Great Moments In Weed History W/ Abdullah And Bean

From judging the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, to touring Northern California during harvest season, to seshing with the steady stream of growers, dealers, breeders, smugglers, rogues, outlaws, musicians, celebrities, and activists who stopped by the High Times offices in New York City during our illustrious tenure at the mag, Danny Danko and I have shared many incredible adventures in the field.. So lets exhale the bullshit…. inhale some good shit… and jump into the hot box time machine for a heady trip back to a far more freewheeling, swashbuckling era in weed history than we find ourselves in now. And we'll also hear about Danny's new gig as cultivation section coordinator for the influential and historic Champs Trade Shows. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast

What does it mean to talk about Pride when it comes to cannabis? First and foremost it means celebrating the central role that the LGBTQ+ community has played in the global struggle for weed liberation. Pride also has a special meaning for all of us weed enthusiasts who’ve been stigmatized, criminalized or ostracized for our love of this plant.  Prior to this conversation, I’d never met Laganja Estranja—who made a star turn in 2014 while competing on RuPaul's Drag Race—but I feel like we immediately hit it off and got on the same wavelength in the way weed people often do. So please settle in for the incredible origin story of an overnight weed icon that was actually many years in the making... For more on cannabis and pride, please check out episodes of this podcast about Denis Peron, Brownie Mary and the organization WAMM. 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

Adam Dunn first arrived in Amsterdam as a teenager, and quickly found himself at the center of the city's famed international cannabis scene. In time, Adam would launch his own innovative ventures, including T.H.Seeds, which developed world-famous and award-winning strains including Bubblegum, S.A.G.E., Heavy Duty Fruity, and Chocolate Chunk.  He also started Hempworks, Europe’s first dedicated hemp store, with its influential in-house clothing label. Twenty years after first encountering Adam at the Cannabis Cup, where he was fumigating the room with a modified leaf blower full of weed, Bean sits down for an epic sesh with an old friend about the good old days when Amsterdam was the center of the canna-universe. Check out Adam's podcast The Adam Dunn Show. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

Much how wine, cheese, and other agricultural products are authenticated as coming from their traditional geographic zone of origin, a new program about to launch is California will help old school growers in traditional cultivation communities protect their regional legacies in the world of weed. To explain this exciting new development, we shared a sesh with Genine Coleman, founder and Executive Director of Origins Council, a California nonprofit advocacy, education and research organization dedicated to sustainable economic development for rural cannabis producing regions. Genine has been working directly with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and researchers at Cal Poly Humboldt University to develop and implement a statewide appellation system where local communities can create their own standards and have them recognized nationally and even internationally as legal cannabis sales evolve around the world.  PATREON Please ⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠. Suppo

In 1971, John Lennon performed publicly, for the first time in five years, at a rally decrying the injustice of Michigan police targeting a radical political activist for an elaborate undercover sting operation, resulting in a sentence of ten years in prison for passing two joints. The concert brought massive media attention, and John Sinclair soon after walked out of prison a free man, landing John Lennon on Richard Nixon's official enemies list. For the next three years, the President's "plumbers" harassed the former Beatle and his wife Yoko Ono, while the INS threatened him with deportation over an old hashish bust back in England. Meanwhile the FBI tapped his phones and sent agents to tail his every move. Lennon, Ono, and their legal team fought them every step, and along the way created a new legal precedent in immigration law that still stands as today's DREAM act. Read John Lennon vs. The USA (written by Lennon's immigration attorney Leon Wildes) for more info. Long live Nutopia! PATREON Plea

As our annual celebration of 4/20 rapidly approaches, please roll up and get ready for the incredible true story of how a small Northern California weed crew created an analog meme that grew into an international high holiday of cannabis liberation. But first, we check in with acclaimed journalist David Downs and Lance Lambert from Grove Bags about "weed week" in San Francisco, particularly the "Get to the Bag" art show, which chronicles the fascinating history and subversive artistry of the mylar bags that became industry-standard cannabis packaging for licensed brands and illicit operators alike starting about fifteen years ago. And speaking of 4/20, if you're in Portland on 4/19 please grab tickets to my live show The History of Weed, happening at Kickstand Comedy theater. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show po

Faced with the rare neurodegenerative condition Friedreich's ataxia, John Cernosek decided to become a patient-advocate and write a book about his healing journey with cannabis. He's currently headed to Las Vegas as an invited guest of the National Ataxia Foundation, where he will present an excerpt from his book at their annual conference. This is a huge step for a conference that has never before addressed the issue. John will also be speaking with the hundreds of patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers who attend the conference and generally spreading awareness via his grassroots advocacy group Cannataxia.  I first met John because he's a GMIWH supporter on Patreon, and signed up to do a secret sesh with me over Zoom. As he heads to the desert to spread the good word about medical cannabis, I'm proud to share our original interview from 2023. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus c

Whether rolling up a six-paper-joint or hiding their hashish by making it into a driveway, the Trailer Park Boys have been growing, smoking, and celebrating the herb on their hit TV series for more than 25 years. So when GMIWH sat down with Robb Wells (who plays Ricky), there were more incredible weed stories to share than Randy eats cheeseburgers. So roll up and settle in for the behind-the-scenes origin story of one of the funniest and most heartfelt shows of all time. And as a bonus, your host shares a few TPB stories too, from the time Bean played "Greasy Stoner #1" in an episode, to getting the boys on the cover of High Times, to going to a wrap party held right in the heart of Sunnyvale Trailer Park—one of the most mythical realms in all of Stonerdome. Episode edited by Matthias Junker Grow Your Own: If you want to keep the vibes high, you can acquire some Ricky's Hash Plant seeds from their suppliers at Brothers Grimm Seeds. PATREON Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Support

System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian has won a Grammy and played on multi-platinum selling records, all fueled by the creative boost he gets from cannabis. In fact, he loves the plant so much he started his own brand, 22 Red, and serves as his own quality control expert. We talk about his first puff, the weed dealer who changed his life, the adventure and occasional pot-holes of trying to score good herb while touring the world, discovering sativas in Amsterdam, and why he became an outspoken advocate for legalization way back before that was cool. Check out Shavo's new solo band: Seven Hours After Violet Episode edited by Matthias Junker 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podca

In 1964, in a NYC hotel room, Bob Dylan met the Beatles for the very first time and turned them on to cannabis. Sounds like the stuff of legend and lore, but it really happened, and a rock journalist of the era was on hand to document in detail how the whole sesh went down. For starters, the Beatles made Ringo serve as "royal taster," to see if puffing a joint made him go insane before the others committed to trying it. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

This episode features an outlaw, a fugitive, an inmate, a journalist, a weed dealer, an LSD distributor, a defendant and an accomplished filmmaker. And they’re all the same person. I first started reading Seth Ferranti’s writing back in the late 90s, when he was the official prison correspondent for VICE magazine, while serving a 21 year sentence, after getting busted for possession of 100,000 doses of acid and then jumping bail and living as a fugitive for two years while on the US Marshals’ 15 ‘Most Wanted’ list. And that's just the start of Seth's story.... 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

Ramon Reyes started out selling herb on the streets of NYC as a teenager and subsequently climbed through the ranks of the underground, the gray market and the legal industry to now run a licensed dispensary in the same heavily Dominican neighborhood where he grew up. Along with partner Vlad Bautista, Ramon originally co-founded Happy Munkey as a speakeasy style consumption lounge after a trip to Amsterdam convinced him that the truest expression of weed culture is being able to share the plant with friends and strangers. Now the name Happy Munkey hangs above two of New York City's newest dispensaries, where you can find Ramon right back out on the street, only this time it's to literally open the door and serve as ambassador into the world of legal sales. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE V

In 1999, this week's guest starred in one of the most financially successful films of all time, but the circumstances around the making and marketing of Blair Witch Project meant that her incredible accomplishment actually came with a lot of very steep downsides.  A story that’s briefly chronicled in her memoir: Growgirl: The Blossoming of an Unlikely Outlaw… by Heather Donahue (now known as Rei Hance). On paper, it certainly sounds like a dream come true. You star in a micro budget movie shot for just $60,000 that becomes a $250 million box office smash. But when her star turn struck gold, Rei was both the face of the franchise and fully hidden from sight. It’s a wild story, even by show business standards, but Rei and I talked almost exclusively about weed. Because after she left Hollywood behind, she ended up spending a few years in a place she very lovingly called Nuggettown, a Northern California medical cannabis farm back in the beautiful gray market days of the early 2000s.  Revisiting those days more

Celebrate stony seasonal traditions old and new with our GMIWH Holidaze special. In addition to our annual retelling of the story of Santa's origin as a Siberian psychedelic mushroom shaman, we also enjoy Santa's Secret—a song from the 1940 about St. Nick and his 100 foot long reefer, and revive the seasonal tradition of Jay Thomas telling David Letterman all about the time he got too stoned and then had to drive the Lone Ranger home. Thank you to everyone who listened to the podcast this year and especially those who support the show on Patreon. Please share this episode with a friend and subscribe to the podcast for more Great Moments in Weed History in 2025! 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to ge

Back when cannabis was barely legal, an eco-minded off-the-grid ganja farm strived to create a sustainable vision of decentralized, utopian agrarian life that put people and the planet above profits. Return to a moment in the past full of hope and promise that just might point the way to a greener future for everyone who loves the plant and the culture.  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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

How did a bunch of farmers from Kentucky create the biggest pot growing and smuggling syndicate in American history? We hear that barn burning story straight from Jim Higdon, author of Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code Of Silence And The Biggest Marijuana Bust In American History Music clip in intro: Cornbread Mafia by Sticktight 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

Weed history teaches us to overcome the forces of oppression with the help of our favorite plant ally. In this episode we talk with Dr. Mariana Hoyo, a bright young physician who started out fearing weed because of a bunch of bullshit propaganda, and now has a practice focused on endocannabinology and even teaches classes on the endocannabinoid system at the very same medical school where she once faced shame and stigma for even inquiring about our favorite plant. And who were her first patients in this practice? None other than her own two grandmothers, who both benefited tremendously from this healing herb. And don't that give you some hope... 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly p

Election season anxiety? Take a break from the horserace and travel back to 1970, when the Gonzo author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ran for Sheriff in Colorado on a "free weed" platform as part of the newly formed Freak Power party. Plus, experience a great moment in Bean's personal weed history when he describes a visit to the High Minded Humboldt farmstead for some seasonal agricultural work and oh yeah... a 9-course Moon Swoon infused dinner from Spice of Life Supper Club. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

This episode includes a recently discovered audio tape exposing the War on Marijuana as a total fraud, a state-by-state guide to voting for weed in the 2024 election, an up close look at how Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz legalized cannabis as the governor of Minnesota, and the story of a tireless grassroots activist living off $2 hot dogs at the capitol after getting busted for smoking pot outside a casino, Now, if that all sounds like a lot of strains to keep straight in the old Duder’s head, just trust me, they all intersect in the life of Kurtis Hanna, my guest on this weed’s program. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 120+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

For over fifty years, Michelle and Michael Aldrich have tirelessly advocated for the cannabis plant. A joint life's journey that started when they first met at the first-ever conference hosted by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. How’s that for a weed meet cute?  In this episode, we hear directly from this high-namic duo about how and why they've played a leading role in the cannabis liberation movement since 1972, and what they've got planned next. SEE BEAN PERFORM IN SEATTLE ON OCT 5 Get your tickets now to see a sneak preview of "The History of Weed" hosted by Bean as part of the Dope Show at the Halcyon Brewery. 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. And it truly helps us make the best show possible  EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 120+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podca