For the Culture By The Culture. ISSN: 3064-9331.
Pot Culture Magazine reviews The Curse of Lono, Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman’s savage Hawaiian collision of marathon reporting, drug-fueled chaos, colonial history, and Gonzo mythology. The new Simon & Schuster hardcover exposes a reporter still capable of brilliance, an artist unwilling to excuse him, and a legend already consuming the man who created it.
Before dispensaries, cannabis slang helped buyers and sellers talk without saying weed. Code Words traces the underground language of marijuana from Louis Armstrong’s “muggles” and Mezz Mezzrow’s “mezzrolls” to dime bags, lids, pizza, T-shirts, and 420, revealing how prohibition created a private vocabulary that legalization is slowly erasing from cultural memory.
A hard edged remembrance of Hunter S. Thompson that treats Gonzo as method, not costume, then drags that standard into the modern weed era. From political press pack corruption to the hypocrisy baked into cannabis legislation, this piece calls out the polite liars, the soft coverage, and the institutions that criminalized millions before trying to profit from “progress.”
In Part Two of our exclusive interview with former High Times Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Simunek, the conversation turns raw. From outlaw growers and underground legends to lost friends and a culture gutted by greed, Simunek reflects on the rise and fall of cannabis journalism. This is not nostalgia. This is what the movement lost when legalization cashed in.
Cheech Marin turned weed money into a monument. The Cheech isn’t just a museum, it’s a cultural counterpunch, a stoned out cathedral built for the artists the art world ignored. No permission, no filter, no apologies. This is the untold story of how one rebel flipped the script, lit the fuse, and made Chicano art impossible to erase.
In this exclusive interview, Chris Simunek, former Editor-in-Chief of High Times, reflects on the outlaw era of cannabis culture when speaking up about weed was a risk, not content. He takes us inside the raw and rebellious movement that existed before legalization and corporate cannabis.