By Christopher B. Daly
A hat-tip to TNR for recognizing the impact of High Times, the magazine that has stayed laser-focused on its advocacy of legalizing marijuana use in the United States. (Memo to TNR: in your drive to be resolutely counter-intuitive about everything, you overuse superlatives. High Times is obviously influential to anyone who stops to think about it for a second. You don’t need a headline saying it “may be the most influential.”)
Based in New York, High Times was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade.
From Wikipedia:
The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forçade of the Underground Press Syndicate.[1] High Times was originally meant to be a joke, a single issue lampoon of Playboy, substituting dope for
First edition
sex. But the magazine found an audience, and in November 2009, celebrated its 35th anniversary.[2] Like Playboy each issue contains a centerfold photo, but instead of a nude woman, High Times typically features a choice grade of cannabis plant.
The magazine soon became a monthly with a growing circulation audited by ABC reaching 500,000 copies an issue; rivaling Rolling Stone and National Lampoon. The staff quickly grew to 40 people. In addition to high-quality photography, High Times featured cutting-edge journalism covering a wide range of topics including politics, activism, drugs, sex, music and film.
High Times has long been influential in the marijuana-using counterculture. Past contributors include Charles Bukowski,William S. Burroughs, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Andy Warhol.
As I have written elsewhere, this approach to journalism puts High Times squarely in a long, glorious tradition in American journalism: the advocacy tradition.
From Sam Adams to Tom Paine. . .
. . . from William Lloyd Garrison to Frederick Douglass
. . . From Ida B. Wells to Ida Tarbell
. . . from Jacob Riis to Lewis Hine
. . . from Upton Sinclair to Lincoln Steffens
. . . from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Gloria Emerson
. . . from Jann Wenner to Hunter Thompson
. . . from Westbrook Pegler to Sean Hannity
. . . from the Hearstpress to the Lucepress
. . . from Daniel Ellsberg to Edward Snowden
They’re advocates all!
Prof Chris Daly's Blog 
Hi Chris,
I appreciate your blog on High Times. The list of contributers is Intriguing to me. I don’t know much about the magazine so the fact that it is so old and connected to Playboy and ABC was surprising.
Your blog caught my attention as I searched for a journalist to interview about the national liegalization of marijuana for an assignment.
Would you be kind enough to answer a list of eight questions?
Your help would be greatly appreciated. 🙂
Thank you.
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