Great Moments In Weed History W/ Abdullah And Bean

From his incendiary album "Legalize It" to his defiant speech denouncing Jamaican officials to their faces for their downpressive laws against ganja (delivered while smoking a spliff on stage), Peter Tosh fought for the equal rights of cannabis people around the world. While also promoting the plant's myriad of therapeutic benefits in detailed ways decades before the medical establishment started to catch up. Along the way, he created some of the most seminal and iconic reggae music of all time, working solo and as part of The Wailers alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston. We're honored to have Niambe McIntosh—Peter Tosh's daughter and founder of The Peter Tosh Foundation—as our guest to discuss her father's life and work.  PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. 

In 2004, Weldon Angelos was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling $900 worth of weed. That's what you get for bringing some of the earliest hip-hop shows to Salt Lake City, Utah. A music producer who has worked with legends like Snoop Dogg, Tupac's Outlawz, Nas, and Pink,, Weldon's case became a symbol of the racism and injustice that plagues our criminal justice system. But as you'll hear in this interview, from the moment he arrived at a maximum security prison—to serve a virtual life sentence—he began advocating for himself and other non-violent cannabis prisoners. Now head of The Weldon Project, he's built a truly bi-partisan coalition—Cory Booker, Rand Paul, Charles Koch, Alicia Keys—that pushed President Barrack Obama to commute his sentence in 2016, followed by a full pardon from President Donald Trump in December 2020. In September, Weldon sent the Biden administration a letter signed by more than 150 celebrities (Drake, Killer Mike, 2 Chainz, Ty Dolla $ign, T.I.), athletes, politicians, law enf

Celebrate 2021's weediest highlights with Abdullah and Bean's inebriated recounting of the year's most impactful cannabis news stories. PLUS: Our annual re-telling of the classic Chrstmas tale "Santa Claus is a Siberian Mushroom Shaman." Recorded IRL in a "holiday hashish hot box," this episode also gave rise to a conspiracy-themed spin-off show called "The Green Pill," and introduced our new sponsors Human Meat and Vlad's Blintzes.  PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.  ARTICLES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE Our round-up of 2021's biggest marijuana stories featured these articles and journalists:: LEAFLY REPORTS Leafly Cannabis Harvest Report this year (by David Downs) Leafly Jobs Report (by Bruce Barcott, Beau Whitney, and Janessa Bailey) Leafly Seeds of Change Report (by Janessa Bailey) Altria, Maker of

When cannabis and capitalism collide, our community's best laid plans for an equitable industry all-too-often go up in smoke. Enter Shaleen Title, a longtime drug policy activist who in 2017 became one of five inaugural commissioners of Massachusetts's Cannabis Control Commission. Described as “the people’s weed watchdog” by Boston Magazine, Shaleen is widely recognized for her focus on social and racial justice and her efforts to make the cannabis industry more fair and inclusive. She's also an avid listener of Great Moments in Weed History who supports the podcast on Patreon—just saying... and she shares that among her personal great moments was being the first person to order legal cannabis delivery on the East Coast. Naturally Shaleen's weed and gummies were provided by a social equity company that represents everything she works for as an advocate, attorney and now head of the Parabola Center—a think-tank she co-founded to "support people not corporate profits" in the cannabis industry. Please join us f

When prominent author Marie Lee published an essay titled "Why I Give My 9-Year Old Pot" in 2009, it set off a media sensation. Years before CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta ever touched the subject, Lee's vulnerable and defiant description of desperately seeking relief for her severely ill son—and finding it in cannabis—struck a nerve with parents worldwide. Now a teacher in the creative writing program at Columbia University, Marie Lee joins Abdullah and Bean to relive her son Jay's difficult, rewarding journey using medical cannabis to treat severe autism and other debilitating conditions. Including the life-saving help they got along the way from Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, underground marijuana growers, and the weed community writ large. We also get an update on Jay, who is doing great! SUPPORT "GREAT MOMENTS IN WEED HISTORY" ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses and fun surprises. PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS! This episode is brought to you

In the 1990s, a new federal law banning any student with a drug conviction from receiving financial aid led to the formation of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). Created online by a swarm of young activists in the early days of the internet, the organization quickly grew into the largest student organization in the United States. Today SSDP has over 5,000 active members on 300 college campuses around the world, all of them dedicated to advocating for the legalization of cannabis and the end of the War on Drugs. To hear the antiestablishment history of this game-changing organization, Abdullah and Bean sit down with founding member Kris Krane, who has also served as SSDP's Executive Director. SUPPORT "GREAT MOMENTS IN WEED HISTORY" ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses and fun surprises PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS! This episode is brought to you by Tweedle Farms, Northwest Oregon's premier, family owned hemp farm, specializing in farm-to-table, terpene rich,

In remote areas of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, indigenous farmers cultivate cannabis on small plots that date back centuries. Maintaining their precious landrace strains has been an uphill battle in an age of rapid industrialization, but now the effort to preserve this living cultural and botanical history has gone global. The Indian Landrace Exchange is a a grassroots, locally-led, globally crowdsourced effort to support these traditional cannabis-growing communities while preserving some of the oldest cannabis strains on Earth before they're lost forever. In this episode, Abdullah and Bean speak with @irrazinig—co-founder of the Indian Landrace Exchange—about growing up surrounded by post-colonial cannabis, making a fateful trek to "the Humboldt County of India," and forming a mutually beneficial bridge between indigenous communities and the world of legal weed. SUPPORT "GREAT MOMENTS IN WEED HISTORY" ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses a

As America's most thoroughly freak-powered cannabis festival celebrates its 30th Anniversary, we share a sesh with legendary street activist Vivian McPeak,, who co-founded the Seattle Hempfest in 1991. From the event's radical roots as a "protestival" occupation of a public park, to the glory days of legends like Jack Herer and Woody Harrelson addressing 100,000+ stoners at 4:20 from the main stage amid a massive cloud of smoke, Vivian explains how a combination of hippie idealism, pothead pragmatism, mutual support and civil disobedience helped establish Seattle Hempfest as a people-powered working model for every freaky weed fest to follow.. Plus the inside story of the first-annual Bong-A-Thon, and a weed pun battle for the ages. Learn more and get involved at hempfest.org and check out Vivian's podcast Hempresent. SUPPORT "GREAT MOMENTS IN WEED HISTORY" ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses and fun surprises PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS! This episode is brought

Upon turning 80, rock legend David Crosby gets lit with us and lovingly recalls the greatest moments of his own illustrious weed history. From blazing out The Beatles, to sailing the high seas with the 1970s most prolific pot smugglers, he's seen and smoked it all—and lived to tell the tale. Croz also explains why he loves growing his own, and just might write a song about it. Special thanks to Mighty Croz, his personal weed brand, for arranging the interview. And check out his excellent new album For Free. SUPPORT "GREAT MOMENTS IN WEED HISTORY" ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses and fun surprises PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS! This episode is brought to you by Tweedle Farms, Northwest Oregon's premier, family owned hemp farm, specializing in farm-to-table, terpene rich, high CBD hemp flower, concentrates, vapes, edibles and topicals. Use promo code “greatmoments” for 20% off your next order shipped anywhere in the United States.

Ross Rebagliati won the first ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, only to have it stripped away when officials reported he’d tested positive for marijuana on a post-race drug test. Ross soon found himself in a Japanese police station, under heavy interrogation for hours and potentially facing a long prison sentence simply for having a few nanograms of THC metabolite in his urine. He tells Abdullah and Bean his entire epic Olympic story, from being fifteen and one of the first serious ski racers to switch to snowboarding, to smoking weed on the chairlift while training for World Cup events, to everything he went through at the 1998 Olympics and its aftermath, and his new career as the founder of Ross’s Gold, a Canadian cannabis company.  He also offers words of comfort and encouragement to sprinting sensation Sha'Carri Richardson, who was disqualified from this year’s Tokyo games after testing positive for THC. JOIN US ON PATREON Sign up for our Great Moments in Weed History Patreon for special bonuses an

July 10th (7/10) is the 4/20 of hashish, a day to celebrate cannabis concentrates and culture in all forms—from the traditional sieve and hand-rub methods used in places like India, Morocco and Nepal for millennia to the modern world of BHO extracted dabs, with its many oils, waxes, shatters, crumbles, resins, and rosins. Sound confusing? Don't fret, because Abdullah, Bean and special guest expert Ry Prichard (Bong Appetit) will demystify and explain the fascinating history of cannabis concentrates, including how they're made, how they're consumed, and how to get the most out of this incredible way to inhale your weed without greening out. Best of all, after a long, long time recording over Zoom, we're back to blazing together IRL and so happy to share our first official sesh back on such an auspicious occasion. Program note: Bean gets really, really high in this episode! PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to

Brownie Mary's "magically delicious marijuana brownies" brought healing and joy to thousands of AIDS and cancer patients in San Francisco, even as she shouted down the police and took on City Hall. As this self-described "little old lady" once declared, shortly after being released from lock-up: "If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS, they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window," We're proudly re-posting this episode from Season 1 of Great Moments in Weed History as the conclusion of our month-long Pride celebration. Special thanks to our sponsor Tweedle Farms for supporting this podcast, including this special Pride series of episodes! PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. 

Dennis Peron first tried cannabis in Vietnam. After smuggling two pounds of high-grade herb home from the front, he became a charismatic and defiant leader of San Francisco's medical cannabis and gay rights movements. A fiery street-fighting optimist, Dennis suffered multiple stints in prison and even took a bullet in a police raid—all without ever giving up or backing down. As part of our ongoing Pride Month celebration, we're proudly re-posting this Season 1 episode that gets at the root of how the LGBTQ+ movement played a central role in not just changing the laws in California (and subsequently around the world), but in subverting a propaganda campaign against weed engineered by the government, law enforcement, and the medical establishment. Our Pride programming will conclude next week with our episode about Brownie Mary, another indomitable activist who fought for medical cannabis during the height of the AIDs crisis. Special thanks to our sponsor Tweedle Farms for supporting this podcast, including thi

Whether living in legal states or under prohibition, weed smokers continue to face stigmas and prejudices of all kinds. So to kick off our official Pride Month programming, we sat down for a smoky sesh with Jessamyn Stanley, a self-described “fat black queer woman" who's been breaking down barriers in American yoga since she began posting about her personal practice on Instagram in 2012. Jessamyn's the author of Every Body Yoga, has a new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self Acceptance out this month, hosts the podcast Jessamyn Explains It All, and has created the yoga app The Underbelly. She founded the activist organization We Go High North Carolina to push for an end to cannabis arrests and a social justice based approach to legalization. And she's a Great Moments in Weed History fan, who says her own cannabis activism was in part inspired by our episode on activist Dennis Peron. Our Pride programming will continue the next two weeks with re-releases of episodes about Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary, two indomitable

From blazing a joint at his audition, to smoking Austin, TX completely out of marijuana during the shoot, Dazed and 'Confused star Jason London tells Abdullah and Bean that the greatest weed moments on set all happened between takes, and behind the scenes. So journey with us back to the magical summer of 1993, when a cast and crew of talented unknowns that included Matthew McConaughy, Ben Affleck, Renee Zellweger, Anthony Rapp, Mila Jovovich, Parker Posey and writer/director Richard Linklater all adopted a method-acting approach to portraying 1970s stoners, with plenty of high-jinx and high times ensuing on the way to making one of the most iconic stoner films of all time.. Warning: You don't need to have a joint to enjoy this episode, but it would be a lot cooler if you did. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. And it truly helps us make the best show po

Support for ending weed arrests is at an all-time-high, but our newly elected President has long been a leading proponent of the War on Drugs. So where does that leave us when it comes to passing federal legalization? And if it passes, will Biden sign it? To find out, Abdullah and Bean sat down with Representative Earl Blumenauer—co-founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, and a leading pro-weed voice in Washington, DC. After publicly pushing for legalization for more than fifty years, he explains why he believes so strongly in this issue, what to expect in the future, and why he (and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) decided to wear marijuana leaf masks to Congress. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. 

From Acapulco Gold to OG Kush, the history of cannabis breeding dates back thousands of years and spans the entire globe, spawning a story that stretches from the legendary landrace varietals of Nepal, Thailand, Nigeria, India and Morocco all the way to today's modern super hybrid strains. Due to prohibition, however, the history of these strains and the people who helped breed and proliferate them have been all-too-often lost, obscured or subverted. So to sift the myth from the legend, we're joined by the illustrious Danny Danko, longtime cultivation editor at High Times magazine before branching out on his own with the podcast Grow Bud Yourself. This is our official 4/20 episode for 2021, please share it with your buds while celebrating the high holiday. For a history of 4/20 itself, check out our Season 1 episode about the Waldos: "4/20 Started With a Treasure Map to a Weed Garden." PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes,

Willie Nelson has smoked Snoop Dogg, Woody Harrelson, Ricky Williams, Chelsea Handler, Toby Keith, Johnny Knoxville and many other famous faces under the table. We got to hear a few of these hilarious stories firsthand recently while working with Willie and his crew on the Luck Summit, a four day online event (April 26-29) exploring cannabis in all aspects. As a special sneak preview of what's in store, we're proud to present a legend in his own right—Jay Chandrasekhar, star and director of Super Troopers, Beerfest and other films as part of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. Jay joined us to share some incredible stories about getting blazed with America's most iconic living stoner. And stay tuned after that for the first ever episode of Great Moments in Weed History, about the time Willie smoked a joint on the roof of the White House. We've got some incredible surprises happening between now and 4/20, so please subscribe to the podcast and join us on social media. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed

In a tale of weedy vengeance, Abdullah and Bean investigate the life of Harry J. Anslinger—America’s first “drug czar,” author of Marijuana: Assassin of Youth, and the man most responsible for the global prohibition of cannabis. And then they settle the score. This episode is tied to the premiere of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, a new film from Lee Daniels (Push, Empire) telling the awful true story of how Harry Anslinger used the full power of federal law enforcement to target the legendary jazz singer for multiple arrests, ultimately hounding her into an early grave. Highlighted by a brilliant Golden-Globe-nominated performance from Andra Day, the film rightly casts Anslinger as the villain. But with the narrative focused on Holiday and an undercover FBN agent tasked with taking her down, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and his decades-long racist campaign against weed doesn’t get a lot of screen time.  So Abdullah and Bean decided to dig deep into Anslinger's horrific life story. An

Explore Santa Claus’s psychedelic roots in Siberia in the only Christmas Special where Old St. Nick gifts you magic mushrooms and even the reindeer get high AF (just ask Blixen)! So hang on to your sleigh bells, because Abdullah and Bean will be celebrating the holiday season this year with Amanita muscaria mushrooms, cannabis-infused cookies, marijuana mistletoe and fermented yak milk, just as Santa always intended Special thanks to Harvard professor Donald Pfister for his enlightening annual lecture on Psychedelic Santa! And to friend-of-the-podcast Nonna Marijuana of WAMM, who turns 98 this Christmas Day. You can watch Nonna and Abdullah make “egg nug” together in the Bong Appetit Christmas special. Or watch Nonna make medicated latkes. Check out Doubleblind magazine and MAPS for more information on psychedelics. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video shows and seshes, plus access to cool rewards like a signed book or signature lighter. An