Long before medical marijuana became legal in California, before dispensaries appeared on city streets, and before cannabis was routinely discussed as medicine, an elderly San Francisco waitress named Mary Jane Rathbun was quietly distributing marijuana brownies to people dying from…
Keith Stroup occupies a unique place in American cannabis history. Long before state-licensed dispensaries, medical marijuana programs or billion-dollar cannabis companies existed, Stroup was arguing that ordinary marijuana consumers should not be treated as criminals. In 1970, he founded the…
Few cannabis breeders have influenced the flavor, aroma and genetic vocabulary of modern marijuana as deeply as DJ Short, the personality behind DJ Short Seeds. Best known as the creator of Blueberry and the architect of several related cultivars, DJ…
Few people embody the collision between cannabis, radical politics, underground journalism and 1970s counterculture as completely as Tom Forçade. Best remembered as the founder of High Times magazine, Forçade was far more than a marijuana publisher. He was an underground…
Dr. Lester Grinspoon was an American psychiatrist, Harvard Medical School professor, author and one of the most important intellectual figures in the modern movement to reconsider cannabis prohibition. Long before marijuana legalization became a mainstream political issue, Grinspoon challenged many…
Frenchy Cannoli was one of the most influential hash makers, educators and advocates of traditional cannabis resin culture in the modern marijuana world. Best known simply as Frenchy, he spent decades studying hashish in the regions where it had been…
Few figures in Canadian cannabis history have been as visible, provocative or consequential as Marc Emery. Known for decades as the “Prince of Pot,” Emery built his public identity around cannabis legalization long before marijuana businesses could operate openly in…
Kyle Kushman is one of the most recognizable cannabis cultivators, writers and educators to emerge from the American marijuana underground of the 1990s. Known for his years at High Times, his association with Strawberry Cough, his development of veganic cannabis…
For more than two decades, Danny Danko has occupied a distinctive position in cannabis culture: part journalist, part cultivation educator, part photographer, competition judge and chronicler of cannabis genetics. Born Daniel Vinkovetsky, Danko became best known through his long tenure…
Franco Loja was an Italian cannabis breeder, cultivator, genetic collector, documentary personality and longtime partner of Amsterdam’s Green House Seed Company. To many growers, however, he was simply known as Franco the Strain Hunter. During roughly two decades in the…
Few people have been as visible in the international cannabis industry as Arjan Roskam, the Dutch entrepreneur behind the Green House coffeeshops, Green House Seed Company and the Strain Hunters documentary project. Since the early 1990s, Roskam has occupied an…
Few individuals changed modern cannabis genetics as profoundly as Nevil Schoenmakers. The Australian-born, Dutch-Australian breeder became one of the central figures in the transformation of cannabis from an assortment of locally maintained populations and underground cultivars into an internationally distributed…
