Great Moments in Weed History

Within the Church of Entheogenic Plants, a dozen varieties of psilocybin (aka "magic") mushrooms await those who wish to incorporate use of psychedelic fungus into their religious and spiritual practices. Two years ago, the church was raided by local police, but they re-opened the next day and still plan to sue in federal court to affirm their religious liberty. So take a trip (yes, pun intended)...

When Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Ricky Williams famously chose natural grass over professional football back in 2004,, the NFL, sportswriters and many fans reacted with horror and anger. How dare one of the greatest football players in history walk away from the game that made him rich and famous? With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, Abdullah and Bean decided to ask the man himself, and...

From his incendiary album "Legalize It" to his defiant speech denouncing Jamaican officials to their faces for their downpressive laws against ganja (delivered while smoking a spliff on stage), Peter Tosh fought for the equal rights of cannabis people around the world. While also promoting the plant's myriad of therapeutic benefits in detailed ways decades before the medical establishment started...

In 2004, Weldon Angelos was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling $900 worth of weed. That's what you get for bringing some of the earliest hip-hop shows to Salt Lake City, Utah. A music producer who has worked with legends like Snoop Dogg, Tupac's Outlawz, Nas, and Pink,, Weldon's case became a symbol of the racism and injustice that plagues our criminal justice system. But as you'll hear i...

Celebrate 2021's weediest highlights with Abdullah and Bean's inebriated recounting of the year's most impactful cannabis news stories. PLUS: Our annual re-telling of the classic Chrstmas tale "Santa Claus is a Siberian Mushroom Shaman." Recorded IRL in a "holiday hashish hot box," this episode also gave rise to a conspiracy-themed spin-off show called "The Green Pill," and introduced our new spon...

When cannabis and capitalism collide, our community's best laid plans for an equitable industry all-too-often go up in smoke. Enter Shaleen Title, a longtime drug policy activist who in 2017 became one of five inaugural commissioners of Massachusetts's Cannabis Control Commission. Described as “the people’s weed watchdog” by Boston Magazine, Shaleen is widely recognized for her focus on social and...

When prominent author Marie Lee published an essay titled "Why I Give My 9-Year Old Pot" in 2009, it set off a media sensation. Years before CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta ever touched the subject, Lee's vulnerable and defiant description of desperately seeking relief for her severely ill son—and finding it in cannabis—struck a nerve with parents worldwide. Now a teacher in the creative writing program at...

In the 1990s, a new federal law banning any student with a drug conviction from receiving financial aid led to the formation of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). Created online by a swarm of young activists in the early days of the internet, the organization quickly grew into the largest student organization in the United States. Today SSDP has over 5,000 active members on 300 college camp...

In remote areas of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, indigenous farmers cultivate cannabis on small plots that date back centuries. Maintaining their precious landrace strains has been an uphill battle in an age of rapid industrialization, but now the effort to preserve this living cultural and botanical history has gone global. The Indian Landrace Exchange is a a grassroots, locall...

As America's most thoroughly freak-powered cannabis festival celebrates its 30th Anniversary, we share a sesh with legendary street activist Vivian McPeak,, who co-founded the Seattle Hempfest in 1991. From the event's radical roots as a "protestival" occupation of a public park, to the glory days of legends like Jack Herer and Woody Harrelson addressing 100,000+ stoners at 4:20 from the main stag...

Upon turning 80, rock legend David Crosby gets lit with us and lovingly recalls the greatest moments of his own illustrious weed history. From blazing out The Beatles, to sailing the high seas with the 1970s most prolific pot smugglers, he's seen and smoked it all—and lived to tell the tale. Croz also explains why he loves growing his own, and just might write a song about it. Special thanks to Mi...

Ross Rebagliati won the first ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, only to have it stripped away when officials reported he’d tested positive for marijuana on a post-race drug test. Ross soon found himself in a Japanese police station, under heavy interrogation for hours and potentially facing a long prison sentence simply for having a few nanograms of THC metabolite in his urine. He tells Abd...

July 10th (7/10) is the 4/20 of hashish, a day to celebrate cannabis concentrates and culture in all forms—from the traditional sieve and hand-rub methods used in places like India, Morocco and Nepal for millennia to the modern world of BHO extracted dabs, with its many oils, waxes, shatters, crumbles, resins, and rosins. Sound confusing? Don't fret, because Abdullah, Bean and special guest expert...

Brownie Mary's "magically delicious marijuana brownies" brought healing and joy to thousands of AIDS and cancer patients in San Francisco, even as she shouted down the police and took on City Hall. As this self-described "little old lady" once declared, shortly after being released from lock-up: "If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS, they can go fuck themselves i...

Dennis Peron first tried cannabis in Vietnam. After smuggling two pounds of high-grade herb home from the front, he became a charismatic and defiant leader of San Francisco's medical cannabis and gay rights movements. A fiery street-fighting optimist, Dennis suffered multiple stints in prison and even took a bullet in a police raid—all without ever giving up or backing down. As part of our ongoing...

Whether living in legal states or under prohibition, weed smokers continue to face stigmas and prejudices of all kinds. So to kick off our official Pride Month programming, we sat down for a smoky sesh with Jessamyn Stanley, a self-described “fat black queer woman" who's been breaking down barriers in American yoga since she began posting about her personal practice on Instagram in 2012. Jessamyn'...

From blazing a joint at his audition, to smoking Austin, TX completely out of marijuana during the shoot, Dazed and 'Confused star Jason London tells Abdullah and Bean that the greatest weed moments on set all happened between takes, and behind the scenes. So journey with us back to the magical summer of 1993, when a cast and crew of talented unknowns that included Matthew McConaughy, Ben Affleck,...

Support for ending weed arrests is at an all-time-high, but our newly elected President has long been a leading proponent of the War on Drugs. So where does that leave us when it comes to passing federal legalization? And if it passes, will Biden sign it? To find out, Abdullah and Bean sat down with Representative Earl Blumenauer—co-founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, and a leading pro-w...

From Acapulco Gold to OG Kush, the history of cannabis breeding dates back thousands of years and spans the entire globe, spawning a story that stretches from the legendary landrace varietals of Nepal, Thailand, Nigeria, India and Morocco all the way to today's modern super hybrid strains. Due to prohibition, however, the history of these strains and the people who helped breed and proliferate the...

Willie Nelson has smoked Snoop Dogg, Woody Harrelson, Ricky Williams, Chelsea Handler, Toby Keith, Johnny Knoxville and many other famous faces under the table. We got to hear a few of these hilarious stories firsthand recently while working with Willie and his crew on the Luck Summit, a four day online event (April 26-29) exploring cannabis in all aspects. As a special sneak preview of what's in...

In a tale of weedy vengeance, Abdullah and Bean investigate the life of Harry J. Anslinger—America’s first “drug czar,” author of Marijuana: Assassin of Youth, and the man most responsible for the global prohibition of cannabis. And then they settle the score. This episode is tied to the premiere of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, a new film from Lee Daniels (Push, Empire) telling the awful...

Explore Santa Claus’s psychedelic roots in Siberia in the only Christmas Special where Old St. Nick gifts you magic mushrooms and even the reindeer get high AF (just ask Blixen)! So hang on to your sleigh bells, because Abdullah and Bean will be celebrating the holiday season this year with Amanita muscaria mushrooms, cannabis-infused cookies, marijuana mistletoe and fermented yak milk, just as Sa...

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 Jo...

Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl sat rolling joints and cleaning the stems and seeds from a brick of weed when a fateful knock came at the door of 710 Ashbury Street. Having your communal crash pad raided by the police isn’t typically the start of a great moment, but for the Grateful Dead, the October 1967 undercover police sting operation that targeted their home and headquarters turned into a pivo...

Once a year, Hindus celebrate cannabis and the god Shiva with the ancient festival of Maha Shivaratri, an all-night affair of fasting, meditation, chanting, and dancing. Abdullah tells Bean the story in this Freaky High-Day episode, and the guys talk Hinduism, the divine origins of cannabis, weed-loving deities, and psychedelics. They also try hash-infused Bhang, one of the world's oldest edibles...