Pubdate: Wed, 21 Apr 2004
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2004 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Peter Carlson / Washington Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

WHOA! LIKE, UH... HAPPY 30TH, UM... HIGH TIMES

MAN, the news from Iraq is, like, a major bummer. Read the mainstream press 
and all you get is bombings, murders, uprisings, riots and hostages. 
Fortunately, one publication dares to print the news that won't kill your buzz.

That publication is High Times, the marijuana magazine now celebrating its 
30th anniversary. And the news is this: There's plenty of weed in the new 
liberated Iraq.

"There are few laws in Iraq right now," writes Dave Enders, High Times' man 
in Baghdad, "so although drug possession was punishable by death before, 
you can now pass a spliff openly in front of the cops."

Which may not, come to think of it, be exactly the kind of freedom that 
President Bush envisioned for Iraq.

Enders, a freelancer from Michigan, covers more than just the dope scene in 
Baghdad. He also writes about U.S. soldiers and the nutty do-gooders who've 
swarmed into Iraq and about Hamid, "a 26-year-old 
translator/bodyguard/heavy-metal fan." Hamid was an Iraqi soldier until he 
deliberately shot himself in the leg to avoid fighting the Americans and 
now smokes weed and writes protest lyrics set to the tune of Another Brick 
In The Wall, Pt. 2 by Pink Floyd: "We don't need no occupation, We don't 
need no CPA... "

"The desire to leave," Enders concludes, "is the only thing U.S. soldiers 
and Iraqis have in common." Enders' entertaining piece is a good example of 
High Times' new editorial policy -- less dope, more reality. High Times 
still covers the weed -- and runs full-colour centerfolds of voluptuous pot 
buds -- but since January it has expanded its coverage of the rest of the 
world. In recent issues, High Times has published articles on prostitution, 
bike messengers, comedian Dave Chappelle, a Colombian guerrilla, singer Ani 
DiFranco, education reform and a piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger by Pulitzer 
Prize-winning reporter Gary Webb.

"The idea is to elevate the argument instead of just preaching to the 
converted," says Richard Stratton, High Times' new publisher and editor in 
chief. "We want to attract new readers, including people who might not 
smoke pot."

But this new, improved High Times is not universally popular in the 
stoned-out-of-their-mind community. One irate subscriber, who described 
himself as "a 51-year-old retired ironworker," wrote a letter to the editor 
lambasting the new mag as "a collection of useless rhetoric." Another, who 
called himself "Fast Eddie," wrote: "This is sabotage."

To keep its baked base happy, High Times has launched a spinoff magazine, 
Grow America, a bimonthly that's a lot like the old High Times -- packed 
with tips on how to grow pot and recipes for such illicit delicacies as 
"Chef Ra's Blueberry Ganja Muffins." There are also lots of pictures of the 
weed, pictures that are very popular with readers who may be too stoned to 
actually, you know, read.

"We sometimes call it a form of pot pornography," says Steve Bloom, the 
15-year High Times veteran who now runs Grow America. "If you're a little 
high and you just want to look at pretty pictures, you can get fixated on 
the centerfold and you take out a magnifying glass and look at all those 
snowy flakes -- that's the resin, that's what gets you stoned. People like 
to look at that."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager