i've been pulling what's left of my hair out lately dealing with the film and TV industries. Unlike the music biz, which I'm much more accustomed to, the film and TV worlds are extremely guarded when it comes to accommodating the marijuana magazine of record.
Just finished reading your article "Guerrillas In Our Midst" (Apr. '98) and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the part about drying and curing the season's harvest. As everyone knows, including the police unfortunately, the freezer is the best place to store your stash.
Stephen Gyllenhaal has come a long way since he originally wrote Homegrown a decade ago as a greed'n'weed story. Now that Hollywood has tried to put the brakes on his marijuana movie, he's become an avid pot supporter.
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STEVE BLOOM
"Homegrown" is a popular word these days. There's a punk band and an album by that name, a network devoted to hippie jam bands, a Dutch coffeeshop, a Neil Young song and now a movie, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal of Losing Isiah and A Dangerous Woman fame.
Stoner comics keep 'em laughing at the US Comedy Arts Festival.
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GREGORY DAURER
Tiny Aspen, Colorado is a scenic, upscale shopping mall located beneath powdery slopes that attract jet-set skiers and snowboarders from all over the world. Still, Aspen's not unknown for its counterculture past—after all, Hunter S. Thompson did run for sheriff there nearly three decades ago.
When Pearl Jam's last album, 1996's No Code, sold a mere million-or-so copies, you could almost hear the quintet heave a collective sigh of relief. While the rest of the music industry debated whether the Seattle group was losing its audience, the band itself gladly felt the pressures of megastardom beginning to abate.
D. Wayne Love's Elvis-inspired congregation to the best of a different drum.
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JUSTIN HAMPTON
So far, the credentials of the Very Reverend D. Wayne Love check out quite nicely. As cofounder. DJ and vocalist for the British dance collective A3, he's led his flock from the wilderness of all-night warehouse dance parties to the corporate offices of Geffen Records.
For years, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato couldn't get anyone interested in their idea for a documentary about Michael Alig, the premier architect and ringleader of New York City's oddly celebrated "club kids." Starting out as a busboy at Danceteria (where the filmmakers first met him), Alig rose to dominate downtown nightlife as a high-profile, highly irreverent (and, often, just plain high) scene-maker and professional party promoter.
With a fictional New York City mayor's office as its setting and Michael J. Fox playing the lead role of a slightly obnoxious, self-centered deputy mayor, Spin City (ABC, Wednesdays) is definitely a "political" sitcom. As such, the show attempts to tackle some of the country's hot political issues.
After 10 years of steady growth, the music industry's premier convention, South By Southwest (SXSW), has evolved into what is commonly perceived to be Spring Break for the music biz. During mid-March each year, Austin, TX overflows with industry types pushing their record labels and bands with dozens of showcases and beer-swilling and chip-dip-ping soirees.
Meen Green likes to pose with a cigarette behind his ear, but he's really a weed-head. To dramatize the point, the propot rapper recently went hitchhiking for HEMP (see photo) in San Diego during the Gavin radio convention in February, which he attended to promote his debut album on Patchwerk, The Smoking Section.
The first anniversary issue of HIGH TIMES appeared in the summer of 1975 and featured a cover story on the Alaska Supreme Court's landmark decision to protect the rights of people in the state to use cannabis in the privacy of their own homes.
We all know that potheads have a sweet tooth for chocolate. In fact, receptor sites for THC and chocolate are virtually the same. But it's not often that mainstream companies aggressively target stoners with their confections. Munchies, from Nestle, consists of 12 milk-chocolate squares filled "with soft caramel and crisp biscuit centre," the wrapping explains.
LONDON ANTI-DRUG-WAR MARCH KICKS OFF 1998 PROTEST SEASON
MARCHING FOR A CLEANER UN
GLOBAL ANTI-PROHIBITION WEBSITES
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DEAN LATIMER
LONDON—The 1998 anti-Drug War demonstration season kicked off on the last weekend in March with a massive protest here. The march was originally envisioned as a recreation of Britain's first major legalization rally, the 1967 Free Cannabis parade here, at which a couple thousand youthful hippies stank up Trafalgar Square with hash fumes for the scandalized media.
SAN FRANCISCO—The day the federal government opened its case against the medical-marijuana patients and caregivers of California, March 24, began with a somber prayer breakfast at the Metropolitan Community Church here. Maverick SF District Attorney Terence Hallinan was in attendance along with Assistant DA Keith Vines, an AIDS patient who uses marijuana.
PATIENT JAILED FOR PAIN MEDICINE BECAUSE IT CONFUSES URINE TESTERS
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MICHAEL SIMMONS
LOS ANGELES—Todd McCormick, cancer patient and medical-marijuana activist (HIGH TIMES interview, Dec. '95), was jailed on April 3 after his prescription pain medication caused THC positives on urine tests. McCormick, out on bond in a federal cultivation case, had informed authorities weeks before that he'd gotten a prescription for Marinol, a legal THC-based painkiller.
America's state legislators continue to come up with ingenious ways to prove they are "tough on drugs," but antimarijuana legislation introduced this year in 12 states has had mixed success. A Kansas measure to give 15-year mandatory-minimum sentences for growers of 100 or more plants is most likely dead.
RALEIGH, NC—In yet another ruling against state "drug taxes," the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals here has struck down North Carolina's tax-assessment process as unconstitutional double jeopardy, in a case involving a man convicted on federal cocaine charges.
HEMP-OIL URINALYSIS ACQUITTAL PUTS PIGS-TESTING IN A HARD PLACE
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DEAN LATIMER
NEW YORK CITYߞAn Air Force master sergeant's acquittal on urinalysis-based drug charges has caused the drug-testing industry to gird for a flood of litigation from people who have wrongfully lost their jobs or been denied employment.
CORNWALL, ON—"For the first time in sixty years," Canada's health minister is rejoicing, "Canadian farmers who meet the required provisions can now plan to grow hemp." Ottawa's Health Ministry (which is actually equivalent to a US law-enforcement agency) abruptly kicked the incipient Canadian hemp industry into high gear early last spring, after much delay, just before the April planting season.
MORELOS ANTI-KIDNAP SQUAD IMPLICATED IN KIDNAPPING
JUAREZ CARTEL CO-OPTS ANTI-KIDNAPPING UNIT
THE WAR AT HOME
CLINTON UNVEILS NEW DRUG WAR STRATEGY
APPALACHIA MOONSHINE WARS
A GOOD ONE TO AVOID
DEA AGENT GOES POSTAL
MULTI-BILLION US DOPE INDUSTRY
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BILL WEINBERG
The Tijuana cartel has emerged victorious in the struggle with the Juarez cartel over control of the Guadalajara-based trafficking networks in central Mexico. A new pact between Guadalajara's Caro Quintero family and Tijuana's Arellano Felix brothers creates "the most powerful and sophisticated network for distributing drugs in the United States," a DEA report states.
FIGHTING ZERO TOLERANCE WITH THE OLD 'DUD REEFER' PLOY
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JOE PTAK
SAN MARCOS, TX— Southwest Texas State University junior Bryan Anderson toked a blow for intellectual liberty here last February, challenging the state university system's "zero tolerance" drug policy by sparking up a joint at an impromptu rally in the campus free-speech area.
Rally, demonstration, afternoon picnic and evening concert, sponsored by Oregonians for Personal Privacy 420, to legalize medical marijuana and use by people over 21 in private. For more information, contact OPP 420, PO Box 24715, Eugene, OR 97402; phone (541) 485-4526; e-mail opp@efn.org; Web site www.efn.org/~opp.
Despite the widespread suffering of Gulf War veterans and their families, the Department of Defense and the CIA continue to stonewall on the nature of their exposure to nuclear, chemical and biological poisons during what may have been the most toxic war in US history.
NEW YORK CITY—This November, New Yorkers might find a pot leaf on the ballot when they open the curtains of the voting booth. The logo belongs to the Marijuana Reform Party, whose candidate for governor, Thomas Leighton, drew three percent of the vote for Manhattan Borough President last year, coming in third while spending less than $500.
Regional, national and international organizations dedicated to drug-law reform.
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1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste. 1010 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 483-5500 E-mail: NATLNORML@aol.com (Contact national office for information on local chapters, e.g. Arizona, Northcoast Ohio, Oklahoma, California, etc.) Americans for Medical Rights 1250 Sixth St.
In a backlash to recent gains on the medical-marijuana front, House Republicans are spearheading a “sense of the House” resolution stating that “Marijuana is a dangerous and addictive drug and should not be legalized for medical use.” House Resolution 372—introduced on Feb. 24 by Rep.
The Internet's low-cost, instantaneous communication and its ability to make unlimited information available to an ever-expanding audience is nothing short of a revolution in the people's ability to effect social change. The vast network of drug-law reformers on-line represents a growing army of peace which will ultimately topple the prohibitionist establishment and put an end to America's longest war.
In May 1997, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were on their way to the opening of a special exhibit, "I Want to Take You Higher: The Psychedelic Era," at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. "We got bumped from the induction ceremonies," Kesey told me.
Vancouver, BC's New Seed Brokers: The Amsterdam Cafe
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Jorge Cervantes
Need some Blueberry, Shiva Shanti. Jack Herer or a Northern Lights cross? You can buy them at the Amsterdam Cafe, at the corner of Cambie and West Cordova streets in the Gastown section of Vancouver, British Colombia. Just walk in the front door, step up to the counter and place your order with Karen Watson, the cafe's platinum-blonde co-owner.
Red Mask. Peace & Justice. Los Chinchulines. The Indigenous Revolutionary Anti-Zapatista Movement. Strange names for death squads. In Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, the official government loyal to the long-ruling machine of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is fast losing control.
MARRIED WITH CHILDREN'S DAVID FAUSTINO LIGHTS UP THE BIG SCREEN IN DIRT MERCHANT.
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Dan Skye
Sometimes the gods of cannabis look down upon this world and nudge people into each other's path at the most propitious times. Late last spring they were at it again when David Faustino wandered into 2000 B.C. on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, just when TNT's Rough Cut was setting up to shoot a segment on how product placement happens in the movies.
"Can you deliver?" they asked. "If you've got the money." Steve Slater replied. "Then let's do it." Slater knew he had to move quickly. He had a reputation as the dude who could put all the pieces together, the man with the connections. But it wasn't going to be easy—and he only had 24 hours.
Bonz Malone was just another black 17-year-old entering the dark hole of our corrections system when a counselor at New York City's Riker's Island jail steered him into a journalism program called New Youth Connection. Before long, he jettisoned out of that prison vortex on a magic talent ride.
Michael Aldrich: A full scholarship. I was a debater in high school. In the Midwest, debate is sort of the national sport for boys with glasses. A special breed, you understand. I had traveled a lot during high school to debate tournaments and extemporaneous speaking and oratory events.
We're always interested in seeing what you've got growing. Send pictures. tips and war stories to: Grow America, HIGH TIMES, 235 Park Ave. South, 5th floor, New York, NY 10003. For every picture we put in the magazine, we'll send NORML 25 bucks!
In my Q&A column on the Internet (www.hightimes.com-cultivation questions). I'm always being asked which is the best single light source for cultivation: metal-halide or high-pressure sodium bulbs. The answer is that both will work well throughout the plants' life cycle, but the two kinds work better for different phases of growth.
A major advantage for indoor growers is the ability to manipulate the ratio of night and day. With this ability one can regulate the rate and type of growth by switching between a vegetative-growth light-cycle, 16 to 18 hours of light with six to eight hours of darkness, to a flowering cycle, 13 hours or less light with 11 hours or more of darkness, and vice versa.
Here's a simple, high-yielding hydroponic system for beginners with a low start-up cost.
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ED ROSENTHAL
Twelve years ago I reported on Liz's Garden in a seven-part series in HIGH TIMES. I decided to check in on Liz and see how her garden was doing. Luckily I came just at harvest time and was able to catch the plants at their peak. Liz's garden takes about an hour to set up.
I've been growing indoors for over two years now. A good friend hooked me up with Skunk clones and directions to the best grow store in town. Another friend helped me locate some seed banks on the Internet, and I made a small order of seeds. They came relatively quickly, and I began growing them out.
Welcome to the Trans-High Market Quotations, the premier authority on marijuana prices for the last 24 years. You, the faithful and loyal HIGH TIMES readers, are responsible for the quotes that are placed into the THMQ column. So, do your duty, fire up a monster spliff, rip a few bong hits, read THMQ thoroughly, then grab a pen and paper and write out a list of pot prices in your area.
Is it necessary to enrich the air with CO2? Can you grow good plants without it? Mondoe Stockholm SWEDEN Using light energy to power photosynthesis, plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) gas and water into sugar, releasing free oxygen. In many plants, including cannabis, the amount of CO2 found in the air may determine the photosynthetic rate.
California's chief cannabis crusader has seen it all: the death of his lover from AIDS, the passage of the historic Prop. 215, constant attacks from arch-enemy state AG Dan Lungren and the latest campaign to remove him from leadership of the SF Cannabis Buyer's Club.