HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ 1/HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ.iso/drugs/high.times.turns.20

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-06 | 5.3 KB

From: [e-mail] (Anthony Beard)
Newsgroups: alt.hemp,alt.drugs
Subject: HIGH TIMES ARTICLE IN LOCAL NEWSPAPER
Date: 15 May 1994 15:39:09 -0400
Message-ID: <2r5tot$[e-mail]>

I ran across this article several weeks ago and I felt like sharing it with
all you other netters, tokers, or whatever.  It's an article talking about the
last 20 years of High Times and its readers. At first I was shocked that the
Philly Daily News would print it, but the writer is from Associated Press
so I would assume that other newspapers printed the article as well.

At any rate, to those who haven't read it or wish to, it's below.



-------------
Quoted without permission, Philadelphia Daily News, Thursday April 28, 1994.

"AFTER 20 YEARS, MAG STILL TOKINU HIGH ROAD"
-By Larry McShane, Associated Press
*******************************************************************************
   NEW YORK- It's been more than a decade since Nancy Reagan first told America
to just say no, 25 years since Woodstock, and Keith Richards is on the wrong
side of 50.
   Signs of the times? Not at High Times, where the counterculture lives on
- and still inhales.
   As the magazine marks its own milestone - 20 years of publishing - High
Times still covers marijuana ... and growing marijuana ... and the price of
marijuana ... and, well, you get the idea.
   "We have always kept true to our grass roots," said publisher John
Holmstrom.  "We didn't turn into a culture magazine like Rolling Stone.  Our
role is the same as it was in the mid-'70s, the mid-'80s."
   Unlike Rolling Stone, the perception IS the reality at High Times:
Cannabis is king at this publication.
   The magazine debuted on June 2, 1974 - the year of Patti Hearst's
kidnapping and Richard Nixon's resignation.  Its founder was Tom Forcade, a
charter member of the Yippies with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
   It hasn't been all smooth smoking in the years since.  High times was
banned for content in Canada and Iraq.  There were hits from the government
over advertising, a backlash from the war on drugs, an increasingly
conservative America in the 1980s, and its own lack of direction.
   Boosted in part by a new generation of musicians who back marijuana law
reform, High Times is again flourishing.   The magazine now sells 200,000
copies per month - down from its haze-day of the mid-1970s, but a solid
base.
   "They have clearly stuck to their ideals," said Allen St. Pierre,
assistant national director of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws.
   "All the other magazines of the time - Head, Party Time, Buzz - turned
into rags.  High Times was never a rag."
   Or a mainstream magazine.  Recent articles have included "Outdoor
Megaweed in Minnesota," "Tips For Not Getting Caught Outdoors" - a
cautionary piece for home growers - and "Prof. Afghani's Guide to Curing
Cannabis."
   February featured a five-page spread on "The Battle for Medical
Marijuana" and an update on Brett Kimberlin, the Indianapolis pot dealer who
claims he sold to ex-veep Dan Quayle.  In April, Beavis and Butt-head
grabbed the cover - dressed in hippie garb, smoking a couple of joints.
   The magazine quickly  carved a niche in the mid-'70s with its cutting
-edge journalism and dedication to legalization.  It was an early home for
Tom Robbins, whose "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues: was excerpted in High
Times, and Larry "Ratso" Sloman, now best known as Howard Stern's co-author.
   After Forcade's 1978 suicide, things got a little shaky at High Times.
The magazine ventured into harder drugs and psychedelics, alienating some of
its core readership and damaging its reputation.
   Marijuana - and readership - made a comeback when Steven Hager arrived
as executive editor in 1986.
   Although the magazine today is leaner - 12 full time writers and five
part-timers, down from a 50 person writing staff in the '70s - High Times
was nominated in 1992 for a MagazineWeek award for editorial excellence.
   The monthly's typical reader is male, in his 20s, with some college
education.  One more thing: He's a toker.  Nine out of 10 who answered a
survey said they smoke pot.
   The politics include the promotion of hemp for other uses - clothes,
paper, construction - and a constant focus on medical marijuana.  Glaucoma
patients, people with AIDS and a paraplegic with muscle spasms are among the
people profiled in a spread on pot as a medicine.
   The magazine is a loose place to work.
   Music editor Steve Bloom recalls smoking a fat joint in his office
during an interview with rapper Redman.  And about drug testing for new
staffers: "We always joke, 'If you don't flunk the test, you don't get the
job,'" said Hager.  Pot-smoking is not actually a prerequisite; support of
decriminalization is.
   One major reason for the magazine's resurgence, particularly with young
readers, is its links to the new wave of pro-pot musicians.
   The new bands appeal to younger readers, but the High Times brain trust
says a lot of the older ones are still around.  They might be suprised by
one thing: Although it may never be respectable, High Times is increasingly
respected.
   It's day and night now with how people view High Times," Holmstrom
said.  "People now respect us for sticking to our ideals, for fighting the
good fight all the time."(EOF)
--
"Good words do not last long unless they amount to something."
                    -Chief "Joseph" Inmuttooyahlatlat, 1877