When Jim Henson released The Dark Crystal in 1982, audiences didn’t quite know what to do with it. Best known as the creator of The Muppets, Henson delivered something darker and stranger: a fantasy film set on the sentient planet Thra, populated entirely by puppets, and driven by themes of power, decay, and spiritual imbalance. The film divided critics, but it quietly built a cult following that understood it as something more than a children’s story.

Netflix’s 2019 prequel series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, expands that world with political and philosophical clarity. Set generations before the original film, the series follows the rise of authoritarian rule under the Skeksis—decaying rulers who maintain control by draining Thra’s life force—while a resistance forms among the gelflings, Thra’s indigenous inhabitants. What’s at stake isn’t just freedom, but balance: between power and responsibility, extraction and stewardship, consciousness and consequence.

What makes Age of Resistance especially compelling for cannabis and psychedelic audiences is how it treats altered states. These aren’t punchlines or escapist detours. They function as tools for perception, ritual, and moral reckoning—mechanisms that either reconnect characters to responsibility or allow collapse to continue unchecked. In Thra, altered consciousness doesn’t free you from consequence. It reveals whether you’re willing to face it.

A World of Altered States

In Age of Resistance, altered states aren’t treated as novelty or comic relief. They’re woven directly into how the world of Thra functions—and, crucially, how it begins to fracture.

Thra is a sentient planet sustained by balance: between its environments, its creatures, and the powers that govern them. That balance is disrupted when the Skeksis—self-appointed rulers of Thra—begin draining the planet’s life force to preserve their own dominance. What’s at stake isn’t just political power, but the spiritual relationship between the world and those who inhabit it.

Within that context, altered states function less like escape and more like access. Take urGoh, the slow-moving mystic often read as the show’s stoner archetype. He appears detached at first, tuned to a different frequency. But urGoh’s altered consciousness isn’t avoidance—it’s attunement. He perceives imbalance before others do, and his awareness ultimately positions him as one of the figures capable of guiding resistance rather than ruling it.

A sharper contrast appears in skekGra, an exiled Skeksis who ingests hallucinogenic urdrupe berries after abandoning the empire. The experience doesn’t liberate him—it indicts him. Through the altered state, skekGra recognizes how greed transformed shared stewardship into extraction and hierarchy. The vision doesn’t absolve him of responsibility; it burdens him with it.

Altered consciousness in Thra consistently carries consequences. It reveals systems—who benefits, who suffers, and what is being drained to sustain comfort elsewhere. The planet itself responds to these shifts, communicating with its inhabitants through ritual, intuition, and rupture.

That framework sets the stage for one of the series’s most important ideas: that awareness alone is not enough. What matters is what follows.

When Altered States Become Escape

It would be easy to read The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance as just another beautifully strange thing to watch while high. The visuals invite it. The pacing allows it. And pop culture has trained us to flatten anything surreal into “trippy” and move on.

But that’s also the least interesting way to engage with this story.

Altered states—on screen and off—are often romanticized as shortcuts: to creativity, to insight, to transcendence. The media tends to treat them as personal upgrades, detached from consequences. You feel something. You see something. You come back unchanged.

Age of Resistance pushes against that instinct. Its altered states don’t offer comfort; they demand reckoning. They surface memory, imbalance, and responsibility rather than numbing them. Even the show’s most mystical moments are tethered to outcome: what characters do with what they’ve seen.

This distinction is subtle but important. Thra doesn’t punish curiosity. It punishes disengagement. Awareness that leads nowhere is treated as another form of extraction—one that allows harm to continue unchallenged.

That tension is what separates the series from a purely aesthetic or escapist reading. It’s not interested in altered consciousness as a vibe. It’s interested in what happens when awareness arrives—and whether anyone is willing to act on it.

What We Can Learn from Thra

The clearest expression of this idea comes through the gelflings’ practice of dream fasting. Dream fasting is an intimate ritual in which gelflings touch hands to share memories, emotions, and lived experience—joy, fear, trauma, love—in an instant. It’s not recreational. It’s connective. And it’s impossible to perform without vulnerability.

Dream fasting doesn’t let characters escape reality. It forces them into it. Through shared experience, divisions between clans begin to collapse. Distance becomes harder to maintain. Empathy becomes unavoidable.

That’s the real provocation of Thra. Altered consciousness isn’t inherently liberating. It’s directional. It can clarify responsibility—or delay it. It can connect individuals to systems larger than themselves—or lull them into thinking personal insight is enough.

This is where Age of Resistance quietly intersects with contemporary cannabis and psychedelic culture. As altered states become more normalized, commodified, and optimized for comfort, the series asks an uncomfortable question: what happens when consciousness expands but accountability doesn’t?

Thra collapses not because its inhabitants lack access to altered states, but because access becomes disconnected from stewardship. The Skeksis don’t just drain the planet; they anesthetize themselves to the consequences of doing so. Extraction becomes normal. Discomfort becomes invisible. And the systems that sustain life are treated as infinite until they fail.

That lesson lands precisely because it’s not preachy. It’s structural. Awareness is only the beginning. What matters is what follows—whether insight leads to action, restraint, and care, or whether it becomes another way to look away.

This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.

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“Anyone in jail for anything to do with cannabis should be set free.”

Ice-T does not blink when he says it. He does not reach for qualifiers. He keeps talking.

“It’s legal in enough places,” he adds. “That’s like having somebody in jail for alcohol after Prohibition.”

We are on House of Haze, a High Times podcast I host to talk power, culture and weed in the real world. Ice-T arrives with clarity as a tactic, control as a practice. He has lived around cannabis forever, tried gummies, never took to smoking, and still carries a simple rule for life outside the house: be alert.

“The guys that were the most dangerous were the sober cats,” he says. “Chronic gives what I call chronic delay. That split second could be your life out here in the streets.”

He is not anti-weed. He is anti-sloppiness. The crew rule is blunt.

“If you’re with the crew and you get drunk and you stop listening, one of us gets to knock you out,” he says. “Then we carry you to the car. It’s about control. It’s not worth the party.”

Legalization, without romance

Ice-T does not sugarcoat the business. His Jersey City shop, The Medicine Woman, took years and millions to open. Margins are thin. The myth of easy money is gone.

“What dispensaries are like now is like liquor stores,” he says. “They’re on every other corner. You got taxes, overhead, building costs. People think you’re getting rich. Nah. If I wanted to get rich, I would sell bricks of cocaine.”

Then he drops the line most celebrities avoid.

“I am absolutely in it for the money,” he says. “It’s a business. Don’t get mad at capitalism. But if you can hire kids from the community and kick some money back to charity, that’s righteous.”

Justice with teeth

Ask him about federal legalization and he does not hesitate.

“Do I want it federally? Only to free the prisoners,” he says. “Having the federal government in your legal business? Who needs that?”

On politics, he is colder.

“Politicians are the biggest criminals in the history of the world,” he says. “Both wings are on the same bird.”

Safety and the American reality

The country is flooded with guns. He has a line for that, too.

“I don’t trust anybody with a gun,” he says. “There are more guns than people. I’m not pro-gun. I got one because if somebody breaks in my crib, I don’t want to grab a butcher knife. It’s too late. This is what it is.”

He is not here to debate. He is here to move the conversation forward.

“I don’t like debates. I like progressive conversation,” he says. “My opinion can be changed, but first I have to believe you’re intelligent enough for me to listen.”

Upstream to the seeds

Retail opened another door. Ice-T went upstream with Brothers Grimm Seeds on BodyCount, a cross of Purple Urkle and Rosetta Stone bred by MrSoul and led by CEO Laura “MrsSoul” Campanella. It is a genetics play, not a lifestyle pivot.

“If I’m signing a seed, I want my shit to be the best in the history of the world,” he says. He laughs, then lands on a goal every grower understands. “Personally, I would love my seeds to win the Cannabis Cup.”

Rick and Morty, and being in on the joke

He knows when the culture lets you in. Rick and Morty called. He said yes. They made him a superhero and, mercifully, didn’t roast him.

“You hit different generations at different times,” he says. “You’re lucky when animation does not dog you.”

Techno, E, and why he quit the hard stuff

Ice-T didn’t touch drugs for most of his life. Then came one Miami night at Crowbar, a packed techno club, Coco looking fire, the music hitting. He decided to try ecstasy.

“I walk up to this kid, I’m trying to get some E… they point me to this dude, big pants, glow sticks, the whole shit. He looks at me, ‘Oh shit, Ice-T,’ reaches in his pocket, pulls out a handful of E. ‘They said I’m the man. Now you’re the man.’”

He took one and felt the switch flip. “First thing, I’m rubbing my own legs. Everything outside of Coco is out of focus. And the most amazing thing happened, I understood techno. It was divided, it was moving. I’m like, this shit makes sense.”

The fun didn’t last forever. A different night, someone handed them “Molly” in capsules. It wasn’t. “Two in the morning when I’m ready to do my deed, my teeth are chattering. It was speed. I was up for two days. I showed up to Law & Order like, ‘Yo, I’m high from Saturday night.’ I was acting super fast.”

That was the line. “With fentanyl and all that, I’m scared. I don’t want to die. A lot of my friends have died on the first try.” Gummies and a rare maxi-dose mushroom experiment aside, he keeps it simple and safe. “Whatever you’re doing, make sure you’re in a safe environment.”

The bottom line

This is Ice-T in the cannabis era. No fantasy. No fake purity test. Just a straight read of risk, reward and responsibility.

“You never really know if somebody’s your friend till you tell them no,” he says at one point. It doubles as an ethos for the industry. Tell the truth about the money. Tell the truth about the rules. Tell the truth about who still sits in a cell.

And free them.

Photo courtesy of Ice-T.

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While Millennials grew up fawning over the fantastic trio of Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon, and Sailor Moon, Gen Zers couldn’t care less: they have their own icons. We may all share a love for weed, but these two generations are split by decades, and by very different vibes. It’s a well-known fact that each generation vibes with its own zeitgeist, and Centennials are drawing from new wells and going crazy for “other” works, not those we might consider “classics,” but rather, a reinvention of what we collectively call “anime to watch while high.”

It’s been this way since the dawn of time: one generation pulling away from the last. A few years ago, trap artists called indie rockers “old,” even though they were still at the peak of their careers. Later, because life is deeply cyclical, those trap artists ended up retiring, labeled as outdated by Swifties and K-pop fans. Like Grandpa Simpson said: “It’ll happen to you!” So, to start off with some dissenting opinions about what anime to watch while high, here are some recommendations from Juan Ruocco, one of the metaphysical references for internet Millennials.

Ruocco is a writer, podcaster, and prominent Argentine streamer. Seasoned by cable TV, the frenetic energy of early internet forums, and the age of online piracy (long before streaming platforms) he mentions Those Who Hunt Elves, an alternative anime that aired on Locomotion for Latin America and was available on DVD in the US thanks to the ADV Films label. “It’s a full-on psychedelic experience. In this story, a magician’s spirit is trapped inside a tank, and they have to find the spell to undo the whole thing,” he explains. The series has two seasons of 12 episodes each and, according to Ruocco, is “spectacular, highly recommended.”

For something a bit more chill, he mentions Oh! My Goddess, which he describes as “a good, somewhat romantic soap opera about a human food delivery guy and some goddesses.” And finally, he sticks to a classic (also a soap opera, but with a huge dose of science fiction) like The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? “It’s an animated gem. You have giant robots, love, and life lessons. It’s for watching while you’re completely out of it.”

However, Gen Z has its own tastes. Many respect “the greats of Japanese animation,” but prefer other styles, crafting what might become future classics. Like young Millán, one of the hosts of Juju Podcast, a popular show specializing in manga and anime. When he’s high, Millán goes for Space Dandy, by the master Shinichiro Watanabe in collaboration with Shingo Natsume. In short: Watanabe is the author of the canonical Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, but Space Dandy is one of his lesser-known works. “The standout is the animation. It’s also hilarious, and the writing leans on clichés but pulls them off brilliantly. As for the story, we won’t worry too much about missing any important details because we’re out of our minds, since it’s much more enjoyable stoned.”

He also mentions Ping Pong the Animation, directed by Masaaki Yuasa. “Almost any of Yuasa’s work is perfect to watch while high, but some require a bit of attention to avoid missing important plot points. In Ping Pong, we’ll find dynamism, movement, speed, and completely out-of-place camera angles that will immerse us completely in a unique universe,” Millán points out.

And in that vein of works with a certain degree of organic incomprehensibility (those that, with or without weed, are inherently 420) he adds FLCL, from the legendary production company Gainax and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, who was in charge of the Evangelion rebuilds. “You won’t really get FLCL‘s story on the first watch; I’d say it’s the kind of show you need to see at least twice. It has everything we need to enjoy a Japanese cartoon while smoking pot: mechs, bizarre enemies, excellent music, a well-developed message, and a very nice ending,” the podcaster concludes.

Miguel, the Chilean podcaster behind 3 Ramen de Luca, is also blown away by FLCL (“a weird, short, and experimental trip”) and adds Paprika (“If you want something chaotic and visually explosive”), a sci-fi film directed by Satoshi Kon, to his list. However, when it comes to pairing anime with weed, he specifically leans towards “the last few episodes of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann,” an anime full of “fights, screams, and flashes everywhere.” And he assures us: “You end up high!”

Likewise, the alternative model Acronica is betting on Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle, an anime that offers a solution to potential dilemmas: any existing tension is resolved with rap battles. “In a futuristic world, the Word Party takes power, a government of women whose first measure is to ban weapons and dictate conflict resolution through rap. Someone threatens to rob you on the street? Rap battle. Are they trying to charge you more for milk than the price marked on the shelf? Rap battle!” Acronica laughs. Her recommendation allows for healthy weed doses and is, in itself, an explosively drug-fueled work.

In keeping with the comedy, surprise, and laughter, Matías Glenadel, a journalist and one of the spokespeople for the Anime Argentina community, a digital forum where Centennials and Millennials coexist, believes that “the best anime to watch while high are those that make you laugh.” Under that premise, he points to Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun, an anime with three seasons and a fourth yet to premiere. “It’s an isekai (a subgenre of Japanese fantasy where the protagonist is transported to another world) in which a human child with a truly awful life is sent to Hell. But instead of being the horrible place we all imagine, it turns out to be much better than where he lived. There, he’s adopted by a demon who treats him like his grandson, and he starts attending high school, meeting some really funny characters,” Glenadel explains.

To top it all off, he adds Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan, a 2016 anime with two seasons and a simple plot, without many twists and turns, but “hyper funny, especially if you’re high.” And he warns: “Neither show will give you a bad trip, since they don’t have many tense moments. I recommend Saiki more. It’s a little-known, even underrated, work. But… my God! I’ve never laughed so much with an anime!”

The classics aren’t the dominant force in the Centennials’ tier lists; right now, they’re defining their own. And this will continue until the next generation reaches for other works, even rarer, even newer. In any case, all that’s left is to light up, tune in to some of the recommendations, and let yourself be carried away by the swirling smoke, without overthinking it. Because, after all, age is just a number, and feeling young is a must to know you’re alive.

Cover photo created with Gemini.

<p>The post Centennials List the Best Animes to Watch While High — and Your Faves Aren’t in It first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Given Larry Charles’ career, a memoir titled “Comedy Genius” wouldn’t have been too self-aggrandizing or off the mark. Charles was a writer on Seinfeld, directed Borat and Bruno, produced and directed classic episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and, most recently, helmed Dicks: The Musical. For decades, he’s made audiences laugh until it hurts.

He broke through the mainstream time and time again, mostly by breaking the rules — often showing people at their worst, especially in the case of Borat and Bruno. He’s found laughs in some of the darkest parts of the world, as in his series Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy. The man travels far for laughs.

Given his raucous Sullivan’s Travels journey, the title of his memoir — Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter — couldn’t be more apt. Comedy genius? Yes, maybe so. But first and foremost, a Comedy Samurai. The director wanders into towns and finds comedy, even when the laughs aren’t apparent or easy. He fights for his life at times to get laughs, accepting rather than running from danger.

Often, the comedy is in chaos.

Out of the chaos, with more and more bizarre life and professional experiences to share, Charles is left only with more questions than answers. He wrote a memoir full of pathos, sex, drugs, and comedy, with closure — but no real ending in sight to the questions that define his comedy and life.

Recently, Charles spoke with High Times Magazine about his journeys in the world of comedy, his lessons from working with Bob Dylan, and why he can’t complain.

Let’s begin with the end: there’s no tidy bow here. You’re left with questions, fewer answers. When you finished the book, did you still just feel like you’re searching?

It’s very Seinfeldian in that respect, although I hadn’t thought of it that way until you said it. But no hugging, no learning. There’s no false morality at the end of the book. Well, here’s what I learned, and if you just apply these lessons, you’ll be okay. No, life doesn’t work that way. 

To me, in the best comedies, the characters actually don’t learn anything at the end. If you think about Inspector Clouseau or Borat or any great comedy character, they really end where they began, to some degree. That’s kind of like me as well.

Were there any epiphanies along the way of writing about your life, though?

Well, I’ve been a questioner most of my life. It’s gotten me into a lot of trouble, but it’s also kept the dialogue in my head going the whole time. I’ve always questioned my epiphanies. I’ve never felt, oh yeah, man, I got to figure it out finally. No, I’d never have had that feeling — maybe for a moment — and then something would snap me out of it very harshly.

When you’re left without answers, do you wish you had them, or do you prefer to see the joy and comedy in that part of life?

I’ve wished there were answers since I was a kid. I wish things were more rote and pat. I wish you could go, yeah, this is what you have to do. There are a lot of people like that. Social media is filled with people — so-called experts — telling you exactly what to do, how much exercise, what to eat, how to think.

I find those answers very short-lived. They don’t have much substance to them. Life is more complicated, especially if you engage in life. If you are someone who doesn’t really engage — if you’re more removed from reality, if you don’t have significant others or kids, or complications in your job, or complications in your life in any way — then you can make some maybe possibly simpler conclusions. But if you are engaged in life, it’s not so simple. It’s not black and white. That’s something I think I am not happy about, but I think it’s reality.

The code of the comedy samurai — what does it really mean to you today?

Going from town to town for projects, often in trouble. When I watch samurai movies, that’s usually the plot. There’s a town in trouble, and the samurai is sent into that town to fix that town.

The samurai, however he’s represented, or the gunfighter, can come into that town with a lot of difficulty, but ultimately triumph can fix that town. But he doesn’t stay around to get credit or to enjoy it. His job is to move on to the next town. And so, I saw myself in that kind of light as a Comedy Samurai.

A samurai – one of the most important aspects is serving the master. I’ve had the good luck, as I talk about in the book, of serving some of the highest ascended comedy masters that we’ve had — between Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and Sacha Baron Cohen and Bob Dylan. I’ve had insightful, unique masters to whom I’ve been able to devote myself.

Even when those comedy masters aren’t as loyal to you, you still see the bright side of those relationships in the book.

I do. I wouldn’t have had that perspective necessarily 20 years ago. I’ve lived life long enough to have the perspective of being grateful for my encounters with these people, even if they didn’t turn out perfectly in the end. Everything is imperfect, and I am acknowledging that, including myself, and so it doesn’t take away from what they have accomplished or what they did for me.

It’s always funny reading a memoir of someone admitting they’re a private person. So, as someone who keeps his life to himself, what’s the challenge of laying it all out on the page?

That was the hardest part of writing the book. Initially, I was like, well, I have all these incredible experiences. I could share that. But as I started to write it, I didn’t want it to be a showbiz memoir, even though it is on a certain level. I wanted it to have more than one level. I like density in the things that I read, watch, and listen to.

For me to talk honestly about these experiences, including sometimes negative thoughts about some of the people that I’ve worked with, I needed to be honest about myself as well. That was hard to write.

As much success as you’ve had as a director, the book is largely about struggling with personal and professional failures. 

I’ve come to believe, and I’ve come to learn, that failure is an important part of the equation of success. There is no way around it. Everybody that I worked with has had massive, profound, often public failure. No one has failed more than Bob Dylan, but here he is. He’s still around. He’s probably more popular today, weirdly enough, than he’s ever been, and yet he’s had so many failures.

Look at the movie you two made, Masked and Anonymous. That movie literally lives in its own world. Failure or success — how do you even define such a movie, right?

It’s true. Of course, it wasn’t a box-office success, but we never thought that it would be. It was made for $4 million, which is almost ridiculous when you think of all the stars and the making of it. That was the triumph of that movie.

People at the time jumped on it and eviscerated it. It reminded me of some of the travails that Bob has been through with certain albums — his born-again Christian phase. People have been nasty to him, and Larry David has had many failures as well, and stumbled into Seinfeld and became successful. I mean, he begged along the way, before it became successful, for it to be canceled. He wanted to be done with it.

So, it’s something that I see. There’s a certain resilience in people — and in myself — who bounce back from failure and learn from failure. They can carry failure with a certain honor that informs their success.

With the Bob Dylan chapters in your book, it’s clear you felt a kinship to him. How’d you two connect?

He was somebody that I kept my mind really open around, because he had done it. He had done a lot of the things that I sort of aspire to, and he understood things on a certain profound level that sometimes were hard for me to understand.

But he had lived by his code and stuck with it and didn’t question it. He trusted his instincts and let them take them wherever they would. He was not afraid of that journey. If he felt like doing something that nobody agreed with, it didn’t matter. He would do it anyway and accept the consequences.

It didn’t really matter if those consequences were negative or positive. For him, it was the doing of it. This is what his mind, what his soul, were dictating to him to follow.

You also write about your early days of working with Larry David on the live comedy show Fridays. There’s so much anxiety and uncertainty in those early chapters. Looking back, how much do you think those fears were spurred on by the drugs?

At the time, I thought drugs were a way to placate those fears. For me, I think for everybody, there was an incredible competition. This is the nature of that kind of show, and I think it’s true also on Saturday Night Live: there is a competition, and you must succeed. If you fail, you lose your job.

Now, if I had lost my job, I would’ve figured something out, but at that time, I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted to succeed. And so, I kept coming back over and over and over again. Even after the first couple of episodes, if I didn’t get a sketch on, I would just focus on writing a sketch that was indisputable, that would have to be put on the show, that would be a success. I kept pushing myself.

But the fear that underlies a lot of that competition was placated to a large degree by the drugs. The drugs gave you kind of a supernatural sense of a higher level than was true, but you needed that illusion. You needed to perpetuate that illusion upon yourself in order to succeed there. Eventually, the drugs stop working, and that’s when it becomes a problem.

By that time, the show was pretty much off the air. So, it sustained almost everybody who survived that show for about the run of the show. And if it had gone on longer, it probably would not have worked out. Things would’ve crashed much harder. In fact, John Belushi’s death became kind of a symbolic death for that world of cocaine and late-night sketches. It took a turn after that into a different direction, bringing people back to reality.

You’ve pushed boundaries in comedy and gone to places others won’t. When you dreamed of making movies and shows, did you always want to make rebellious work?

Well, I grew up in the mid-seventies, and punk rock came along, and imperfection came along. Spontaneity came along in art. I would go to CBGBs when I was a teenager, and for three bucks I could see the Ramones and Talking Heads and Blondie and all these bands creating new rules, breaking rules, and creating great art in the process.

I had this kind of Hollywood structure, a neat side of me, but I was getting more and more attracted to a more down-and-dirty type of filmmaking. It appealed to me, and it seemed almost pretentious to me to try to organize a slick sort of thing. I’m not that way.

How so?

I’m a mentally messier person. I’m an eclectic person. I like pouring stuff on and seeing what would happen and not knowing what the result was, and not really even caring what the result was. But having a trip along the journey itself became very important to me.

I think that’s kind of the punk rock thing, as there’s an immediacy to it, and it’s stripped away of a lot of the elements that would make it a Hollywood product. I didn’t want to make a product — even though you do, I didn’t want to make a Hollywood product.

A lot of your work is inspired by what’s happening in the world. When you pick up a newspaper, see all the bad and tragic news, what stories do you see as worth telling?

Elvis Costello had that song, “I’m Not Angry,” but he was obviously very angry. I’ve reached a point where I’m not really angry at most of the things around me — the people, the circumstances. But what I’m still tensely angry about is the world. The world makes me angry. The injustice and the suffering is what upsets me now.

And so, yes, I try to somehow, and it’s inadvertent in some ways, but I reflect that feeling as well. I think that’s an important feeling for me to have.

Does that make you want to make more comedy when things get darker?

Not necessarily. Comedy is in a weird place. It’s like, what is funny? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself since the beginning. What is funny? Why do we laugh? I’ve had the great luck of having masses of people laugh altogether as a group, but I don’t know. That seems hard to do these days. I’m not sure what that formula is. I’ve never known.

Every day is a new day, and every blank page is a new blank page. So, there are no real answers or solutions or formulas to that, even though people are constantly trying to quantify what it is, what makes something funny — they’re looking for a mathematical equation. I know it’s not that. I know it’s the unexpected.

Borat — nobody was expecting that, and that exploded because it gave people something that they needed without even knowing that they wanted it.

With [Netflix’s] Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy, you went to dangerous parts of the world to meet comedians. A negative social media reaction here to a joke is nothing compared to what many of the comics experience in that series. How’d those conversations with comedians change you?

Well, so much of what we talk about in the world of comedy is Western and American. Having that perspective of talking to Iraqi comedians and Somali comedians, it’s always there in my head when I hear these conversations about how we live in a very spoiled society. People think there are stakes, but as you’re saying, it’s like a negativity on social media. It’s not the same thing as being assassinated.

For me, I try to maintain that perspective of — you’re missing the big picture. You’re not realizing how connected you are to the world, that your joke is not just about the joke. It’s about something much bigger. The context of that joke really counts as much as the joke itself.

It’s boring to watch Netflix specials in which someone complains while getting a lot of money.

Yes. Exactly. No, I think that was a very profound experience for me. It was something I wanted to have. I wanted to go out and be like a war correspondent for comedy, and I got to learn a lot. I mean, I really got to. And I also learned that people love Seinfeld and Curb and Borat around the world. People in Iraq would come up to me and say that my friend is just like Kramer. And so, it really expanded me. I’m looking for these mind-expanding kinds of experiences, and that certainly was one of the most profound that I had.

Not only your work, but you, yourself, always had a distinct look. The long hair, the long beard, the shades at night — you’d even have security on your own sets thinking you were homeless, not the director. Was it like a uniform to you?

To some degree, a lot of disguises, a lot of masks that we wear. It started off being practical. I would travel home from CBGBs, for instance, back to Brooklyn. I would be on the D train, and it would be three o’clock in the morning, and I’d be by myself. It was a little scary.

If I put the sunglasses on, there was a good chance that a predator walking through the train — which wasn’t unusual — would walk past me, not mess with me. So, there was that.

And then, at one point, I was very poor. I was parking cars and broke my regular glasses. All I had left were my sunglasses. I started wearing them at night, even when I was parking cars and when I was a bellhop. And then, when I was finally able to grow a beard, it was a way to cover up the fear — the fear of intimacy, the fear of connection.

It gave me a little detachment, which I needed, I think, to observe. I was able to look at anything I wanted to when I wore sunglasses and had a beard.

My father was a real dandy who wore beautiful suits. I kind of rejected all of that and wore homeless clothes — shirts and sweatpants and things like that with holes in them — until, yes, I’d be mistaken for a homeless person on the set sometimes, and security would try to remove me.

And then at a certain point, I thought, I’m ready to face the world. I’m ready to take off the glasses. I’m ready to trim my beard. I’m ready to face the world, whatever that means. I’m still, as you know, still figuring that out.

Now, after the kind reception to the book and all the self-exploration involved, how are you feeling about at least trying to figure it all out?

The thing I walk away from with all this is how lucky I’ve been, that I’ve had these experiences, that I’m still here, that I’ve survived, that I have something to tell. I have a story to tell, and that the story is meaningful to people is the greatest gratification I could possibly get out of it.

I’m happy you’re in a good place. 

I am in a good place. I cannot, as we talk about with the other comedians in the West, I can’t complain. I can’t complain.

Photos courtesy of Larry Charles

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Few actors are as iconic as Bryan Cranston.  Most people might recognize him for his starring role in Breaking Bad, which marked a turning point in television; but many still remember him as Malcolm’s quirky dad in Malcolm in the Middle. Two completely opposite characters, brought to life thanks to Cranston’s incomparable talent and versatility.

More recently, the American actor appeared in the satirical series The Studio, where he plays Griffin Mill, a billionaire CEO in the Hollywood industry who cares about nothing but profit.

Now, in an episode that has already generated a lot of buzz, the cast accidentally ends up taking magic mushrooms, including Cranston’s character. Some media outlets have even called the performance “the funniest thing to happen on TV this year”: he appears disoriented, wearing a headband covered in glowing penises, stuffing his face with food, and falling off a gondola (yes, a gondola, this happens in Vegas).

Needless to say, Cranston’s work was praised by both peers and viewers; it even earned him his seventh Emmy. But how did he manage to portray so well what happens after taking too many shrooms?

It turns out that, despite having portrayed the head of a drug empire for several years, the actor has had little contact with drugs throughout his life. At least that’s what he admitted on Jimmy Kimmel‘s show.

The host asked Bryan Cranston directly if he had ever taken magic mushrooms, to which the actor replied that he had never tried… until he had to film this episode. Of course, being the consummate professional, he decided the best way was to try it himself, in order to accurately portray its effects.

In conversation with Kimmel, Cranston explained that, since his experiences with drugs had been more than limited, he didn’t really know how to behave when acting. That’s why he approached his co-stars, Seth Rogen and Ike Barinholtz, for guidance: “You guys are huge druggies, what can you tell me?”

Wisely, his colleagues recommended he start microdosing, but the actor didn’t even know what that was. So, they encouraged him to try microdosing mushrooms (i.e., a very small dose), and what better context to do so than at a Grateful Dead concert at the Sphere in Las Vegas. The band is well-known for its relationship with psychedelic drugs: “If God wasn’t telling me to do microdosing, what was he telling me?” the actor joked.

By the way, Cranston wasn’t totally alone in his experimentation: actress Catherine O’Hara had also joined the plan to take mushrooms for the first time, and she was just as nervous as he was. But fear not: Barinholtz (“our drug dealer,” Cranston affectionately nicknamed him) assured them he would take care of them and promised it wouldn’t be so terrible, proceeding to give them chocolates infused with magic mushrooms.

“Oh, it’s like a wafer,” the actor commented. After taking half a chocolate piece, he didn’t feel much, so he ate the whole thing. “It felt like maybe I took three sips of wine. It was nothing!” he exclaimed, disappointed, in his interview with Kimmel.

“So you really are a great actor, it turns out!” the host laughed.

“It was acting, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Cranston replied.

So, indeed, Bryan Cranston had to rely entirely on his acting chops to play a character on shrooms, since his sole experience with the psychedelic didn’t quite measure up. Maybe next time!

Cover photo: Philip Romano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons // Edited con Canva

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A TV spits out cathode rays. Weed smoke permeates every inch of the room. We ought to light a candle to The Simpsons -and to South Park and Family Guy, too. Credit where credit’s due: they smuggled in a blend of satirical, zesty, provocative themes. At this point, it’s nothing new, but cartoons are no longer just for kids: sex, violence, politics, dark humor, social critique and tangled plotlines. Add to that the success of works like Rick & Morty, BoJack Horseman, and Big Mouth, among others, which dragged us into cosmic, drug-fueled realities, with narratives steeped in acid. So, are we living through a new boom in psychedelic animation for adults?

From a historical lens, psychedelia had been simmering since the 1930s, when a surge of creative freedom allowed moments of surrealism impossible to capture in live-action of the time. “There are masterpieces by both the Fleischer Brothers and the Disney brothers. Look at Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse and you find wildly creative, free and unrestrained moments, which unfortunately got cut short by the Hays Code and the censorship creeping into the United States,” notes Tomás Eliaschev, journalist and cartoon expert.

Betty Boop features laughing gas in “Ha! Ha! Ha!” episode (1934)

The rising wave of puritanism significantly stifled the genre’s growth and pushed animation toward more metaphorical fables, with sly nods to adult themes, brushing up against sex, alcohol, tobacco, addiction, coffee, and, obviously, weed. “The first clearly stoner character is Lento Rodríguez, Speedy González’s cousin from Warner,” Eliaschev points out.

After Disney’s classic era, Hanna-Barbera took over animation, and beyond its endless doses of fun, it worked as a cultural machine to sell toys and merch. Still, it wasn’t until the late ’70s and early ’80s that animation for adults began walking on solid ground, with films such as Heavy Metal and Fritz the Cat, oozing the era’s vibe of parties, orgies, flashbulbs, chemicals, and a sharp snapshot of counterculture. Meanwhile, in the mainstream, Yellow Submarine (with the Beatles at their trippiest!), The Wall, and… The Pink Panther! All brought their own dose of psychedelia. “The Pink Panther explicitly showed psychedelia and became a bridge between classic animation and what was to come. Without The Pink Panther, there’d be no Nickelodeon, no Cartoon Network, no SpongeBob, no Adventure Time,” says Eliaschev.

The Pink Panther in “Psychedelic Pink” (1968)

Then came The Simpsons, the controversies, the improper jokes, the hallucinatory bits that defined the ’90s. It was then that the kidult phenomenon began to take shape: grown-ups happily buying action figures, hoarding Marvel Comics, and devouring pop culture with abandon (now that they had money in their pockets and buds in their jars, they could finally make up for the childhood they always wanted).

“MTV was key too, with Aeon Flux and Liquid Television, hooking the teens and adults of the time,” says Eliaschev. The 2000s then arrived with Shrek (the first two, both fantastic), Pixar, Dreamworks, Adult Swim (which deserves the highest praises), and the rise of the otaku vanguard.

“Animation is something that is increasingly consumed, and without age limits. In that sense, there’s a legitimization of watching animation. Love, Death & Robots is an example of how high adult animation can go,” Eliaschev points out.

LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 3, Official Trailer (2022)

So why are more and more studios making animation targeted explicitly at adults? “It’s a mix of factors,” says Juan Manuel La Volpe, director of the techno-nerd site 421.

“First, watching animation is no longer taboo. The audience grows older, but still chases the places that once made them happy. We went from Dragon Ball and X-Men to Dragon Ball Super and X-Men 97. Second, many studios are run by animators, directors, and writers who grew up on animation and are now making pilots and even dipping into the underground scene. And lastly, Millennials grew up with 24-hour cartoon channels. They’re now over 30 with disposable income, so there’s room for these products to be profitable.”

Among the standout works of recent years, One Piece ultimately took a leap in quality and set the pace for contemporary Japanese animation. Likewise, Attack on Titan has become, in La Volpe’s words, “the anime that managed to break through the otaku barrier and reach casual viewers.”

Common Side Effects Intro (2024)

In the U.S., the Spiderverse films are pushing animation to dazzling new heights. Content-wise? What comes after The Amazing World of Gumball, Catdog, Regular Show, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Grim & Evil, Ren & Stimpy, Mercano the Martian, and Sheep in the Big City? “Adult Swim’s new series Common Side Effects has writing and direction on par with heavyweights like Fargo or True Detective,” says La Volpe, about the show that stirs up ideas around healing mushrooms.

Down in the experimental underground, Juanma is betting on Punch Punch Forever, a series that “parodies classic fight anime and currently has three episodes on YouTube.” However, some dare the holy father of adult animation, The Simpsons, to retire, and even pit the eternal modernity of South Park (still holding up with its cathode-ray take on every season’s hot topics) against the absurdist wave of Smiling Friends, the new big thing for midnight stoner cartoon watchers.

Punch Punch Foerever (2025)

Photo via Shutterstock.

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Original story by Hernán Panessi for El Planteo.

Wherever the GOAT appears, a revolution takes place. Ever since Messi arrived at Inter Miami in 2023, the entire United States has been feverishly tuning in to a sport that was barely noticed just five minutes ago.

Thousands of people are converging on the shores of Florida from all over the world to see Leo Messi’s Inter live and direct.

Miami is, in fact, today’s new epicenter of global entertainment. Recently, Messi’s presence attracted visitors including Camila Cabello, Maluma, DJ Khaled, Kim Kardashian and LeBron James, among other top celebrities.

And there are thousands of curious, enthusiasts, upstarts and soccer players traveling to Florida to create a personal memory with David Beckham’s team and its most precious gem. This has brought up a couple of questions, including many people who are wondering about cannabis.

Can you go to Inter Miami’s match and see Leo Messi after smoking or using marijuana in some way?

Marijuana Use In Miami

“Of course, you can attend a soccer/sporting event at a stadium after consuming or smoking cannabis,” renowned Clark Hill’s lawyer Robert Hoban told El Planteo in an exclusive talk.

However, he clarified: “Public or open consumption in the parking lot or at the stadium is prohibited by the state cannabis laws and the general ‘smoking’ laws. Florida Medical Marijuana Laws prohibit you to use your high-THC medication in public or in public transportation.”

What Florida Law Says

Currently, Florida is a state that contemplates medical marijuana on a finite list of conditions to qualify as a purchaser.

As information is power, heads up to the curious, enthusiastic, upstarts and footballers out there: Let’s plunge a bit further here.

To legally qualify as a medical marijuana patient in Florida, you must be a permanent or seasonal resident, be diagnosed by a qualified physician with a medical condition from a specific list, be listed in the Medical Marijuana Use Registry and obtain a Medical Marijuana Use Registry ID Card.

So currently, medical use of marijuana is legal in Florida. On the other hand, recreational marijuana remains illegal.

Additional facts about the state law: Qualified patients with a valid Medical Marijuana Use Registry ID card can purchase and use medical marijuana. Recreational use is still illegal, and possession of cannabis outside the medical program is prohibited. Possession of 20 grams or less without authorization is a misdemeanor; possession of more than 20 grams is a felony, with penalties increasing at 25 pounds or 300 plants (trafficking). It is illegal for patients or caregivers to grow marijuana at home — only state-licensed Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers may cultivate. Florida law imposes fines and possible jail time for unauthorized possession in any amount.

Inter Miami And Medical Marijuana

What are the qualifying conditions?

A patient must be diagnosed with at least one of the following conditions: ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease; cancer; Crohn’s disease; epilepsy; glaucoma; HIV/AIDS; multiple sclerosis; Parkinson’s disease; PTSD; a terminal condition diagnosed by another physician other than the licensed physician who issued the medical certification; a non-malignant chronic pain induced by a qualifying medical condition or medical conditions comparable to those listed above.

Meanwhile, patients can consume medical marijuana before going to the stadium and get excited about Lionel Messi, captain of the Argentine National Team.

“People with a qualifying medical condition can use medical marijuana. However, the consumption of medical marijuana must take place within a private residence,” the lawyer pointed out.

“Under Florida law, there are no places within a stadium that can be used to consume marijuana at present.”

Cannabis Derivatives

Florida has made progress in recent years in terms of expanding rights and guarantees related to hemp derivatives and other cannabinoids, so “one could bring in drinks, edibles, and the like to the stadium; however, the stadium limits what spectators can bring into an event.”

So, in practical terms, “this would prohibit a spectator from bringing in a beverage and using a vape at the event, would likely also prohibit edibles from being brought in for consumption purposes,” the lawyer concluded.

Photo by Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Remember Tegridy Farms? Of course you do. They’ve been a recurring feature on the iconic South Park series for years, frequently used not only for laughs, but to expose all kinds of injustices. Now, the fictional marijuana farm has made a new appearance, this time to contribute its two cents to the current cannabis rescheduling saga in the US.

For years, the United States has been locked in a tug-of-war regarding the plant’s legal status. Currently, the possibility of changing its classification as a drug is being considered, from Schedule I (a category shared with substances that are truly dangerous, such as heroin) to Schedule III (reserved for lower-risk drugs, used medicinally). This reform had remained an unfulfilled promise under the previous administration.

Now, President Trump is once again hinting at rescheduling, an initiative included in his campaign promises. However, he has also contradicted himself several times regarding his position, depending on the current political climate and, some argue, his convenience. In his latest statement on the issue, he assured that a decision will be reached “in the coming weeks.” His cabinet is, likewise, divided on the matter.

This week’s South Park episode was right – Cannabis should not be a Schedule 1 drug – a prediction for an upcoming change? $msos pic.twitter.com/nGfiswBngL

— Steven Feldman (@WallBayHoweSt) August 22, 2025

South Park and its acidic portrayal of Trump and the cannabis situation

These twists and turns have not gone unnoticed by the creators of South Park, who decided to get involved in the matter via their already renowned Tegrity Farms. The episode begins with a raid on this crop; perhaps an allusion to the recent real-life case of Glass House Farms, which suffered a major crackdown at the hands of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). As in real life, the workers are arrested and presumably deported. There is, if you will, a subtle critique of the latent racism in the industry, as the farm’s owner, Randy Marsh, refers to his workers as “my Mexicans.” This wouldn’t be the first time the series has delved into this theme.

To save his company, Marsh enlists the help of ChatGPT and Towelie, a towel whose defining trait is that he’s always transcendently high. Towelie faces a highly militarized Washington to present a hologram of Marsh to president Trump, attempting to persuade him to reclassify cannabis. To this end, he suggests “reaching a mutually beneficial agreement,” and offers Towelie himself as tribute.

Could this be a nod to the donations some cannabis companies have made to MAGA-related causes?

Unfortunately, their offerings don’t seem to cut it, so, SPOILERS everyone, Marsh is forced to close his company. Is this the end of Tegridy Farms? Only time will tell.

Needless to say, South Park has evidently stepped up its criticism of the US president in its latest episodes. Donald Trump is portrayed as unusually swayed by flattery and gifts, which appear to take top priority. He’s even imagined in a strained relationship with Satan, who’s eager to part ways. Plenty of jabs are also aimed at the president’s masculinity.

The episode also misses no opportunity to poke fun at several current fashion trends, such as the use and abuse of AI, over-reliance on ChatGPT, and microdosing with ketamine, cleverly framed as satirical takes on overuse and dependency.

Cover image: paradoxically, crated with ChatGPT

This article was originally published in El Planteo.

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Original publication: August of 1980.

Who was that sinister, torpedolke figure seen herding Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong into a glossy, opium-black limousine on fashionable Sepulveda Boulevard? Stunned onlookers, witnessing the evident abduction, set all Tinsel Town abuzz with rumors. Was it a Mexico City publishing firm’s hit man, contracted to bump off the hypercreative twosome for appropriating the traditional Latin American photonovella format for their new Jove book, Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, based on their new Universal movie of the same name? Was it possibly the person to whom the title of their new Warner Brothers comedy album, Let’s Make a New Dope Deal, was originally addressed, before the dope in question got hijacked between Oaxaca and Marin County? Or was it one of the Killers, who performed the Mark Davis music for the Next Movie soundtrack album, reverting to type? Traffic stopped all along the street of dreams as the ominous limo sped away, carrying the fabled zonk-comedy duo off to who knew where? The river? The ocean? Forest Lawn? Philadelphia?

At last it can be none of the revealed: above! Actually, it was former High Times editor Ed Dwyer (currently starring high on the masthead at glamorous Oui magazine), just taking his old pals Cheech and Chong outfor a few joints and a raft of tacos. They bullshitted about old times, like in 71 when Tommy was running a topless burlesque joint in Vancouver, and Cheech came in one day by way of evading the U.S. draft and chasing some pussy, and iá been uphill ever since. Sometime in the middle of it all, Dwyer remembered to switch on the tape recorder, and when we played it back, this is what it said to us. You go figure it out.

High Times: Cheech and Chong’s Next Mo-uie hits the theaters this month. Your second movie already. The burning question now on the lips of millions of Cheech and Chong fans.. .the thousands who got high and went to your live shows, who got high and listened to your albums .. .the millions who get high now and go to your movies____What we all want to know now is-^what die hell are you doing in Hollywood? Did you financially sell out on us, you sly fuckers?

Chong: Absolutely. Total corruption.

Cheech: Next question? We’re in a rush, we gotta go audition 600 blond bathing beauties from central casting for the big Sodom and Gomorrah scene in our next flick.

High Times: Your next flick’s a Biblical epic?

Chong: Fuck knows, man. So far we just know it’ll have plenty of drugs, loud rock music and beautiful women.

Cheech: And a message. Real deep, heavy social-comment message. It 11 be in there somewhere.

High Times: But you can’t give us a hint what it’s about?

Chong: No, see, we won’t know ourselves until we’re done with it. Like the last flick, Up In Smoke, the one we did with Paramount, we wound up improvising most of it right on the set. We had to.

High Times: You guys don’t go in with a script when you do a movie?

Cheech: Do you go in with a script when you get laid? I mean, suppose the script you go in with calls for lots of cocaine and a rubber duck and a Ping-Pong paddle, and then when you get down with the lady you both just feel like a six-pack and a shower stall? Same thing with movies exactly.

Chong: Yeah, we made that mistake with our first movie; we went in with a whole script. And the studio biggies said change this, fuck that, do some other damn thing. So we rewrote the script and made it better and they loved it.

Cheech: Then when we went in to make the movie we just said fuck it, bum the script. And we just shot what we felt like doing, and now we’re big Hollywood stars.

High Times: So, are you trying to tell us that you hang out now with other big stars like Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman?

Cheech: Not if they can avoid us.

Chong: Being a star, it’s funny. We go to parties and stuff and there’ll be people there like Ringo Starr, Avery Schreiber and us. Everybody kind of waves and raps a little—but nobody goes out of their way, you know, to really meet each other, get it on big. Everybody’s at the same level, everyone’s respecting other people’s privacy and guarding their own. It’s kinda nice, no horseshit at all in it.

Cheech: The fact is, maybe you don’t zoant to really get to know a lot of these people. They’re your stars, you’ve seen them do great stuff, you expea them to be like that in person. And then you meet some guy you’ve always thought was great shit, because you admire his work—and he turns out to be a whole bundle of insecurities, and he’s nervous as hell. Or maybe it’s somebody like Jane Fonda or Bo Derek, and when you get up close she’s got halitosis. Jeez, do you want that to happen to your fantasies?

High Times: So you’re not star struck, huh?

Chong: I’m in love with the town. I’ve been in love with Hollywood since I was a little kid, you know, growing up in Canada and watching every movie that came to town. And now I’m here, and it’s a real place. There really is a Pine Street, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Musso Hank’s. Every time we go to the Brown Derby it’s like being a part of most other people’s fantasy and nostalgia trips.

Cheech: The Brown Derby, yeah. This is where those old actors used to get drunk and throw up all over the tables, and here we are. It’s our element, man. Hollywood: party city.

Chong: More than a town it’s like a big collection of restaurants, hangout spots. You just drive from restaurant to restaurant and hang out, party till you’re sick. And they’re always changing. The cook in your favorite joint quits and starts his own place, so you shift over and hang out there for a while. Then his cook quits, starts his place, and there you go. That’s heaven.

High Times: Must be fun having piles of money, you sly fuckers.

Chong: Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, man. I enjoy what I’m doing now, I mean, I really look forward to it. This morning I was on the freeway in my Comiche with the top down, going to the studio to meet with the vice-president. I was supposed to meet him yesterday, but I put it off till today when I don’t have anything better to do. And I felt pretty fucking good about the whole thing, you dig?

High Times: It’s true then, you sly fuckers. Success has spoiled Cheech and Chong.

Cheech: Hey, it’s good for you, keeps you on your toes. It’s a lot like dope dealing. I was reading in HIGH TIMES about this big grass dealer, he had just suitcases full of dollar bills and didn’t know what to do with them. Because how do you spend like a hundred grand without being conspicuous about it? In show biz it’s even more awkward. When you make it, you got millions and everybody in the world knows about it. And if you don’t keep on top of it, there are a lot of crafty mothers out there who can take it off you so quick it’ll make your head spin.

High Times: What are you guys worth all together? Bottom line figure.

Cheech: Well, let’s work it out. What’s a movie budget, five million? Takes two months to shoot and then maybe four months to wrangle it all out—six months, tops. Five million for six months, that’s, urn, two and a half into…

Chong: A little less than a million a month. Thirty days into that is around $300,000 a day, eight hours a day is 16 into $300,000… Hell, we pull down something like $20,000 an hour. Divide that by 60, it’s—hey, wait a minute—that’s only $3,000.

Cheech: Three lousy grand a minute? Shit, that’s 50 fucking dollars a second! Stone ripoff, man. What can you do with a lousy 50 dollars these days? We’re getting burned, Tommy.

High Times: I take it you’re not nostalgic for the days when you were broke and struggling.

Chong: Listen, I can have the old days back any time I want them. I was bom poor, grew up poor, and you can get off on that, too. Like, I was living in Seattle once with a girl who was on welfare. She had like four, five kids. And just nearly every single night we’d get stoned and go and party the hell out of the whole neighborhood. Every night was party night because there was nobody who had to get up to go to work in the morning. The children were being fed, and everybody was just having a great time.

Cheech: A lot of rich people really get fucked up behind it, too. I mean, I’ve been to parties full of rich people who were so flicking closed up and scared of being real—because they think they’re gonna get ripped off for bread if they open up and give themselves away—that, fuck, you really wanted to dose the punch with Ex-Lax, so maybe it’d get them to walking around and talking to each other.

High Times: You’re pushing Ex-Lax now, Cheech?

Cheech: No, but Tommy smuggles marijuana. He moves it into Mexico.

High Times: You move grass into Mexico?

Chong: It was just those Hawaiian buds you gave us to get this interview. I rolled ’em in a sock and took ’em down and did just a little every day we were in Puerto Vallarta. Hawaiian dope, Mexican sunsets—it was a real Technicolor, Cinemascope week, great week. And then on the way back this Customs guy recognizes us, Cheech and Chong, the dope celebrities, and he gets all wise-ass and smirking. “I really should go through your stuff, y’know.” And I tell him, “It’s cool, we’re clean in this direction. We’ve got a new scam, we smuggle it m.” And he cracked up. He thought it was a fucking joke.

Cheech: There was a heavy nosh factor in those buds, man. I ate like a fucking pig. But that’s the great thing about Mexico, you can eat all you want because sooner or later you’re going to get that special disease. Then you go on the Mexican diet. It’s like a law of nature, a territorial imperative: Whatever you eat in Mexico, gringo, you are going to leave there. Guacamole, mangoes, chili, tacos, chuchufritos—eat yourself silly and don’t worry, because the Mexican diet will definitely take care of it. Beats hell out of the Scarsdale diet.

Chong: And on those Hawaiian buds, even that part was okay. I mean it wasn’t no fucking picnic, but it was nicer than usual. Those Hawaiian growers know their shit, they really do.

High Times: Would you say this Hawaiian’s the best of the new domestic stuff? How do you think it compares with like Humboldt County second-generation, Thai sinse or Haze Brothers Purple Haze?

Cheech: That’s your show biz, man, not ours. We don’t discriminate about dope. If it gets you off it’s good, and it always gets us off.

Chong: The best dope in the whole world is what you’ve got on you, any time you’ve got some. If there’s just a few skinny little joints of green backyard homegrown around, and you haven’t had any dope in a week, and you can’t afford to eat and you can’t pay the rent, then that homegrown is the best fucking dope in the whole world. You get up on it, and you score a Twinkie, and that’s the best fucking Twinkie in the world.

Cheech: Oh, then there’s that little green bush you grow yourself, and you tease it and trim it, spoil the hell out of it and coax it up to two feet, then three feet, five feet—and then it’s just starting to bud out a little, just beginning to get all sexy, and blam! there’s a fucking early frost and it dies and you lose a whole growing cycle and have to start all over again. But finally you get a good big green healthy bush with buds all over, enough for you to smoke all year and still have plenty to give your friends. Now, that there is awful good dope.

Chong: No, no, wait. There’s even better dope than that, man. It’s when you’re flat out, your neighborhood dealer’s being held hostage in Bogota or something, and you ain’t got no fucking dope, you don’t know where to get no fucking dope, and you run into some guy on the street and he hands you a joint for nothing. There’s just no way you can ever get better dope than that. Not ever.

High Times: Okay, you sly fuckers, you passed the litmus test. This whole interview was just a lead-up to that last question, to test if you really had been spoiled by success. But you answered it just like you would’ve a year ago, so now you get a reward. It just so happens, in the glove compartment of this Rolls we got a prerolled lid of Shungnak Thimderfuck, grown by Eskimos up north of the Arctic Circle. Hey Julio, pull in at the next taco stand and order us all a raft of everything they got. It’s party time.

Chong: That really is the best part about being rich. There never isn’t any dope around.

Cheech: About the best part of being famous is, there’s always people around like Dwyer who want to give you dope.

The post From the Vault: Will Success Spoil Cheech & Chong? Of Course (1980) first appeared on High Times.

The post From the Vault: Will Success Spoil Cheech & Chong? Of Course (1980) appeared first on Paradise Found.

Rappers Xzibit and Snoop Dogg have each opened dispensaries in California, aiming to bring the cultural legacy of cannabis into a unique destination for beginners and enthusiasts alike. Each of the two has stood up for the importance of cannabis culture in their lives, moving the industry forward and putting an emphasis on the experience above all. Xzibit’s West Coast Cannabis Club (XWCC) and Snoop Dogg’s SWED (“Smoke Weed Every Day”) are more than just dispensaries, but authentic and significant brands looking to make a difference.

Why Xzibit Created XWCC

Xzibit’s XWCC is a fusion of West Coast culture, cannabis excellence, and authenticity. Having witnessed the evolution of cannabis culture firsthand, he recognized an opportunity to contribute to the industry in a meaningful way. His entertainment background allows him to connect with a diverse audience and create products that have a genuine impact on the cannabis community. XWCC aims to offer a premium experience, focusing on a rich culture reflective of Xzibit’s personal journey. In XWCC, he sees an opportunity to connect cannabis culture to the mainstream and to create a deeper connection with the community he serves by sharing something he loves.

XWCC’s Impact on the Community

XWCC currently has both Chatsworth and Bel-Air locations, offering top-tier locally sourced cannabis products with delivery options at the best prices available. In his work, he hopes to resonate with his fans and the greater community, advocating for cannabis culture as a life experience. In addition to his cannabis advocacy, Xzibit is a philanthropist who has participated in initiatives for youth empowerment and community development, work which he hopes to continue by establishing his cannabis dispensary.

Snoop Dogg’s Intertwined Legacy

Snoop Dogg’s dispensary may be a more recent establishment than Xzibit’s, but his involvement in the cannabis community has spanned decades. Snoop Dogg’s music legacy has been intertwined with an unwavering commitment to cannabis advocacy which has led to overcoming the social stigma of cannabis through promoting education about the substance and stressing the importance of responsible consumption. With SWED, Snoop Dogg is finally bringing his unique perspective on cannabis culture to the mainstream market, offering a range of top-quality products designed to reflect his values and personal taste.

SWED’s Greater Mission

SWED is located conveniently near the LAX airport, serving numerous communities in the area. Not only offering top-quality products based around Snoop Dogg and other rappers’ legacies, SWED is a business built on advocating for normalizing and fully legalizing cannabis use, making itself a brand with a mission beyond sales. SWED is set to participate in many community initiatives, including supporting local artists, advocating for social justice related to the causes of cannabis legalization, and offering educational programs on cannabis use.

Dispensaries that Create Community

These two rappers and advocates, Xzibit and Snoop Dogg, have created cannabis dispensaries that will have a meaningful impact on the community. Beyond offering a product, these spaces serve as hubs for creating a culture that has been a tremendous benefit in the lives of their founders. Their missions extend to supporting the communities around them and expanding the rich history of the cannabis community for others to take part in.

The post Where Cannabis Meets Cultural Legacy: Xzibit’s XWCC and Snoop Dogg’s SWED first appeared on High Times.

The post Where Cannabis Meets Cultural Legacy: Xzibit’s XWCC and Snoop Dogg’s SWED appeared first on Paradise Found.