Great Moments in Weed History

David Bienenstock
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Jul 16, 2025 • 27min

Meet the Founder of An Iconic 1970s Weed Magazine

Charlotte Parker started Head magazine while working an entry level publishing job at Penthouse, in order to cover the world of weed in depth at a time long before legalization. Looking back at a few covers from those 1970s glory days shows she was well ahead of the curve, with stories like “How to Make Hash Oil in Your Kitchen,” and “Grow the Most Potent Pot Plants Indoors.” Plus, Head featured interviews with the likes of Patti Smith and reviews of the best weed and hash then available. Hear Charlotte tell the whole story, including the rebirth of Head she's currently cultivating.
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Jul 2, 2025 • 1h 21min

How A Weed Outlaw Became The Ultimate Cannabis Connoisseur

After being incarcerated as a teenager for weed, Kevin Jodrey joined the military and trained as a deep sea diver, only to end up conscripted into performing anti-drug interdiction raids out in the middle of the ocean.  From there he slid back into the weed underground, spending the next few decades moving serious weight in from Mexico and joining Northern California’s second wave of off-the-grid growers. Before at last coming out of the cannabis closet and creating yet another new life for himself, this time as an internationally recognized expert on the plant’s cultivation, classification and connoisseurship as co-founder of The Ganjier, a first of its kind sommelier like program for weed.
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Jun 19, 2025 • 1h 4min

High Times, Free Weed, and Home Grown: The Danny Danko Story

From judging the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, to touring Northern California during harvest season, to seshing with the steady stream of growers, dealers, breeders, smugglers, rogues, outlaws, musicians, celebrities, and activists who stopped by the High Times offices in New York City during our illustrious tenure at the mag, Danny Danko and I have shared many incredible adventures in the field.. So lets exhale the bullshit…. inhale some good shit… and jump into the hot box time machine for a heady trip back to a far more freewheeling, swashbuckling era in weed history than we find ourselves in now. And we'll also hear about Danny's new gig as cultivation section coordinator for the influential and historic Champs Trade Shows. PATREON Please ⁠⁠⁠⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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Jun 4, 2025 • 44min

Celebrating Weed, Pride and Weed Pride w/ Laganja Estranja

What does it mean to talk about Pride when it comes to cannabis? First and foremost it means celebrating the central role that the LGBTQ+ community has played in the global struggle for weed liberation. Pride also has a special meaning for all of us weed enthusiasts who’ve been stigmatized, criminalized or ostracized for our love of this plant.  Prior to this conversation, I’d never met Laganja Estranja—who made a star turn in 2014 while competing on RuPaul's Drag Race—but I feel like we immediately hit it off and got on the same wavelength in the way weed people often do. So please settle in for the incredible origin story of an overnight weed icon that was actually many years in the making... For more on cannabis and pride, please check out episodes of this podcast about Denis Peron, Brownie Mary and the organization WAMM. PATREON Please ⁠⁠⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠⁠⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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May 21, 2025 • 1h 28min

A Weed Expat Inhales Amsterdam's Glory Years

Adam Dunn first arrived in Amsterdam as a teenager, and quickly found himself at the center of the city's famed international cannabis scene. In time, Adam would launch his own innovative ventures, including T.H.Seeds, which developed world-famous and award-winning strains including Bubblegum, S.A.G.E., Heavy Duty Fruity, and Chocolate Chunk.  He also started Hempworks, Europe’s first dedicated hemp store, with its influential in-house clothing label. Twenty years after first encountering Adam at the Cannabis Cup, where he was fumigating the room with a modified leaf blower full of weed, Bean sits down for an epic sesh with an old friend about the good old days when Amsterdam was the center of the canna-universe. Check out Adam's podcast The Adam Dunn Show. PATREON Please ⁠⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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May 7, 2025 • 52min

How 'Appellations' Will Put Cannabis on Par With Champagne

Much how wine, cheese, and other agricultural products are authenticated as coming from their traditional geographic zone of origin, a new program about to launch is California will help old school growers in traditional cultivation communities protect their regional legacies in the world of weed. To explain this exciting new development, we shared a sesh with Genine Coleman, founder and Executive Director of Origins Council, a California nonprofit advocacy, education and research organization dedicated to sustainable economic development for rural cannabis producing regions. Genine has been working directly with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and researchers at Cal Poly Humboldt University to develop and implement a statewide appellation system where local communities can create their own standards and have them recognized nationally and even internationally as legal cannabis sales evolve around the world.  PATREON Please ⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible. EPISODE ARCHIVE Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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Apr 23, 2025 • 1h 4min

John Lennon's Hash Bust Set Off an Immigration Battle for the Ages

In 1971, John Lennon performed publicly, for the first time in five years, at a rally decrying the injustice of Michigan police targeting a radical political activist for an elaborate undercover sting operation, resulting in a sentence of ten years in prison for passing two joints. The concert brought massive media attention, and John Sinclair soon after walked out of prison a free man, landing John Lennon on Richard Nixon's official enemies list. For the next three years, the President's "plumbers" harassed the former Beatle and his wife Yoko Ono, while the INS threatened him with deportation over an old hashish bust back in England. Meanwhile the FBI tapped his phones and sent agents to tail his every move.Lennon, Ono, and their legal team fought them every step, and along the way created a new legal precedent in immigration law that still stands as today's DREAM act. Read John Lennon vs. The USA (written by Lennon's immigration attorney Leon Wildes) for more info. Long live Nutopia! PATREONPlease support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.EPISODE ARCHIVEVisit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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Apr 9, 2025 • 1h 28min

4/20 Special : Mylar Bag Art Show + "How The Waldos Created a High Holiday"

As our annual celebration of 4/20 rapidly approaches, please roll up and get ready for the incredible true story of how a small Northern California weed crew created an analog meme that grew into an international high holiday of cannabis liberation. But first, we check in with acclaimed journalist David Downs and Lance Lambert from Grove Bags about "weed week" in San Francisco, particularly the "Get to the Bag" art show, which chronicles the fascinating history and subversive artistry of the mylar bags that became industry-standard cannabis packaging for licensed brands and illicit operators alike starting about fifteen years ago.And speaking of 4/20, if you're in Portland on 4/19 please grab tickets to my live show The History of Weed, happening at Kickstand Comedy theater. PATREONPlease support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.EPISODE ARCHIVEVisit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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Mar 26, 2025 • 51min

"Weed brings slack to the ever-tightening vice inside my body."

Faced with the rare neurodegenerative condition Friedreich's ataxia, John Cernosek decided to become a patient-advocate and write a book about his healing journey with cannabis. He's currently headed to Las Vegas as an invited guest of the National Ataxia Foundation, where he will present an excerpt from his book at their annual conference. This is a huge step for a conference that has never before addressed the issue.John will also be speaking with the hundreds of patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers who attend the conference and generally spreading awareness via his grassroots advocacy group Cannataxia. I first met John because he's a GMIWH supporter on Patreon, and signed up to do a secret sesh with me over Zoom. As he heads to the desert to spread the good word about medical cannabis, I'm proud to share our original interview from 2023.PATREONPlease support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.EPISODE ARCHIVEVisit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.
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Mar 12, 2025 • 1h 1min

The Trailer Park Boys— 'Baked on a True Story'

Whether rolling up a six-paper-joint or hiding their hashish by making it into a driveway, the Trailer Park Boys have been growing, smoking, and celebrating the herb on their hit TV series for more than 25 years. So when GMIWH sat down with Robb Wells (who plays Ricky), there were more incredible weed stories to share than Randy eats cheeseburgers.So roll up and settle in for the behind-the-scenes origin story of one of the funniest and most heartfelt shows of all time. And as a bonus, your host shares a few TPB stories too, from the time Bean played "Greasy Stoner #1" in an episode, to getting the boys on the cover of High Times, to going to a wrap party held right in the heart of Sunnyvale Trailer Park—one of the most mythical realms in all of Stonerdome.Episode edited by Matthias JunkerGrow Your Own: If you want to keep the vibes high, you can acquire some Ricky's Hash Plant seeds from their suppliers at Brothers Grimm Seeds. PATREONPlease support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.EPISODE ARCHIVEVisit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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