For the Culture By The Culture
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.
Massachusetts health officials report a surge in pediatric cannabis ER visits, but the real culprit is the unregulated hemp gray market. Candy-lookalike edibles and weak enforcement fuel fear while licensed operators take the blame. Pot Culture Magazine cuts through the panic to expose how prohibitionist loopholes and corporate spin create the danger.
Hemp may have been ripped from the Controlled Substances Act in 2018, but freedom was only on paper. Farmers are still shackled by THC math, the DEA’s shadow rules, and FDA’s silence on CBD. The loopholes gave rise to delta-8 and other lab-born cannabinoids, sparking a new prohibition panic. The truth is simple: hemp didn’t escape the drug war, it just exposed the absurdity of it all.
For decades, junk science has fueled cannabis prohibition, from bogus chromosome scares to today’s clickbait about weed causing diabetes. Despite billions in tax revenue and no overdose deaths, scare studies dominate headlines while real-world data proves otherwise. This piece exposes how research funding, media bias, and political agendas keep cannabis criminalized against all evidence.
Reefer Report Card Vol. 15 breaks down the week in cannabis. Texas raised age limits on hemp THC, California cut taxes to stop the bleeding, Ohio sales surged while bans held firm, Germany’s scientists pushed for oversight, and the White House talked rescheduling without action.
California lawmakers finally moved to ease the crushing cannabis excise tax, but after years of bleeding growers dry, is it reform or just window dressing? Pot Culture Magazine digs into the numbers, the damage, and the politics behind the belated rollback.
