What Happened to High Times?
The legacy weed publication that gave me my writing career has seemingly come to an end.
On Friday, June 17th, 2022, High Times published an essay I wrote about sexism in the weed world. I gave it a lighthearted title — Let’s Talk About Sexism, Baby! — and a tagline promising jokes, LOL. I wanted to give the men in cannabis a glimpse of the frustration I knew most women felt about working in the burgeoning industry. The piece got an epic fuck ton of comments on Instagram saying shit like, “STFU and make me a sandwich.” It was wild.
One week later, Roe v. Wade was repealed. That day, I was recording my podcast (RIP, Weed + Grub!) with my (now ex) partner, who insisted on keeping things “fun.” While we were talking about what the Dobbs decision would mean for people with uteruses in the USA, I tried to joke around, as much as I could, but I was furious. If you gave a shit about women’s health, you just had to be furious — that was how I felt, anyway.
Those two events shaped the beginning of My Sandwich, My Choice, which quickly became my passion project. In a way, I started to look forward to getting yelled at by bros on the internet, because every time some guy told me that the 19th Amendment should be repealed, and that my cat was going to eat my lonely old carcass, it just confirmed what I’d been saying: misogynistic chodes abound, dude.
Then, at some point this summer, hightimes.com went dark. Rumors had been swirling for ages about the inevitable fall of the company after it was sold to an investment team in 2017. I was working at the mag as culture editor at the time; I wasn’t privy to the details of the sale, but there wasn’t a single staffer I spoke with who felt hopeful about the handoff. The magazine had endured for 40-plus years, the Cannabis Cups were a moneymaking machine, legalization was rolling out state by state, everyone was thrilled about the impending Green Rush — but the new ownership was walking around kicking the tires. I was called into a meeting with a new supervisor, who gestured at me a lot with his vape pen while telling me I needed to learn SEO. There was no fucking way I was going to learn SEO. I left his office knowing my days at the company were numbered.
After I got the call offering me two weeks’ severance, I stayed on good terms with the editorial staff. I occasionally wrote for the magazine, and the VP of content, Jon Cappetta, offered me as much space as I wanted to write for the website. It was strange and sad to watch HT slowly crumble as the new owners shut down editorial, pumped the Cups for cash by selling judges’ kits (this was especially horrifying for people who were concerned about the competition’s legitimacy), and launched a line of weed products and dispensaries. They broke a generation of stoners’ hearts.
On May 26th of this year, Green Market Report wrote that HT was selling off its assets to repay lenders:
Despite owning several dispensary licenses in California and a popular website, High Times neglected to pay back the $28.8 million it owed to ExWorks the company that helped Adam Levin and his investors buy the property. That company went into receivership as well, triggering a chain of events that put the High Times assets up for sale.
Not surprising, but still, a bummer. And then, the receiver overseeing the asset sale was terminated in June. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but the website went down, and stayed down. Fifty years after Tom Forçade founded the magazine, High Times went up in smoke after a bunch of business bros got greedy. Fucking fuck.
I’m incredibly grateful for my time at HT, which launched my career as a writer, and for everything I learned working with marijuana experts and aficionados like Danny Danko, Elise McDonough, David Bienenstock, Jon Cappetta, and all the other brilliant weirdos that made the company tick. The assets are for sale, so there may be a High Times 2.0 down the road, but I doubt they’ll republish my rant about sexism and misogyny in the cannabis industry, so I’m posting it here, because it’s the origin story of this whole Substack — the first time I managed to put some of my big feelings about that stuff into words. Also, fuck corporate greed; HT deserved better.
Let’s Talk About Sexism, Baby!
June 17, 2022 - There are jokes in here, I promise.
Before I landed in my current vocation of writing about weed, I worked so many different jobs that it’s a joke amongst my friends. I was a deckhand on a salmon tender for four glorious summers in Alaska. I was a tequila shot slinger on the dancefloor of a nightclub in London. I got really good at putting a condom on a banana when I toured high schools to talk to teens about safe sex. I acted in plays — a favorite of mine involved me dancing with my dead husband’s ashes in an urn. I’ve been a production assistant, data entry clerk, server, nanny, dog walker… basically, since I left home at 16, I’ve done whatever it takes to pay the bills. I landed a job writing about weed at this publication over a decade ago, and since then, I’ve been fortunate to make a living by covering cannabis culture, trends and news.
I’ve gotta say, of all the industries I’ve worked in, the weed industry has been the most frustrating when it comes to something that is going to make some of you grit your teeth — in my experience, it’s a deeply unpopular topic. I’m gonna go for it anyway.
Ok, so, guys, sexism and misogyny! Ugh, it’s exhausting. Let’s call it S&M to be more fun! Listen though, this is real: no matter how much S&M makes you roll your eyes, it’s something we need to talk about, because it’s getting worse.
We’re living in a tense time in every regard, at every level of society. It can feel relentless. I can trace my perpetual anxiety about things being fucked back to November 8, 2016 — the night that California voters legalized cannabis for adult use. I was new to LA, and I was proud to cover the election results for HT. And we all know the other major news from that night: ye olde pussy-grabber Donald Trump won the presidency. And a ton of people in the cannabis community celebrated his win! I was gobsmacked, along with millions of women around the country.
For the next four years, we got stories like “Why President Trump Is Positioned To Be Marijuana's Great Savior.” Well, let the record show that Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions unleashed federal prosecutors by rescinding the Cole Memo, his treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin refused to protect banks doing business with the cannabis industry, and zero federal reform took place on DJT’s watch.
Why is this b*tch whining about Trump in 2022, you may be asking yourself? Because — hit that joint you’re holding before continuing to read — in addition to his being a racist POS, and perpetuating the Big Lie, research shows that Trump made society more sexist.
Let’s focus that lens on the cannabis community. When I started writing about weed, and working at Cannabis Cups around the country, plenty of women were crushing it in the industry. It was a heady, optimistic time. In 2015, Newsweek published a piece titled “How Legal Marijuana Could Be the First Billion-Dollar Industry Not Dominated by Men.” I worked with many of those women, and I include myself when I say that we were buoyed up by the possibility of the Green Rush being a fair and equitable space. We believed that the Brave New World of Weed wasn’t going to be dominated by the usual players, and we wouldn’t have to fight for seats at the table; we were going to build the table together, and pull up any kind of chair/ throne/ beanbag we wanted (click the link for outdated stoner stereotype LOLs).
But women haven’t gained ground in the cannabis industry; along with minority executives and owners, we’ve lost it. Last year, the percentage of women holding executive positions in weed fell below the average of other US industries. “Industry experts suggest that competitive markets tend to favor businesses with white men in ownership and leadership positions, primarily because of their established access to capital,” MJ Biz reported. “More executives from mainstream sectors are opting into the cannabis industry as a new opportunity, accelerating the increase of white men in power positions.”
And wow, some of those guys are big mad at women! Just last week the CEO of an Oklahoma company was so rattled by a sales rep from a cannabis jobs platform including her pronouns in her email signature that he replied: “I don’t communicate with ignorant c*nts that cannot figure out what a woman is. You’re a she/her/hers? Please die so God can rectify his mistake.”
This is what I mean by things getting worse. Guys like this Hatey McHaterson feel emboldened in post-Trump America. When I started out covering cannabis, there were plenty of things to work on as far as equality and representation went, but I felt hopeful. Fast forward to a few months back, when a dude commented on a story I’d written that he was going to stuff his nuts into my mouth to shut me up. I’m fine, but I think we can do better when it comes to holding guys like this accountable. (Also, threatening to stuff your nuts into my mouth to shut me up is a crazy move that shows you have no concept of teeth.)
Last night, I ended up at an industry party where I chatted with three young women about how they felt about their place in the biz. Each of them had a story of dealing with some absolute fucking sexist nonsense. And each of them said they’re sticking with working in weed because they love it so much. We talked about our hopes for the future of cannabis, and how we should get to decide what it looks like. It shouldn’t be dumb Boys saying “no women allowed in the grow room,” as was alleged in a recent lawsuit. We shouldn’t have to worry about bullying and harassment. Wouldn’t it be fucking awesome if we made the weed industry the most inclusive, forward-thinking, beneficial environment for everyone who wants a seat at the table? Well, we can! But we sure can’t do it without men. And if you men want to know what you can do to make things better, start by supporting companies that support women. You don’t need to buy weed from assholes!
If you’re still reading, and you’re mad about what I’m saying, hit that joint again. Know that I am not mad at men. I am asking men to be mad on the behalf of all of the women who expect and deserve more from this industry and community. It doesn’t hurt you when we all do well; we’re not coming for your stake in the game. We’re saying that we can build something that’s truly new, with you. LFG.
Woman in tech (and kinda cannabis) here. Thanks for shining a light on the sexism and straight up woman-hating we've had to deal with in our careers. It's no better in tech. Puff, puff, pass.
Thank you for sharing all this! We have seen equality spike and dive many times in our lives. Oddly, one would think the cannabis insustry would be a unifying, loving place where gender, sexuality, etc. would be a utopian paradise, or at the very minimum, an equal, safe space for all. But, you are absolutely right! It is not! We feel corporate cannabis has polluted the minds of its’ supporters and in turn, trickled down to many small business owners. On the up side, we live in a state where most people in our community shun corporate and support local farmers and caregivers. We have been welcomed by the majority here in Maine but now, we have doubts when larger, national and international publications/podcasts request interviews. We have one this afternoon from Great Britain and already our stomachs are churning a bit. Time will tell for women but the lack of progress so far is slow and at this pace we don’t feel unconditional respect for women in the industry will happen in our lifetimes!