How I Became a Weed Journalist
Looking back on my last decade from the biggest cannabis convention in the world.
I’m in a hotel room in Vegas. I’m here to attend a massive cannabis trade show called MJBizCon, running a podcast stage for Cannabis & Tech Today. A year ago, I was here co-hosting the first-ever EmJays, a glitzy awards show that capped off the convention. I’d spent two months prepping for the night; my partner and I had written and rehearsed extensive bits, with costume changes and video parodies, and all the bells and whistles we could get away with. The show was a blast, and we felt great about it. I danced my face off at the after-party. A few weeks later, that partnership, and the world I’d built around it, ended. And boy, what a year it’s been since then.
I started writing about cannabis as a side gig to support my acting career. When I moved to New York in 2004, I was heady with being a paid professional actor. I’d graduated from theater school, and worked steadily for a few years in Canada, the UK, and Seattle. I had an Equity card, I’d received good notices, and I was feeling great about life. I was especially stoked to land in New York with my friend Nicole, who I’d written and toured an award-winning show with. She set me on fire creatively; she told me the moon was mine if I wanted it. I did my best to do the same for her.
Falling into the wild world of weed wasn’t what I expected when my boyfriend Scott and I got to NYC. But after meeting the managing editor of High Times at a party, and becoming friends with the staff of the legendary mag, we rejoiced at finding ourselves in a swirl with the haziest group of literary weirdos you can imagine. We were invited to their staff retreat at a resort in the Catskills, where I encountered the Volcano for the first time (you never forget your first!). The HT crew embraced us with goodwill and great bud. Have you ever played poker where the pot is actual pot? We had a whole Sour Diesel-fueled summer from those winnings, with epic movie nights in our Chelsea backyard. I remember most of it.
A couple of years later, I was acting in shows in the downtown theater scene, and bartending to quasi-support myself. Scott had taken on a full-time job, and was paying the lion’s share of our rent and bills. We were slowly coming back online after our lives were blown apart soon after we’d moved to the city, when he and I were with Nicole and her fiancé, and a late-night encounter with an angry group of kids ended up with Nicole being shot and killed in an impossible turn of events that I still can’t believe is real. It was real, though. Fundamentally, horrifyingly real. Somehow, in the weeks and months afterward, we figured out how to keep going, thanks to a dedicated circle of friends who made sure we ate, slept, and moved our van on alternate-side parking days. Some of them got us out of our apartment to dance until the sun came up at warehouse raves (thank you, Burners, for the lesson: move your body when you’re otherwise numb). Others dropped by to pop a casserole in the fridge, or sleep on our couch for a night, just to be with us.
The HT crew didn’t ask many questions when we hung out with them, which was a relief, since we were under the glare of the media for the better worst part of two years. Their apparent lack of curiosity made sense, given that many of them had to use assumed names to do their job. Getting blindfolded and stuffed into the trunk of a car to score an interview with a grower was just another workday for those on the cultivation beat. Don’t ask, don’t tell wasn’t just a shitty anti-LGBTQ+ Clinton-era policy; it was the only weed-related security in the mid-aughts.
I loved stopping by the HT office to visit my friend Natasha, who was managing editor. The whole scene was so goddamn cool — there was a ping-pong table in the kitchen, everyone congregated to smoke on the fire escape at 4:20, and there was often a stony celebrity stopping by to check out the latest fire genetics. (Note to all dudes: Method Man really hates it if you wear sandals without socks.)
And then, to go to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam?! I got lost there one November night, wandering around the city center with my eyes watering from the eleventh sativa I’d smoked that day (I was not prepared for how hard judging that competition would be). Everything looked like rippling stars. It was canal water reflecting the streetlights, of course, but it was also absolute magic.
At some point in 2007, in what I think was most likely a goodwill gesture, Natasha offered me work as a proofreader for the magazine. It paid super well — $35 an hour. I felt lucky every time I clocked in for a few hours of making sure that bongwater was spelled as one word. (I still have the HT Style Guide. It is an important historical document.) Eventually, I moved up to copyediting, and then I got my first writing assignment, a 100-word review of Al Jourgensen’s book Ministry: The Lost Gospels. I got paid a dollar a word; pour one out for that rate, freelancer friends.
Soon after that, I started writing short articles for HT.com, and attending editorial meetings, where I learned about the art department, publishing cycle, and what made a best-selling cover. (Celebs, unless it was Snoop or Wiz, meh; beauty shots of fat buds, always.) I was still acting, and trying to attain some sort of creative/financial balance, when Scott and I split up after over a decade of good times together. He’d been my enabler, in the best possible way; I would never have been able to keep doing off-off-Broadway theater without his support. Now I needed a full-time job — and High Times delivered, offering me a position as lifestyle editor in 2014. I’ve been writing about weed for a living ever since.
I learned on the job, imposter syndrome be damned. I was excited to make video content, and learn the art of the interview (Killer Mike made it easy). When I moved to Los Angeles in 2016 to open up the West Coast office of HT with my colleagues David Bienenstock and Elise McDonough, I asked my bosses for the title of culture editor. Astonishingly, they said yes. I oversaw my first cover shoot with Wiz Khalifa, and another with Charlie Sheen (he ordered us all pizza), and a third with the Super Troopers. (Los Angeles editors: you can’t go wrong if Lauren Hurt is shooting your photos. Seriously.)
Over the years, I interviewed luminaries like Margaret Cho, Laura Jane Grace, and Awkwafina (New York editors: you can’t go wrong if Gretchen Robinette is shooting your photos. Seriously.) I covered legalization in Canada, interesting new products, and cultural trends. When it was time for me to move on from HT, I was lucky enough to have editors at other cannabis publications take a chance on me (shout out to David Downs!). And I kept learning on the job. Making the leap to writing about federal cannabis policy for Vox made me feel like I was going to poop my pants, but I did it — and as I did it, I realized that I knew how to do it. Just like Nike advertised.
When Rolling Stone sent me to Mendocino to write about the crisis facing small weed farms in Northern California, I knew that I was in a whole new era of my career as a journalist. I’ve never been more proud to help tell the story of the absolute insanity the cannabis community has had to endure simply to exist.
Sitting in this hotel room in Las Vegas, taking stock of the last 10 years, I’m feeling a bunch of things. I’m sad that the life I built around my cherished podcast Weed + Grub had to come to an end, but I’m proud of what we created over our six-year run. I know my family would be proud that I received a cannabis media fellowship from the University of Vermont. I love that my rant about sexism in weed spawned this Substack. I’m honored that I get to keep telling the stories of the folks who built the cannabis movement that has become a multi-billion dollar industry; I just wrote about what to look out for under Trump 2.0 for Rolling Stone. And I’ve got a bunch more stuff in the hopper — maybe even another podcast? You know I’ve got a one-woman play up my sleeve, just kidding (not really kidding). I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of it. Let me know what you think in the comments, please!
So, I’m open to work, if you’re hiring. Also, people are still in prison for non-violent cannabis offenses, FFS. Let’s fix that in 2025.
Thank you so much for being a subscriber; your support means the world. I’m glad to be back on the Substack horse after time away for personal stuff. More soon. Love, MJ 💚
I’ve known you for decades and love this piece that walks through the twists and turns that life has served you - good, bad, and incomprehensible. You are one kind, tough, resilient, endlessly capable, and creative person. Onward!