Table of contents for Q1 2026 in High Times

THE MEGAPHONER One minute this plant is a scraggly weed growing in the ditch by the side of a road or on the bank of a creek, the next it’s being sold to us as the new agricultural juggernaut—bigger than wheat, sexier than corn, the sixth largest cash crop in the U.S. and more dangerous than heroin (or so they say in Washington). We know better. We know it’s truly a healing herb that has become a 30-plus-billion-dollar civic religion of smoke and mirrors, with happy shopkeepers peddling their version of joy to the masses. Well, Americans can’t just love something. We have to mangle it, throttle it, slap warning labels all over it, treat it like toxic nuclear waste, and then regulate the shit out of it. We outlaw…

Here’s the deal: we talked to nine stoner girls who joined us on this wild Very Happy trip hosted by En Volá in Ushuaia, Argentina—the literal end of the world. Eighty-three weed lovers, ten vans, grow associations, a substrate factory tour, a sunset catamaran to watch the sea lions, with everyone high-key blasted… you get the vibe. And yes, the cannabis community still skews dude, but down here the girls were thriving: comfy, seen, supported, loud, soft, weird. The whole she-bang. So we asked each one the question: What can’t you leave the house without? What is the one (or two, or five, because pockets hate us) thing that absolutely must go in your purse, or the whole mission falls apart? THIS IS THE STONER GIRL SURVIVAL KIT. LET’S UNZIP.…

This year pulled me across Europe with a simple intention: move, observe, and follow the plant wherever it was reshaping itself. New regulations are taking hold, young growers are stepping forward, and cannabis is entering a different cultural register—quieter in some places, defiantly alive in others. Documenting that shift became its own kind of participation. Through the lens, I watched a new chapter form in real time, trying to understand not just how the plant grows here, but how it is being welcomed, reshaped, and reimagined. MALLORCA, BALEARIC ISLANDS The Balearic Islands are defined by light. Dry air, warm wind, long days. A near-perfect environment for a hemp harvest tucked deep in the interior. You could smell dried grass drifting across the field as workers lifted water leaves by hand.…

“YOU'VE TAKEN control of your life when you decide when, where, and what you smoke,” Rick Ross says. Not posturing, not flexing. Just his take on success. A measurement you can feel in your calendar and your wallet, in whether the day belongs to you or whether you are still borrowing space inside somebody else’s rules. That definition makes it pretty clear why he has so little patience for dispensary weed. Before any of it gets unpacked, he does what he always does. A match from a small box, one scrape, that half-second paperand-sulfur snap and the cherry catches. The joint is burning. Tips tap for a quick cheers. The smell gets its due, and Ross answers like he is closing the loop on something already settled: “Without a doubt.…

The world used to pretend weed was a dude thing… cute. But stoner girls have always been here; rolling, sparking, sharing, passing, laughing, and living deliciously high. We are not the sidekicks, the giggling “pick me”, or the “chill girlfriend” holding the grinder. Now, attention is shifting, and who gets to be in the spotlight is being redefined. The modern weed era is finally featuring women who are shaking up the 420 culture: the growers with resin on their fingers, the scientists flipping stereotypes on their heads, the activists fighting for safe access, the stylish queens whose purses carry lipstick, a lighter, and the future of this industry. Stories of women cultivators, legal pioneers, and company founders are becoming more common, both shaping and reflecting the market. And brands and…

Once again, the opportunity to share my garden with the world brings me pure joy! It’s been almost 35 years since the first time a garden of mine appeared in High Times. Written by Nate Eaton, the story was titled “The Blindfolded Hostage Headroll”. It led to a trilogy of stories with Adam’s Garden making the centerfold, and eventually the cover. Pictures for these stories and nearly every story I wrote over 20 years for High Times were shot by Andre Grossmann. His pictures made the bright colored leaves and pistils so alive you could almost smell them. Over the years, we have travelled around this country and several others, producing feature stories for the monthly magazine. One of High Times’ most prolific and greatest photographers became one of my…

INTERVIEWING THE TORCHES TEAM FELT LIKE TALKING TO ONE PERSON THROUGH FOUR DIFFERENT VOICES. First came José, the license holder and big-picture hustler from Jamaica, Queens. Then Jonathan Santana, a former financial advisor who walked away from banking to bet on weed. Pedro Antonio pops in as the Colombian “spice” of the crew—half strategist, half hype man. And then there’s William Evans, the “honorary Dominican” and in-house buyer, juggling the call while checking on his sick daughter. They start the way a lot of good New York weed stories begin: in two languages, with jokes and a little biography. “We’re all Dominican,” Jonathan says. “And I’m Colombian,” Pedro adds. “Got a little Colombian spice.” Pedro explains how he was born in the U.S., sent back to Colombia as a kid,…

Scan to view the full list of The Top 100 Nug Shots on the High Times website. We are always collecting, sharing, featuring nug shots across the HT ecosystem. Send em if you got em to us at 420@hightimes.com with subject line “NUG SHOTS”…

As a reporter at the Bergen Record, I found myself straight out of journalism school employed by the second-largest daily circulation newspaper in New Jersey, one fat with advertising from Paramus shopping centers. I wore a suit, the uniform of being a staff writer for mainstream media. But in 1974, I published a story on how readers’ neighbors were growing marijuana in their backyards. It was complete with instructions on how to grow your own and was accompanied by a photo of a marijuana leaf on the front page. The Record (“Friend of the People It Serves”) touted itself as a family-friendly newspaper, and the irate letters and home delivery cancellations poured in immediately. Still, my editors and the publisher supported my work, and I could have had a long…

The purse has not always been the fashion-obsessed, mystery-filled sidekick it is today. Its history is basically a travelogue through women’s evolving freedom. Handbags as we know them only took shape toward the late 19th century, shifting from delicate reticules meant to hold perfume or a fan (and definitely not money, because men controlled the cash back then) into practical, structured bags that snapped shut and offered privacy and independence. Before that evolution, women relied on “tie-on pockets” —separate little pouches worn under skirts and accessed through slits in the fabric, because our clothing didn’t include functional, built-in pockets like men’s garments did. And honestly, who are we kidding? It’s 2025 and women’s clothes still treat pockets like mythical creatures. As gals started moving more freely in public, taking trains,…

Hunter had just finished breakfast as the sun wiggled over the horizon. I was perched across from the outlaw journalist at his sprawling Colorado ranch when he said, “One thing I’ve always been very good at is choosing friends.” We were having the kind of stripped-to-the-essence conversation that you wish could last forever. The occasion was the author’s last HIGH TIMES interview, and I had him cornered at his kitchen command post. We were leaning into each other, rapping—among other things—about election conspiracies, the absence of heart in modern journalism, and his friendship with conservative politician Pat Buchanan, a phenomenon that had always puzzled me. “The thing I like about Pat Buchanan is that he’s a very fair person,” said Hunter. “And that’s a word I’ve been thinking a lot about…

Let’s all get high, or at least admit we are all already in some kind of drug-induced altered state. It is time to embrace, soberly and constructively, this fact of life. Nearly everyone’s on some kind of drug. Coffee, alcohol, cannabis, prescriptions, tobacco, psychedelics—psychoactive drugs are ubiquitous in American society today. Distinctions between illegal and legal drugs are crumbling now as well, as recreational and medicinal uses of various drugs expand in popularity and become more and more acceptable by a wider swath of the American public. Drugs are deeply ingrained in the fabric of everyday life these days and, despite some current setbacks, have a bright future ahead. The future that is so bright does not simply refer to recreational use of psychedelic drugs, and the vast economic networks…

Nearly 90% of Americans—including majorities of Democrats and Republicans—say that marijuana should be legal for either medical or adult use. Yet far too often, lawmakers choose to either ignore this constituency or treat them with outright hostility. In several Republican-led states, lawmakers are actively fighting to overturn voters’ decisions on cannabis policy, while in Democratic-led states, lawmakers are undermining existing legalization markets by drastically hiking marijuana-related taxes. For example, Republican lawmakers in South Dakota spearheaded legislation this spring to repeal the state’s medical cannabis access law, despite 70% of voters having approved it. The measure failed, but only by a single vote. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case in Nebraska, where state officials and the governor set aside several of the core components of the state’s voter-initiated medical cannabis access law,…