "would actually shoot back."

That is, of course, a somewhat rosy take on marijuana. As with any 
illicit substance, there's sometimes blood on pot. Legalization is 
improving the situation, but the finger pointing at other drugs is 
disingenuous - after all, heroin and cocaine have potentially more 
significant race and class quagmires, similar dangers related to 
prohibition, and the same misguided policies by the governments that 
treat drug use as a criminal activity rather than a healthcare issue.

But I digress. Garner doesn't get his hands on High Times' 
circulation numbers, so it's impossible to say how the magazine has 
weathered the Internet and looming legalization.

However, a Journal reader recently returned from Denver was kind 
enough to drop off a fat, glossy, 150-page free tourism magazine. At 
first glance, CULTURE magazine is just your average, well, hip 
culture magazine. The cover features celebrity chef Tom Colicchio; 
the table of contents boasts recipes, a calendar of Colorado events, 
video game reviews, political reporting and music interviews. But 
flip to any page - that's hardly an exaggeration, any page - and 
boom: marijuana ad.

Yes, CULTURE is "The #1 Cannabis Lifestyle Magazine," with Nor- and 
SoCal, Washington, Colorado, San Diego, Arizona, Oregon, Michigan and 
national editions. And it's booming. Colorado's October edition has 
(at quick count) 86 full-page color ads ranging from vape pens to 
marijuana strains, from pot candy to trade shows. At nearly $1,000 
per ad, it's apparent there's some future in cannabis magazines.

CULTURE, however, reads like a pot-centric Rolling Stone. It doesn't 
have the subversive edge of the once-counter-culture High Times. 
Marijuana has gone mainstream. You don't have to peer through the 
haze: Cannabis-themed Colorado golf-getaway advertisements are the 
canary in the cultural coalmine.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom