Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
Source: Salon.com (US Web)
Copyright: 2000 Salon.com
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Author: Colin Moynihan

POT SHOTS

Two Hot Marijuana Magazines Are Threatening High Times'
Hegemony.

Decades after its founding in 1974 by a political activist and former
marijuana dealer named Tom Forcade, High Times magazine was a
weird place to work.

Forcade, who started the monthly with proceeds from pot sales,
was known as an exacting editor who frequently fired writers and
killed stories, sometimes without warning or explanation. But during
its tumultuous years High Times magazine also earned a reputation as a
standard-bearer of anti-establishment journalism. In its heyday in the
mid- and late-1970s, the magazine ran stories about the dismissal of
Carter administration drug czar Peter Bourne (who was rumored to have
used cocaine) and refuted widespread myths that marijuana fields were
being sprayed with a dangerous chemical called paraquat. As a result
of such reporting High Times received frequent national attention; its
contributors were viewed by many as subversive anti-heroes.

In 1978, at the height of the magazine's notoriety, Forcade
killed himself in his New York home with a single shot from a
pearl-handled revolver. In the years following his death, politics at
High Times became even more byzantine, as those left behind struggled
for editorial control. By the mid-'80s, the circulation of the
magazine had dropped to an all-time low. It has since risen to just
over 200,000, High Times sources say (the magazine is not audited by
the Publishers Information Bureau). High Times, they are quick to add,
has never been more stable or successful.

But now High Times' hegemony in the world of pot publications is being
challenged. Next week, Heads, a new magazine run by former High Times
editor Paul DeRienzo, will attempt to lure readers away from its
rivals with what its founder described as a broader and more
intellectual editorial formula. Meanwhile, Cannabis Culture, a
5-year-old Vancouver, British Columbia, dope magazine, has published a
series of new articles and editorials assailing High Times, accusing
the older magazine of corruption and complacency.

The popular stereotype of marijuana smokers and advocates portrays
them as a mellow bunch, interested mainly in kicking back and getting
high. But as editors, writers and photographers involved with High
Times, Cannabis Culture and Heads recently discussed the imminent
three-way battle of the pot publishing industry, their attitudes were
anything but easygoing. Many who spoke hastened to point out
shortcomings of the others. Few seemed inclined to pass a peace pipe.

At stake in this competition is the attention of the 20 million to 30
million Americans who the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML) estimates regularly smoke pot. Most of these
are believed to be young men -- in other words, prime advertising
targets, all the more desirable because of their presumed disposable
income. After all, anyone able to afford ounces of pricey pot (ranging
from $150 for garden variety to $500 for primo bud) must be able to
spend money on other things, too.

At least that's the hope of those who pay High Times up to $6,670 and
Cannabis Culture up to $1,700 for pages in which to advertise hookahs
and water pipes, drug-test kits, books ("Pot Stories for the Soul" or
"Aunt Mary Jane's Baking with Pot"), expert legal advice for victims
of drug busts and citizenship in the United Nation of Rastafari (a
"non-territorial, ecclesiastical sovereign nation").

For people offering such products and services, ads in pot magazines
can reach an audience that is not available through more mainstream
publications. "Many people who might be interested in us read High
Times and Cannabis Culture," said a representative of the Quebec Seed
Bank, who declined to give his full name. Advertisements for the
Quebec Seed Bank, which show silver goblets overflowing with what
appear to be marijuana buds, run regularly in both magazines. The
representative pointed out that the readership of High Times and
Cannabis Culture is greater than the number of subscribers because
copies are typically shared by several readers. "They are the main
magazines for our market," he added. "And the ads have been effective."

But magazines such as High Times and Cannabis Culture are fearful that
they may soon be censored, in part because of such ads. According to
Cannabis Culture editor Dana Larsen, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of
2000, which has already been passed by both the U.S. House of
Representatives and Senate, was amended in mid-June to include the
Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. That act aims to censor
information on manufacture of banned substances. In addition, Larsen
says, the Senate's Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act and the House's Club
Drug Anti-Proliferation Act (HR 4553) were introduced in late May as
identical bills. They would increase the penalties for possession and
manufacture of MDMA and GHB, and allocate millions of dollars for more
police and for "school and community-based anti-ecstasy classes." The
acts, Larsen says, would also ban "information pertaining to the
manufacture, acquisition or use of a controlled substance."

The threat to the pot magazines is clear. In a story about the
legislation in the current Cannabis Culture, Larsen wrote: "This
provision would ban magazines like Cannabis Culture, pot grow books
and even private conversation on how to grow buds." He went on to
write, "The bill also bans advertising of 'illegal drug
paraphernalia,'" and pointed out that "[t]his targets the advertising
base of most pro-pot magazines."

Cannabis Culture, an 80-page bimonthly that claims a circulation of
about 70,000, originated as an advertising vehicle. It was begun as
Cannabis Canada in 1995 by Marc Emery, a Canadian pot-seed impresario
with a profitable mail-order business. To this day, Emery's seed
listings, which subsidize Cannabis Culture, take up 10 pages at the
front of the magazine, coming before even the masthead and table of
contents. For three years the magazine was distributed only in Canada,
but starting in summer 1998, the name was changed and it was also
shipped to the United States, where it began competing with High
Times. The two are often displayed side by side at newsstands.

It wasn't long before the upstart began taking aim at its more
venerable rival. In its January/February issue, Cannabis Culture
published a short piece questioning whether High Times was holding
back money that was supposed to go to NORML. Larsen wrote later that
when the piece was published on the Web, he was inundated with angry
e-mails from High Times staffers who insisted that the story consisted
of "idiotic rumors" and a "bundle of lies."

In his next issue, Larsen expanded the controversial piece. He wrote
that when Forcade started High Times, he stipulated that half the
profits of the magazine were to be given to NORML. Larsen also
reported that a NORML official, Keith Stroup, stonewalled a Cannabis
Culture writer who called to discuss the charges. Allen St. Pierre,
the executive director of the NORML Foundation told Salon that the
organization had looked into the matter. "NORML has no dispute with
High Times," St. Pierre said. "We're satisfied that they don't owe us
millions of dollars."

Also in the March/April issue was a story about the Cannabis Cup, an
annual pot competition in Amsterdam. The contest is sponsored by High
Times, which issues $200 judging passes to anyone interested in
smoking free weed and voting on its merits. In that story, Cannabis
Culture writer Pete Brady took High Times to task for commercializing
what he wrote had begun years before as a simple harvest celebration
and alleged that voting had been rigged.

The attacks continued in the May/June issue of Cannabis Culture, which
criticized High Times for publishing ads that hawk fake pot (Cannabis
Culture staffers ordered some of the bogus weed through the mail and
subjected it to lab tests) and ran an editorial chiding High Times for
promoting a cultivation guide called "Pot for Pennies," which gave
readers directions on how to build a cheap hydroponic growing system.
The editorial contended that the book erred so much on the side of
frugality that the described growing system could easily cause
electrocution or a fire.

During a recent conversation, Larsen denied having an ax to grind,
saying that there's plenty of room for his magazine and High Times to
coexist. He also resisted analyzing High Times, at first saying only
"I think that they could be better." But his feeling became more clear
when he was asked to identify what made his magazine different than
High Times.

"We're willing to take more risks than they are," Larsen said. "We're
faster, we're more political, and we consistently beat them on
stories." He went on to describe High Times as moribund. "As you get
older, you're less likely to rock the boat," Larsen said. "People who
have been around for 20 or 30 years have a lot to lose and what
becomes most valuable to them is money and security."

Larsen said that this attitude has caused High Times to become
disconnected from readers. Referring to the fake pot ads, he said:
"They suck. I would never buy ads like that. And when High Times ran
those ads it lost them credibility and cost them money."

When contacted by Salon, High Times editor Steve Hager would not speak
by telephone and asked that questions be sent to him. Responding by
e-mail, Hager did not mince words while dismissing the accusations
made by his antagonists. Calling Cannabis Culture a "seed catalogue
with aspirations of being a magazine," Hager wrote "We deny the
allegations and despise the alligators," and, referring to Cannabis
Culture, added: "They want to hitch their wagon to our star. What
little they know about marijuana they learned from us. Their need for
publicity causes them to say anything to get attention." And while the
many ads for imitation marijuana in High Times may have outraged the
staff of Cannabis Culture, Hager wrote that the fake contraband does
not fool readers. Similarly, Hager brushed aside the critique of the
cultivation guide as "a tempest in a teapot."

Still, Cannabis Culture has continued to take pot shots at High Times.
In the current issue is a triumphant announcement that Ed Rosenthal --
known to marijuana lovers far and wide as a pot-cultivation expert,
who for 20 years wrote a column for High Times -- has defected to
Cannabis Culture.

Asked why Rosenthal jumped ship, High Times publisher Jim Ski
responded in an e-mail message: "The quality and originality of Ed's
work was depreciating severely, while his demands appreciated. Ed felt
he was entitled to partial ownership of the company. These factors
resulted in a parting of the ways between Ed and High Times."

Rosenthal agreed that there was a dispute over whether he was entitled
to a share of the trust that ran High Times. But he defended the
quality of the work he had done for the magazine. "There's a bit of
jealousy there," he said, responding to Ski's description. "No matter
how many times they polished the mirror on the wall, it told them that
I wrote the most popular feature in the magazine. My writing is
primary rather than derivative, which is more than many of them can
say."

Although some former and current High Times staffers seem happy to
exchange insults, DeRienzo, who worked as the managing editor of High
Times for seven months in 1998, says he prefers to remain above the
fray. While Hager wrote that he was fired because of blown deadlines
and low sales, DeRienzo had little interest in discussing the
circumstances of his departure.

"I've got nothing negative to say," he said recently as he sat in his
East Village, N.Y., apartment looking over the proofs for the 96-page
debut issue of Heads. "High Times and I just weren't a good fit."

DeRienzo, who worked as a news reporter at WBAI, a New York community
radio station, from 1988 to 1998 and covered such stories as the
Tompkins Square riot of 1989 and the eviction of squatters from a row
of city-owned buildings on East 13th Street in 1995 said he was
looking forward to editing a more varied range of stories than he had
at High Times.

"We will have a cooler appeal," he said as invoices from writers and
photographers printed out across the room onto a long scroll of
perforated paper. "And a more mature and intelligent readership. They
will be interested not just in smoking but also in the vast issues
raised by the counterculture." DeRienzo explained that Heads would
begin as a bimonthly and switch to monthly publication in the fall,
then flipped through his proofs, pointing out stories on Napster,
genetically engineered food and racial profiling. There was also a
story about the Chinese religious movement Falun Gong, which DeRienzo
said was particularly interesting to Patrick Hamaoui, a Lebanese
businessman who funds Heads.

DeRienzo said that his magazine and High Times would differ not only
in their editorial content, but in the ads they carried. Among the ads
scheduled to run in the first issue of Heads were ones for organic
soap, clothing made of hemp and vegetarian snacks. DeRienzo picked up
an issue of High Times and flipped through it to illustrate the
contrast. He stopped at an ad for an electronic urinating device
designed to beat drug tests. It showed a man holding a plastic cup
beneath a tube that dangled from the fly of his jeans. "There's stuff
that they'll show that we won't show," DeRienzo said. "You can think
of the difference between High Times and Heads as being pretty much
the same as the difference between Hustler and Playboy. I like my
approach better, but there's room for both."

Others agree that there's room for more than one pot magazine and some
even think the existence of a few will create healthy competition.
John Penley is a photographer whose pictures have appeared in all
three daily New York newspapers and many other publications. A few
weeks ago he took pictures of Hells Angel Sonny Barger for an upcoming
issue of Heads. He's also worked for High Times, photographing the
1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and in 1990
documenting a violent clash between Mohawk Indians and Canadian police
in Oka, Quebec. While Hager wrote that he's never heard of Penley, the
photographer said that he was banned for life from High Times after he
leaked word of DeRienzo's dismissal to Page Six editors at the New
York Post.

"High Times has gotten a free ride for a long time," Penley said on a
recent evening as he stood outside a newsstand on Avenue A waiting to
buy an early edition of the next day's Post. "There was only one
pot magazine around and they were like a 300-pound gorilla. They
intimidated people and acted like arrogant jerks because they felt
like they had a monopoly." Penley mentioned that he was a veteran of
the pot-legalization movement. In 1978, using the name John Ganga, he
organized the first ever smoke-in at the University of Florida at
Gainesville. Later he organized similar events in Atlanta and at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Ultimately, no matter what happens with these magazines the pot
movement is going to be the winner," he said. "Having three voices
instead of one means that more points of view will be expressed. All
three magazines will be forced, because of competition, to produce
better work. And that's the point of having a free press."

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About the writer Colin Moynihan has written for the New Yorker,
Outside, the Wall Street Journal and Metropolis. He is a regular
contributor to the New York Times.
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