GÜD Essence CEO Jasmine Johnson has been building a Black woman-led cannabis company in Florida since 2016. In an exclusive interview with High Times, she breaks down what equity in this market actually looks like in practice, and what it has cost her to find out.

“I’ve been involved in this process since 2016,” says Jasmine Johnson.

She says it the way people say things they have had to make peace with. Not bitterly. Not defeated. Just clearly, the way you state a fact that has become so familiar it no longer surprises you.

Johnson is the CEO of GÜD Essence, a Black woman-led cannabis company and one of the few in Florida positioned to operate as a licensed MMTC. A Miami native, she launched her first business at 18, co-founded Crescendo Jazz & Blues Lounge, a South Florida cultural institution that hosted more than 300 events, and has managed over $200 million in assets across cannabis, real estate and hospitality. She holds degrees from Florida A&M University and Florida International University and has built research partnerships with universities alongside her dispensary infrastructure.

None of that made Florida’s system easier.

Nearly a decade in, she has one operational dispensary in Clearwater, more locations in development, a cultivation and processing campus under construction and a purchase agreement tied to a notice of intent to award a license, with certain components still pending regulatory approval. Along the way: a 750-page application, a $150,000 filing fee, a two-year wait and no award. A key partner who withdrew just before an ownership change submission. Court rulings that kept extending already extended timelines.

“The average entrepreneur cannot sustain a decade-long timeline based on uncertainty,” she tells High Times.

The Gap Between the Story and the System

Florida talks about equity in cannabis the way most regulated markets talk about equity: at the licensing stage, in the language of opportunity and access, in the framing of a door being opened.

Johnson has been through that door. She knows what’s on the other side.

“Equity is often marketed at the licensing stage,” she says, “but the real challenge begins after. There’s a narrative around ‘opportunity,’ but in reality, the market favors operators with deep capital reserves, political relationships and existing infrastructure. Without those, equity becomes more symbolic than functional.”

That gap between the marketing and the mechanics is where GÜD Essence has had to operate. No institutional backing. No political shortcuts. Instead, Johnson leveraged roughly $10.3 million in equity from her family’s real estate portfolio, structured retail leases to shift buildout costs to landlords and built with a discipline that leaves no room for the kind of inefficiency better-funded operators absorb without thinking about it.

“Where others can absorb inefficiencies,” she says, “we’ve had to build with precision. Every dollar, every decision, every timeline matters.”

What It Actually Takes

Florida’s MMTC licensing process requires full vertical integration from the start: cultivation, processing and retail all at once, before a single dollar comes in. Timelines shift without warning. Approvals come slowly. Capital drains steadily.

“You’re investing millions before you generate a single dollar,” she says, “with no guarantee of when approvals will come.”

The system, she argues, underestimates what entry actually costs and what survival actually demands. Minority entrepreneurs typically enter without institutional backing, and the structure doesn’t account for that gap.

“It’s not just about getting a license,” she says. “It’s about having the resources to survive long enough to use it.”

She is direct about the low points. Multiple moments when the rational calculus pointed toward stopping. A filing that went nowhere. A partner who walked. Rulings that kept the finish line moving.

“What keeps me going is the long-term vision and responsibility to build something that creates access and opportunity beyond just my company,” she says. “That purpose outweighs the short-term challenges.”

What Florida Gets Wrong

If Florida were serious about diverse ownership, Johnson has a list.

Reduce the barriers to entry. Create pathways for phased growth instead of requiring full vertical integration upfront. Fix the timelines. Improve regulatory efficiency. Rethink the structural assumptions that make the whole system hostile to independent operators without institutional capital.

“The system underestimates the true cost of entry and survival,” she says.

She also points past the state level entirely. Florida’s current framework is too narrow in its focus on select cannabinoids and too slow to incorporate research. GÜD Essence is developing products targeting chronic pain, diabetes and other serious health conditions. The market she is building toward is more clinical and more ambitious than what Florida’s system currently accommodates.

“Florida has an opportunity to modernize its framework,” she says. “We are especially committed to developing products that support conditions like chronic pain, diabetes and other serious health challenges.”

Still Building

GÜD Essence today has one operational dispensary in Clearwater, with locations in development in Orlando, Jacksonville and Titusville. The cultivation and processing campus is moving forward. Johnson is still in it, still building, still working toward a version of this market that looks less like the one she entered in 2016.

What people outside Florida most misunderstand, she says, is simple: the capital required, the time required and the commitment required are not what anyone advertises when they talk about cannabis equity.

“This is not a market where you can move quickly or test concepts,” she says. “It requires full commitment upfront, with significant risk and delayed return.”

Nearly a decade in, Jasmine Johnson is still here. Still building. Still waiting for Florida to catch up to the story it keeps telling about itself.

<p>The post She Paid $150,000 for a Florida Cannabis License and Got Nothing. Then She Found Another Way In. first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post She Paid $150,000 for a Florida Cannabis License and Got Nothing. Then She Found Another Way In. appeared first on Paradise Found.

The Puerto Rican hitmaker says cannabis is bigger than business, framing the plant as medicine, resistance, and a way to challenge the machine that taught people to fear it.

Like many others, Farruko’s first encounter with cannabis didn’t come through a prescription or a dispensary. It came from the streets, from music, from leisure. It happened at home. Among friends, among chords, in the haze of long nights where a blunt of krippy or kush could go around until everyone’s eyes were too heavy to stay open. A relationship between the Puerto Rican artist and the plant that, if we wanted to, we could find in bars that have already become part of Latin reggaetón’s DNA: Los maleantes quieren krippy / toas las babies quieren kush, or Ya no quiere amor, quiere marihuana. (The hustlers want krippy / all the girls want kush or she doesn’t want love anymore, she wants marijuana.)

What began as a recreational experience gradually evolved over time, revealing another dimension. Cannabis was present in both artistic processes and chill moments, but also—perhaps without him fully realizing it—during moments of healing: medicinal treatments, slowing down, meditation, letting go. He discovered a sense of pause, introspection, and the physical relief offered by this alternative medicine, which helped him manage several health issues at a moment when, he says, taking too many pills was already doing more harm than good. Where some still see stigma, Farruko saw opportunity.

Once he understood that, the Puerto Rican artist—a Latin Grammy winner, recognized by the Billboard Latin Music Awards, and a musical collaborator with names like Daddy Yankee, Sean Paul, Bad Bunny, and Arcángel—decided to turn his personal and spiritual experience into a public defense of medical cannabis. He did it from Puerto Rico, and against years of stigma.

That intersection gave rise to Carbonnabis, his medical cannabis brand developed in and for Puerto Rico, with ambitions to reach the world: to make its way into homes, dispensaries, and the hands of anyone who may need the plant’s healing potential. Rather than a celebrity whim to add another asset or simply enter a rapidly growing industry, Farruko approached it as something personal, medicinal, and educational.

In conversation with High Times, Farruko talks about spirituality, natural medicine, prejudice, Puerto Rico, the industry, and reggaetón with a conviction that is unexpectedly clear: defending the plant, he says, can also be a way of waking up.

Farruko and cannabis: From recreational use to medical

For Farruko, his relationship with cannabis was once part of everyday social life, part of the same urban culture that also shaped the music he was creating at the time. “I obviously used it recreationally before this whole shift toward making it fully medicinal began,” he says.

What changed over time wasn’t just his personal relationship with marijuana, but also the context surrounding it. As different countries began regulating its medical use and scientific research started to expand, Farruko found himself entering a very different conversation. It was no longer only about leisure or social culture, but also about health, treatments, and regulation.

But before getting publicly involved in that space, he decided to educate himself. “It took me a while to really study it, dive into the topic, learn about it, and find the right people to develop this project with,” he explains, referring to the creation of the brand.

The process wasn’t without doubts. The artist knew his decision could draw criticism, especially after the personal and spiritual changes he had gone through in recent years, which he had openly shared with his audience.

“I definitely had my doubts before getting into it, of course, because I’m coming from a moment in my life where I’ve changed a lot of things,” he says.

That learning journey ultimately transformed what could have been just another business venture into something far more personal. In his case, Carbonnabis does not appear to be an opportunistic venture within a growing industry, but rather the result of closely observing the shift in social perception around cannabis and the increasingly clear role it is starting to play in the medical field.

Experiencing the effects of medical cannabis firsthand

Behind Carbonnabis there’s more than just an understanding of the market or a reflection of the cultural shift around marijuana; there’s also a very tangible physical experience.

Farruko says that for years he lived with several health issues: recurring muscle pain, constant inflammation, episodes of gout, and difficulty getting proper rest. As often happens in these situations, treatment relied mostly on prescription medications. “I wanted to do it, especially because of my personal health conditions: I suffer from muscle pain, I have gout, and I get inflammation over the smallest things,” he explains.

Managing those symptoms meant taking pills frequently to control flare-ups and pain. Over time, however, the side effects began to take a toll.

“The excess of pills was already hurting me,” he recalls. “Every time I had inflammation, the pill I took would upset my stomach.” On top of that came another common consequence of high-stress routines and constant public exposure: rest became increasingly difficult. “I wasn’t sleeping well, and I started looking for alternative medicine,” he says.

It was in that context that cannabis began to take on a different role in his life. What had once been part of leisure or musical culture slowly began to appear as a possible therapeutic tool.

When asked whether he truly found a working alternative in the plant, Farruko doesn’t hesitate. That turning point—between the fatigue of pharmaceuticals and the search for a more natural medicine—would ultimately become one of the main forces behind the creation of Carbonnabis.

Cannabis as a ritual

Beyond its medicinal dimension, Farruko also describes his relationship with cannabis from a more intimate place. Not necessarily as a direct tool for writing music or altering his creative process, but as a way to slow things down, something that can naturally coexist with those activities.

“I use it to meditate, to think, to step away and have my own space, and, of course, to rest,” he explains.

In his account, something appears that many users recognize: the moment before using it as a ritual in itself. The simple act of pausing, preparing the flower, and stepping away from everyday noise. A gesture that, in the middle of packed schedules and constant stimuli, becomes an excuse to slow the pace.

“Your brain is juggling so many things all day…,” he says. And for him, that moment of pause begins even before anything is lit. “From the process of breaking it down, having it in your hands, rolling the blunt, you’re already doing it… it’s like therapy. It’s the perfect excuse to stop, think, and take a few minutes for yourself.”

In that way, a simple gesture starts to take on a different meaning. Not so much an “escape,” but a way of reclaiming moments of introspection. “Human beings rarely stop,” he says. “We’re always moving fast.”

Between the noise of the digital world, the pressure of work, and constant public exposure, that small moment of pause—for some almost invisible—can become, in his words, a way of listening to yourself again.

Carbonabbis: When personal experience becomes a medical project

That entire personal journey eventually took concrete form in Carbonnabis, the medical cannabis brand Farruko launched in Puerto Rico. Its name blends Carbon Fiber Music, his production company, with the word “cannabis.”

The project, he explains, is mainly aimed at patients seeking relief from everyday but deeply widespread conditions: stress, anxiety, and muscle pain.

The genetics developed for the brand are designed around that balance. Farruko describes it as a hybrid variety created to combine different therapeutic effects, with broad aromatic profiles meant to make the experience more approachable and personalized.

“It’s a hybrid plant that has that balance,” he explains. “With my plant, we’ve focused more on the medicinal side than the recreational.”

Alcohol, tobacco, and sugar are legal, so why isn’t cannabis?

The birth of Carbonnabis isn’t only about seizing an opportunity in a fast-expanding industry. For Farruko, it’s also about something broader: helping change the conversation around cannabis. “It’s more personal, and about educating,” he says. “People have demonized the plant a lot.”

In his view, that demonization coexists with an obvious social contradiction. Substances such as alcohol, tobacco, or even sugar—whose negative health effects are widely documented—remain part of everyday life with far less controversy.

“Everything in life, if you don’t use it the right way, will have consequences,” he explains. “But we see, for example, alcohol is legal, tobacco is legal, sugar—which is the most dangerous drug—is legal. It hasn’t been subjected to the same kind of campaign against it that marijuana has.”

He adds: “There’s also no moment where you stop. Someone who drinks often loses control; one drink turns into many until they’re being carried off the floor. I’ve never seen someone under the effects of cannabis alone, fighting or acting aggressively. Obviously, it doesn’t affect everyone the same way, but most patients and people who use it recreationally don’t behave that way,” he explains.

That double standard, he suggests, has deeper roots. If he had to explain why such a clear distinction exists between some substances that are not only legal but socially legitimized and marijuana, Farruko points to two reasons: “I think it’s big interests and double standards,” he says.

For him, the reasons are political, economic, and tied to powerful incentives. “Everyone has their own interests at play. That’s no mystery, and everyone is going to look where the business is. This is a fight that’s been going on for years, for centuries, I’d say, where the plant has been demonized.”

Access, democratization, and products designed for specific conditions

That shift in the conversation—from prejudice to education—is exactly where Farruko wants to position Carbonnabis. But beyond the cultural narrative, the brand also operates within the concrete structure of Puerto Rico’s medical cannabis industry.

Currently, Carbonnabis products are available in 68 dispensaries across the island, where patients can access different formats from the brand. The lineup includes flower, vapes, and edibles, and so far, the reception has been strong.

“Right now we have gummies, vapes; the quality we’re offering, people have really loved it. The reviews and feedback from the public have been incredible,” he says. In fact, demand has been so high that “it’s almost sold out already. We’re about to drop the second release,” he adds.

Upcoming launches will also include new vape models, new designs, different genetics, and edible products like chocolates. The strategy, he explains, is to maintain a constant rotation of varieties to meet the expectations of a public that knows the market well and demands quality. “We’re changing the strains all the time so people can always find something new,” he says.

One particular feature of the project is that the strains don’t come from existing commercial varieties. Instead, they were developed specifically for the brand. “These are strains that belong to us. It’s not like we took a strain that already existed out there with a name. This was built completely from scratch,” he explains.

Within that framework, Carbonnabis aims to make medical cannabis more available to patients through a more accessible approach, one oriented around the specific needs of each individual. The idea, he says, is that anyone walking into a dispensary can find a product designed for their particular condition. “So they have the opportunity to obtain a plant designed for their condition,” he says. “They can walk in and say, ‘Look, my joints hurt, I can’t sleep, or I have X condition, what do you recommend?’”

And for patients who don’t feel comfortable smoking, the range of formats opens up other options. “If the patient doesn’t like flower, then they have the option of a gummy, a drink, baked goods,” he explains.

Ultimately, the intention is simple: to move medical cannabis out of the territory of stigma and turn it into just another tool within personal health and wellness.

For Farruko, the potential was always there. Together with his partner Eli Estrada, he began developing the project some time ago. “We were looking for a way to do it because cannabis has always caught my attention, and I always saw its potential because it’s a flower. It comes from nature. It must have something that can help us, because nature is designed for that. I never bought the story that it was something bad. We just had to find the right way to use it. To understand it,” he says.

That way, he reveals what the main goal had always been: “I knew that this way we could help a lot of people. The vision was to enter this space and grow, because I think it has huge potential, and it’s something new for many countries where the market is just beginning to open.”

Puerto Rican sovereignty through local industry

The plants are developed in collaboration with First Medical, one of Puerto Rico’s medical cannabis operators. For Farruko, that decision also reflects a clear objective: strengthening the local industry.

“I did it with the full intention of helping farmers here and supporting cultivation in Puerto Rico, so the industry keeps moving forward on the island,” he says.

Looking ahead, the project also includes plans to expand beyond the island and eventually open its own physical dispensaries. For now, however, the focus remains on consolidating its presence within Puerto Rico’s medical cannabis system.

For Farruko, part of the reason Carbonnabis could take shape on the island has to do with how much the medical cannabis system in Puerto Rico has matured in recent years.

The artist lives there and has watched that evolution up close. Today, he explains, the island has a wide network of dispensaries, multiple locally cultivated brands, and a regulated system that allows patients to access specific products based on their medical needs.

Access operates through a regulated medical framework: patients must obtain a license accompanied by a professional recommendation, after which they can purchase different products within the system. “I really like the way the system works here, where everything is done through a license you obtain with a medical recommendation,” he explains.

That process also includes evaluating each patient’s specific needs, something Farruko considers one of the most important advances in how medical cannabis is approached today. “They check what conditions you have and recommend what type of cannabis you should use depending on your case,” he says.

The result is a market that goes far beyond traditional flower. In Puerto Rico’s dispensaries today, multiple formats coexist, designed for different patient profiles: edibles, oils, topical creams, capsules, and infused beverages. “It’s incredible how much it’s industrialized and progressed,” says the artist.

That context—an expanding industry, a regulated system, and a growing community of patients—is the environment where Carbonnabis aims to establish itself before considering international expansion.

Puerto Rico, Latin identity and local pride

The growth and momentum of the cannabis industry are undeniable, and, looking back now, they also seem almost unstoppable. Globally, of course, but if we turn our attention to Latin America, the progress stands out even more. Uruguay, after all, became the first country in the world to legalize marijuana, and that momentum can also be seen in places like Argentina, Colombia, and, of course, Puerto Rico.

The strong presence of the Latin community and its unique characteristics creates an interesting contrast with the markets that usually dominate the conversation, such as the United States or parts of Europe, especially when you look at the number of entrepreneurs emerging from these regions.

For Farruko, the goal was always clear: “I wanted it to be something grown in Puerto Rico, something that could come out of there, so the farmer could not only see opportunities within the island but also show the world that Puerto Rico can stand alongside markets like Los Angeles or Denver.”

In his view, the island doesn’t just have the musical talent that has turned it into one of the most influential cultural epicenters of the past few decades… it also “has the potential” in agriculture, business, and science to position itself within the global cannabis industry.

But before thinking about international markets or competing with long-established hubs like certain cities in the United States, Farruko believes the first step is strengthening what already exists at home. “Prioritizing Puerto Rico, because it’s my home,” he says firmly.

The logic, he explains, is simple: build a solid foundation locally before expanding to the rest of the world. “You have to be strong at home first before you can go out.”

In that sense, Carbonnabis also works as a way to reclaim local identity within an industry that is often dominated by large capital or narratives disconnected from the communities that historically lived alongside the plant.

For Farruko, the growth of the cannabis industry in Latin America is closely tied to those communities. “First, you have to understand who we are at the root,” he says.

Faith, spirituality and cannabis

If there’s one point where the conversation becomes more delicate, it’s when the plant enters into dialogue with faith.

In recent years, Farruko has spoken publicly about his spiritual transformation, a personal process that also marked a shift in his public and artistic life. Because of that, he acknowledges that his defense of medical cannabis can raise a few eyebrows.

“In my case, it’s always going to be something uncomfortable for the public,” he admits.

The tension appears especially among more conservative religious circles, where cannabis still carries decades of moral stigma. “Orthodox groups in that space, or religious people, you could say, tend to attack the plant and its use,” he explains.

However, Farruko believes many of those criticisms stem more from cultural interpretations than from concrete religious doctrine. “The Bible doesn’t specify anything about cannabis,” he notes. “It doesn’t say it’s bad. It’s simply not there.”

For him, the key is not absolute prohibition, but responsible use. A logic that also appears in many spiritual traditions through the concept of free will. “When something is used the right way, it can bring multiple benefits,” the artist says.

He also draws attention to what he sees as a broader silence—from both religious groups and society at large—about the consequences and risks of other types of widely accepted medical treatments. “Maybe science and chemicals are harming human beings, and this could help counter that in some way; help patients find a better quality of life without damaging their liver. We see how pharmaceuticals affect the liver and can really tear it apart. They relieve you in the moment, but the condition is still there,” he says.

He also points out that the relationship between plants and spirituality is nothing new. Throughout history, different cultures have used plants with psychoactive properties within rituals, ceremonies, and spiritual practices.

For Farruko, that historical context helps explain why today’s debate is often shaped more by recent prejudices than by a broader understanding of human traditions.

In his personal experience, cannabis has not only been part of his creative process or his moments of rest, but also a tool that helped him manage physical pain and periods of stress. “I know the benefits it has. I know how many people it has helped, and how it has helped me too.”

Defending that position publicly, he acknowledges, isn’t always easy. But he chose to do it anyway. “I’ve defended it with everything I’ve got.”

To explain his stance, he often turns to a phrase found in scripture that, for him, captures the balance between freedom and responsibility: “Everything is permissible for me… but not everything is beneficial.”

Between faith, natural medicine, public controversy, and ancestral traditions, Farruko ultimately offers a simple idea: the issue isn’t necessarily the plant itself, but the relationship each person chooses to build with it.

Cannabis as an act of positive rebellion

Toward the end of the conversation, Farruko returns to an idea that runs through the entire interview: changing the social perception of marijuana is not something that will happen overnight.

The plant carries decades—even centuries—of cultural, political, and media-driven stigma. A reputation that, as the artist himself notes, cannot be undone with speeches alone. “Once something gets a reputation, it sticks,” he reflects. “That’s the reputation the plant already has.”

In his view, transforming that collective perception is a slow process. It doesn’t depend solely on arguments or public debates, but also on real experiences that allow people to question what they have taken for granted for years.

“It’s going to be very difficult to change people’s perspectives,” he admits. “But it happens through actions, not through words.”

For him, that shift begins when people can approach the plant from a different perspective: by researching it, experiencing it, and observing its real effects, rather than the narratives that have dominated the conversation for decades. “By experimenting and proving that it’s different from what we were told,” he says.

In that sense, Farruko sees a parallel between cannabis, his music, and his own career. All three, he says, share something in common: they all emerged in contexts where questioning the established order meant going against the current.

“I see it as an act of rebellion against an oppressive system.”

But he clarifies that this is not a destructive rebellion. Rather, it’s one that aims to open conversations and expand the way we understand certain things. “The plant, the music, and my career are acts of rebellion,” he says. A rebellion that, in his view, has a clear purpose “on a positive level.”

More than confrontation for its own sake, the goal is to spark curiosity, invite people to question assumptions, and open space for new ways of thinking.

“Wake up… not everything we’re told is what it really is,” he says. “It’s always good to question. It’s always good to educate yourself.”

Within that intersection of music, spirituality, natural medicine, and public education, Farruko seems to have found a way to align his artistic present with a personal cause that, for him, goes far beyond business.

His musical present: Panama, memory, and the roots of reggaetón

Although cannabis now occupies a central place in his public discourse, Farruko still thinks about his present through music as well. In fact, one of the projects he’s currently preparing looks backward in order to better understand the origins of the genre he helped take to the world.

“I’m about to release an album that I recorded in Panama,” he reveals.

The choice of location is no coincidence. For Farruko, Panama holds a fundamental place in the genealogy of reggaetón, even though that chapter is often overlooked when the history of the genre is told.

“Panama was a pillar for recording reggae and reggaetón in Spanish,” he explains. “It planted the seed for what would become the reggaetón genre.”

The trajectory, as he sees it, is fairly clear. First came Jamaica, where reggae and dancehall were born, genres that would later become key foundations for many reggaetón classics. Then Panama, where the first Spanish-language adaptations began. And finally Puerto Rico, where the genre took the shape that the world recognizes today. “Puerto Rico gave it our essence, and that’s what we now know as reggaetón.”

With the new album, Farruko says he wants to do exactly that: refresh the collective memory and bring the roots of the movement back into the conversation. “With this album, I wanted to remind people of that history… to bring back that sense of orientation and education.”

Throughout his career he has experimented with different sounds—trap, Latin pop, electronic music—but Farruko insists that reggaetón remains the DNA of everything he does.

“I’ve never limited myself,” he says. That creative openness, he explains, doesn’t mean abandoning the genre’s origins—it means expanding them. “I’m a descendant of reggaetón. That’s what’s in my genetics.”

Over time, he says, his musical curiosity has only grown wider. “I’ve become even more of a fan of creating, of expanding my ear, my creativity.” But even when he explores new sounds, one thing remains unchanged: the rhythmic essence that gave birth to the genre. “Without losing the essence, which is reggaetón. The roots.”

Because, as he says with a laugh, there’s one element that always returns. “The tumpa tumpa is always going to be there.”

At the end of the day, that rhythm is more than a musical structure—it’s part of a generational identity. “We grew up listening to reggaetón, and it’s what allowed us to travel the world and become who we are today.”

For him, understanding where reggaetón comes from is also a way of protecting its cultural identity at a time when the genre has gone global and often loses sight of its Caribbean roots.

From the raw beginnings of reggaetón—an evolution that Farruko himself was clearly part of, alongside milestones like Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina in the early 2000s—to today, when the genre has become a global phenomenon that emerged from Latin neighborhoods and exploded in clubs across Europe and the United States, the idea remains the same: never forget where it all came from.

The lost value of music in the digital age

“What becomes popular isn’t always the foundation. It’s not always the one who cleared the path,” he reflects. “The people who come later, when the road is already paved, move forward so easily and comfortably that from the outside people say, ‘That’s the guy who did it.’ When that’s not really the case.” And adds: “That’s why it’s always important to give credit and bring attention back to how it all started, how the whole movement was born.”

Amid that reflection on the genre’s roots, Farruko also pauses to consider broader cultural shifts. “Over time, imagine… books… people don’t even like them anymore. They prefer them on an iPad or on their phone,” he says. “Times change, and we have to find ways to educate, to package information, and pass it on in the ways technology, humanity, and each generation keep evolving.”

Reflecting on the future of new generations—and of reggaetón itself—while trying not to sound “too conspiratorial,” Farruko believes we’re already living through a massive transformation that affects the entire music industry: the way we consume music.

In the streaming era, access is immediate. But something about the symbolic value music once had seems to have faded.

There was a time, he recalls, when getting your hands on an artist’s music involved an almost physical search: finding the cassette, buying the album, sharing it with friends. “Having a cassette or a record from your favorite artist felt like a treasure. Getting the music was hard. Seeing how your favorite artist lived was almost impossible because there were no social media showing their lives… So when you saw them, it was like seeing an alien, something out of this world,” he says, laughing.

That difficulty made every album feel special, something to keep and listen to for years.

“Those moments were appreciated more. It was more artisanal. Now with digitalization—which has helped us a lot, because I grew up in that world and my career expanded through social media and platforms—we still have to find ways to preserve information,” he says. “Over time everything evolves, technology keeps growing, and we move further away from the physical. We have to find ways to preserve those moments, those creations, so they keep traveling through time and new generations can keep discovering them.”

Today, with nearly the entire catalog of recorded music available in the cloud, that relationship has completely changed. And for Farruko, that also creates a new challenge for artists: finding ways to preserve those creative moments for the future.

Between the plant, the music, and the spiritual journey that has shaped his recent years, Farruko seems to have found an unexpected common thread: questioning the status quo. Whether through an album that revisits the roots of reggaetón or a brand seeking to change the conversation around medical cannabis, his goal remains the same: wake people up, offer perspective, and leave behind something more than just songs.

The Farruko of then and now

Before the conversation ends, one final question inevitably arises: what would happen if the Farruko of fifteen years ago, the one behind Chulería en Pote, the young artist taking his first steps in reggaetón, were to meet the Farruko of Carbonnabis today?

The answer comes with a mix of humor and reflection: “We’d probably laugh at each other,” he says.

In his mind, the encounter would be almost surreal: two versions of himself separated by years of experiences, success, personal crises, and spiritual transformations. “One wouldn’t believe where he ended up, and the other wouldn’t believe how it all started.”

The Farruko of today—entrepreneur, established artist, promoter of a medical cannabis project, and a public figure who openly speaks about faith and purpose—acknowledges that the road wasn’t without its hardships.

So if he could tell his younger self anything, it wouldn’t necessarily be about music, fame, or business. “I’d have a lot to say so he wouldn’t have to take as many hits as I did,” he says with a laugh. “It would be a pretty intense conversation.”

But, at the same time, he knows many of those lessons can only be learned by living through them.

Between music, spirituality, and his effort to change the conversation around medical cannabis, Farruko now looks back with the awareness that every stage—even the difficult ones—became part of the same journey.

One that, as he puts it, is still being written.

<p>The post ‘Cannabis Is an Act of Rebellion’: Latin Superstar Farruko on Weed, Healing and Fighting the System first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post ‘Cannabis Is an Act of Rebellion’: Latin Superstar Farruko on Weed, Healing and Fighting the System appeared first on Paradise Found.

The AEW star gets candid about loss, love, life on the road, and the role cannabis has played in helping her stay grounded through it all.

There’s nothing subtle about Marina Shafir.

I learned this last week after sitting down with the former mixed martial artist turned wrestling icon, who cheerfully sparked one up while we discussed her life, her career, and of course, her love for the plant.

The daughter of professional power lifter Veniamin Shafir, Marina Shafir began her journey at six years old, when her parents signed her up for Judo.  

While most girls her age were crafting and taking piano lessons, Shafir was launching opponents over her shoulder and perfecting her rear naked chokes.

Even at a young age, she was a badass. And when she talks about her early years in combat sports, it’s clear she’s proud of the dedication and work she put in to go from after-school Judo classes to one of the most distinctive figures in pro fighting and sports entertainment.

But it was also quite apparent that nothing – not even getting paid to beat the shit out of people on television – gives her greater joy than talking about her family. 

Fighting, Family, and Weed

Mother to a 9-year-old son and married to AEW pro wrestler Chris Lindsey (a.k.a. Roderick Strong), Shafir perked up when I asked her about her husband, with whom she both works and trains.

“He’s such an amazing partner. I love that I can speak my love language with my husband while training together. That’s a different level of trust. He understands who I am, and I understand who he is,” Shafir said.

Indeed, a strong partnership with her husband makes her very hectic life possible.  Balancing work and family life when you’re constantly on the road is no easy task.  

Shafir and her husband, Chris Lindsey

Shafir tells me that to balance her work and family life, she just takes it one week at a time.

“There’s so much going on outside of my bubble that I can’t control. Dealing with injuries. It’s a lot. So I take it one week at a time,” she said.

“We really try hard to carve out time for our son, too. Soccer practice, going to the farmers market, and just making time for family,” Shafir added.

While Shafir’s family is clearly her priority, her passion for her job remains strong.  Make no mistake: she was not hesitant to express her love for her job with AEW, too. 

“I love a good flex. I’m not talking about a physical flex, but like an energy flex. That’s why I love my job so much,” Shafir said.

“I’ve always had an infatuation with martial arts. I was able to fall in love with judo and MMA, and now something completely branched out from those things. It’s action theatre. We get to tell our stories in a physical way,” she said.

“My character is a part of me. It’s always been a part of me,” Shafir said.

Another part of Shafir is her love for the plant. And it goes much deeper than just getting a quick buzz.

“I tried weed when I was in my late teens, but I was more of a drinker back then. I grew up around Russians, and my family is very Slavic and European. Every weekend, everyone was drinking and smoking cigarettes. That was the dessert for the week. But when I was 23, my dad died, and soon after that, I moved out to California to live with my best friend, Ronda [the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo and former UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey], to train and take martial arts seriously. That’s when I really started smoking weed,” Shafir said.

“It was actually hilarious because as soon as we got to LA, she gave me this chocolate bar. I didn’t know how much to take, and I ended up eating the whole thing. It was 100 milligrams. I was supposed to start training the next day. I was out for three days,” she said.

“So I slept it off, chugged a lot of water, and after that, slowly started smoking small amounts of weed. Eventually, it just became a natural part of my day. And then I quit drinking, which was a good thing,” Shafir said.

“I was able to work with a lot of really smart people in neurology, and they would tell me that alcohol will wreck you and that maybe I should stop drinking if I’m going to get punched in the head. So I quit drinking. And weed helped make that possible,” she said.

“It actually helped me grieve a bit, too, after my dad died. When I moved away from my hometown, it was nice to be away from it all. And then I just got to feel my relationship with my dad away from home. A lot of that happened while I was high, and I’m so glad that it did. My dad was a huge part of my life,” Shafir said.

Veniamin Shafir

While Shafir had no problem opening up and showing a side that most people would likely never see, don’t get it twisted.  She’s still a savage competitor with a strong warrior mentality.  

Everything she’s achieved today can be equated to her undeniable work ethic and her ability to effectively fight through some of the toughest physical, mental, and emotional battles of her life.  The fact that weed played some role in her success just makes her story that much more fascinating.   

Overall, Marina Shafir is a no-nonsense, weed-smoking athlete who adores her family, loves her job, and comes across as far more grounded than her wrestling persona might suggest.

<p>The post AEW’s Marina Shafir Hits Hard, Smokes Weed, and Would Rather Talk About Family first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post AEW’s Marina Shafir Hits Hard, Smokes Weed, and Would Rather Talk About Family appeared first on Paradise Found.

Before New Constellations started turning heads with dreamy synth-pop and soft-focus heat, Harlee Case was already building a different kind of scene in Portland: femme, weird, welcoming, and very, very stoned.

“Females first. In cannabis there are plenty of heady bros doing things, we wanted to create a space for women and one where they felt safe to fully express themselves,” says Harlee Case, the co-founder and former Cosmic Creative director of Portland’s now-defunct but still fondly remembered Ladies of Paradise and its Lady Jays pre-roll line, now one half of New Constellations, the band carrying some of that same color, softness and emotional charge into music.

That line gets right to it.

Before cannabis marketers learned how to fake intimacy, before every brand with a pastel palette started pretending it had built “community,” there were people in weed culture actually doing the work. In Portland, for a stretch, Harlee Case and the Ladies of Paradise crew were among them. They were not selling sterile empowerment copy. They were making actual spaces. Rooms where women felt safe. Parties that felt like portals. Shoots that looked like weed had finally been handed over to girls who liked fashion, fantasy, wigs, glitter, color, softness and smoke in equal measure.

What they built did not come from trend forecasting. It came from a hole in the culture.

“The evolution of Ladies of Paradise mirrored the needs and desires of women in the industry,” Case says. “When we first began, legalization and the recreational market was new and while there were a ton of women behind the scenes working, the narrative was still very masculine and mostly ‘heady’ culture. Ladies of Paradise carved a space in the industry for women who didn’t subscribe to the stereotypical vibe that there was back then.”

That mattered. It still does.

Because for all the talk about cannabis becoming mainstream, the early legal era was full of stale visual language and tired assumptions about who weed was for and how it was supposed to look. A lot of “culture” was still coded male. A lot of cool was still filtered through glass art machismo, grow-room seriousness, and a kind of studied roughness that left plenty of people out.

Also read: What Do Stoner Girls Carry in Their Purse? We’re Here, We’re Hot, We’re High AF

Ladies of Paradise walked in wearing platform boots and said: no thanks.

“Through being our authentic, fashion-forward, wild selves, we gave women permission to do the same and normalized cannabis for the girlie pops,” Case says.

That sentence may sound playful. It’s also a mission statement.

Originally, Ladies of Paradise was supposed to something else. Then real life intervened, which is often where the good stuff starts.

“Originally, Ladies of Paradise was going to be a blog and in meeting our girl Leighana, we decided to host a launch party for the blog, it was at that moment it clicked that this is needed.”

The thing they made was never just a product line. It was a visual language. A social code. A permission slip. And like most real scenes, it sharpened itself through nights out before it ever turned into a business model.

“Our Cowboys vs. Aliens party unintentionally became the blueprint,” Case says. “Crazy and fun themes with weed aplenty and free to all guests, these theme parties became the catalyst that continued to push Ladies of Paradise forward and into the limelight which led us to more photoshoots and eventually into branding, marketing, event planning, and various other creative endeavors for cannabis companies and accessory brands.”

That blueprint did not begin and end with aesthetics. The looks were part of it, sure. So were the wigs, the colors, the gowns on farms, the feeling that cannabis no longer had to be framed through the same stale masculine lens. But what made it real was the part that could not be mood-boarded.

At the center of the whole thing were a few rules.

“Females first.”

“Genuine connection and making people feel seen.”

“Fun. Have fun, wear a wig, don’t take life too seriously.”

That’s Harlee’s own shorthand for what mattered most when Ladies of Paradise was in full swing. Not optimization. Not audience segmentation. Not over-polished lifestyle aspiration. Safety. Visibility. Play.

And when it came to measuring whether an event actually worked, the metric was not some fake notion of “engagement.”

“Feedback and messages from the community,” she says. “Connection was key for us. Making people feel seen and building an actual community, not just throwing an event to make money, but genuinely wanting to uplift women in the industry at a time when they needed that support.”

That distinction hits harder now because weed has spent the last few years getting very good at faking sincerity. Plenty of brands know how to borrow the look of femme culture. Far fewer know how to build the conditions that make people feel held inside it.

Case has a clean read on the difference.

Her green flags for genuinely femme-forward culture are direct and unsentimental: “Transparent action: not just saying ‘we support…’ but taking action on the beliefs stated and being transparent about those actions.” Also, “Connection with the leaders: Direct connection with those hosting the event or holding the space?” And maybe the biggest one: “The people in the space. Is the space actually a safe and sacred container when you attend.”

The red flags are just as sharp: “Over hyped marketing and tokenism that has no substance or action behind their statements.” “Caring about aesthetics only but not working with organizations or activists within the femme space.” And one line that could probably be applied to half the market: “Lux packaging and shitty actual products.”

There it is. Whole TED Talk, six words.

The point here is not that Harlee once worked in cannabis and now makes music. That would be too small, too neat, too LinkedIn. The more interesting story is that she learned how culture actually works in weed, then carried those lessons somewhere else.

With New Constellations, that same emotional and visual instinct shows up again, only now in song form. In the band’s pastel universe. In the soft electric glow of its imagery. In the warmth of its fan connection. In the refusal to build at a distance.

“I think I got to flex my visionary muscles,” Case says. “Having larger-than-life dreams and learning to assemble strong teams around me that I knew could aid me at getting there. I’ve always chosen to hire friends who had talent over professionals who had experience. It’s always made each leg of the journey that much more fun and worthwhile because I’ve always worked with my best friends and learned alongside them as we accomplished goals.”

That is not only sentimental. It is structural.

A lot of the same people from the LOP orbit are still there, now helping power New Constellations behind the scenes. Case lays it out plainly.

“Behind LOP was truly a group of best friends giving their absolute all to make a business they loved work,” she says. “Through it all I’m most proud of the work we did with each other on ourselves and our relationships to each other in really really challenging situations. We built a life long relationship to each other. I still live with one of the LOP girls, Alisha, and Keke and Leighana are on the NC team. Keke Browne is basically the creative director of the visual part of the band and Leighana has been tour managing, book keeping, and a ton of admin for us. Lucky for Jade she’s off being a mom in Costa Rica but still flies in for shows and will always be one of our biggest supporters. At heart we will always be LOP girls.”

That may be the truest quote in the whole interview.

Because beneath all the color and softness and feminine magic, the real engine was work. Admin. Logistics. Bookkeeping. Team trust. Fair pay. Showing up. Keeping the lights on.

“Keeping the lights on. Constantly pivoting with the market to stay compliant. Hustling for new clients and making sure we were doing everything legal and compliant by that specific state and their laws. There was so much behind the scenes always.”

So yes, the aesthetic mattered. The glitter mattered. The costumes mattered. The dream mattered. But none of it floated. It was built by women grinding, improvising, paying collaborators first, and trying to preserve joy without becoming a parody of it.

“We would always pay collaborators, creators, and influencers first, before ourselves, every time,” Case says. “This meant not getting paid personally sometimes but this was crucial to us.”

That ethic still echoes in New Constellations, a project that seems to understand something a lot of musicians and weed brands alike forget: if people feel the room was built for them, they come back. If they feel seen, they tell their friends. If they trust your taste, they trust your next move.

Case says the band is gearing up for a first album, North American touring, Europe, bigger rooms, bigger live production, more moving parts. But the core ambition is still emotional.

“We like our fans to leave with hope,” she says. “We don’t want to tell them where to spend that hope but just encourage them to have it and do what they please with it.”

That feels like the right ending, and maybe the right thesis too.

Harlee Case helped build a corner of cannabis culture where women could arrive loud, weird, feminine, high, safe and fully themselves. Now she’s doing something similar through music. Same instinct. Same architecture. Different medium.

First, she helped weed get prettier. More open. More alive.

Now she’s teaching music how to feel like that too.

<p>The post Before Weed Learned To Fake Female Empowerment, Harlee Case Made It Real. Now She’s Giving It A Soundtrack. first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post Before Weed Learned To Fake Female Empowerment, Harlee Case Made It Real. Now She’s Giving It A Soundtrack. appeared first on Paradise Found.

Duke Rodriguez runs Ultra Health and is running for governor of New Mexico as a Republican. In a moment when “rescheduling” is still only a federal directive, not a finished reality, he argues cannabis can shift from a partisan fight to a practical test of governance: rules people can follow, honest labeling, real oversight, and a legal market that can actually compete with the illicit one.

Tensions are mounting for America’s cannabis industry as banking blunders, inconsistent testing standards, labyrinth laws, and illicit markets engulf the industry in clouds of chaos and confusion.

Fortunately, the paradox of U.S. cannabis laws hasn’t stopped the industry from progressing, with some industry projections putting the market at almost $45 billion in 2025. Groundbreaking figures aside, America’s cannabis industry represents a contradictory landscape, promises versus paralysis.

As red states start launching medical programs, conservative voters are shifting stance and federal agencies quietly embrace forthcoming change in unpredictable territory. Maneuvering what feels like an endless maze demands unique perspectives from veterans, seniors, industry reformers, and conservatives.

Keen to get an insider’s perspective, I spoke to Ultra Health CEO and Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, Duke Rodriguez, about his highs, lows, and beliefs that America is fast-approaching a tipping point in how it views cannabis.

The Rise of Unexpected Voices in the Legalization Movement

Gone are the days when legalization was driven solely by progressives. Today, the complex world of cannabis is increasingly shaped by pragmatic conservative voices like Rodriguez, who believes the industry’s future depends on regulatory consistency, public trust, and economic fairness.

“Rules that protect patients and consumers, reward responsible operators, and ensure cannabis is treated like the serious healthcare and economic sector it has become,” Rodriguez told High Times.

In December 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to pursue moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. The order did not change the fact that the United States’ multi-billion-dollar cannabis industry remains federally illegal. The bizarre daily reality is that thousands of legal businesses have sprouted from a state-by-state medley of 40+ programs operating devoid of national standards.

“There’s a lot of hurdles to overcome to get there, but the future is bright!” Rodriguez wrote on Facebook following the executive order.

Modern cannabis needs concrete infrastructure intertwined with public health safeguards, legitimacy, and long-term sustainability, principles that mirror Rodriguez’s broader priorities as he runs for governor of New Mexico as a Republican: making government work, protecting patients and workers, and bringing predictability and accountability to systems that affect people’s daily lives.

Why Conservative States Are Quietly Becoming Cannabis Strongholds

The new right-of-center argument for cannabis reform is a hazy patchwork weaving elements of medical autonomy and limited government with personal choice and free-market opportunity, beliefs held strong by conservatives like Rodriguez, who has evolved from Medicaid reformer to cannabis industry leader. Formerly serving as Cabinet Secretary under Gary Johnson, he’s no stranger to the world of politics and has even been endorsed by the former New Mexico governor himself.

“Good governance means creating rules people can realistically follow. When policy starts with human outcomes rather than political labels, it brings people together,” Rodriguez said.

Amid the rise of red-state medical programs, more seniors are dabbling in cannabis over opioids. Meanwhile, veterans passionately advocate for cannabis treatment options and rural communities reap new job rewards. On the whole, the old anti-drug narrative is diffusing like smoke in the wind, with economic arguments for improved tax revenue, job creation, agricultural opportunity, and reduced enforcement costs rapidly replacing moral panic.

“Conservatives are becoming more vocal about cannabis reform because the facts have caught up with the politics. We see that regulated cannabis supports patient care, public safety, and local economies, while reducing black-market activity. It’s no longer an ideological issue. It’s a practical one,” Rodriguez added.

Honing in on the power shift within the Republican Party, younger conservatives overwhelmingly favor reform, with a survey from Pew Research Center revealing that 57% of Republicans aged 18-29 support legalization. (1) Plus, recent analysis from Pew Research Center found that 43% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents favor legalization for medical and recreational use, indicating that further legislative change is likely on the horizon. (2)

Understanding The State-Level Regulatory Crisis

Inconsistencies in ever-shifting state policies, among the many consequences of federal paralysis, are constantly etching flaws into an industry where thought leaders, business owners, and healthcare experts crave clarity, professionalism, and stability. As leaders steer the shift from stigma-driven laws to science-rooted regulations, policy changes through 2025 created fresh compliance demands and new investment opportunities across multiple markets.

“Families see healthcare choices. Cannabis doesn’t ask people to abandon their values — it allows them to apply those values in a practical, humane way. That’s rare in modern politics,” Rodriguez said. His gubernatorial campaign has been backed by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.

Regardless of the clear progress that’s already taken place, unclear rules are still provoking corruption or favoritism, while the illicit market is forcing law-abiding growers and businesses to work harder if they want to stay afloat. Regulatory overreach is making underground farms all the more tempting, while steep taxes make legal product prices soar higher and loopholes discourage operators from playing by the rules.

“When compliance becomes more expensive than innovation, the legal market suffers and the illicit market thrives. Good governance means creating rules people can realistically follow,” Rodriguez said during our conversation.

Shrinking the illicit market demands clear, fair regulation, enforced consistently. In a hypothetical (and hopeful) scenario where the cannabis black market is completely stamped out, billions of dollars could be funneled back into legal economies, shifting demand away from unregulated channels, enhancing medical safety, and uniting Americans through a multitude of shared economic benefits.

It’s clear that the misshapen cannabis industry’s destructive dents need mending sooner rather than later. The following crisis factors are just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things:

Overregulated Entry, Underregulated Protection

Hopeful business owners in some states are stifled by stiff entry barriers, whereas others implement loose systems that enable “bad actors” to sell non-compliant products. Then there’s the black markets that prosper under both extremes. By some estimates, illicit sales still represent the majority of U.S. cannabis commerce in several major states, with untested product and unpredictable cannabinoid levels remaining part of the risk.

Labels Don’t Always Match Lab Results

Consumer confidence is noticeably damaged by the absence of nationwide standards across the U.S. cannabis industry, where labs go head-to-head instead of joining forces. With robust leadership in place, the U.S. can implement strict national testing and proper packaging and labeling criteria. Until that happens, consumers may be left dealing with widespread labeling inaccuracies. A study published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2025 found substantial mismatches between labeled and measured cannabinoid content in sampled flower products. (3)

There’s No “Level Playing Field”

Distorted by outside political pressure, the U.S. cannabis market has long been warped by deep allegations of corruption and bribery. Discrimination taints the unfair and biased licensing system, leaving many players on the sidelines with no chance of rising to the top ranks of favored participants. The obvious lack of consistent federal rules is creating a volatile landscape, but states could maintain autonomy while meeting minimum standards with the right approach.

Barriers to Research and Medical Data Collection

A functional national framework is starved without science-based policy, simplified licensing processes, and financially attainable compliance requirements. Given that cannabis is still legally “taboo”, researchers are left tugging at whatever roots they can find to prove the plant’s medical credibility. Inconsistent and limited research is inevitably delaying policy progress and causing mixed feelings: cautious physicians, wary consumers, and hesitant insurers.

Banking Issues and Cash-only Operations

The recent rescheduling order will likely reduce perceived risk for banks and investors over time, ultimately improving cash flow, boosting profitability, and supporting jobs. However, billions in cannabis revenue indicate lost federal tax income, ultimately creating regulatory contradictions and pressuring U.S. lawmakers to reform federal law in a way that shields state economies, boosts banking access, and sustains economic competitiveness.

These are just a few of the convictions held by Rodriguez, who says he plans to push cannabis regulation to the forefront of his campaign for governor of New Mexico. He decided to run after watching the state become what he claims is “revenue-rich” but“results-poor”, convinced that the state needs leadership focused less on ideology and more on execution, outcomes, and trust in government.

Q&A: Duke Rodriguez on the Future of Regulation, Oversight, and National Policy

For decades, Duke Rodriguez has lived at the crossroads where two drastically different worlds collide: healthcare reform and cannabis freedom. Raised from humble beginnings in California, he moved to NM aged 14 and got his hands dirty as a hard worker from the very beginning.

At age 38, Rodriguez launched his first startups, laying the groundwork to plant Ultra Health’s first seed a little over a decade later in 2010. Since then, the gubernatorial candidate has been praised, scrutinized, underestimated, and more recently analyzed under the media spotlight as he runs for governor of New Mexico.

To some Republicans, Rodriguez is admired for his trailblazer mentality. To many in the cannabis community, he’s living proof that change can emerge from the most unexpected corners. And to the businessman himself, his journey revolves around one thing: giving people the freedom to choose their own path when it comes to plant-based medicine.

Below, Duke speaks with the candor and conviction of someone who has lived through the battles and comes out believing the movement is bigger than politics. Here’s how our conversation went down:

1. Duke, your career history is impressive. How would you say your background in Medicaid reform and healthcare influenced your approach to the cannabis industry?

“Medicaid reform taught me hard truths – mainly that government systems are slow to adapt, even when people’s health is on the line. When I saw patients using cannabis because nothing else worked, I realized the system needed to evolve.

Cannabis is medicine. People don’t turn to it for luxury. They turn to it for relief, dignity, and control over their own health. My healthcare roots pushed me to take cannabis seriously long before it was fashionable.”

2. Based on your success as a business owner in a highly regulated industry, what important lessons can you share about navigating government regulations while growing a business?

“Regulation didn’t scare me – inconsistency did. The cannabis movement has always been full of people who fought through paranoia, stigma, and government indifference.

I just tried to build a company that honored that struggle. Clear rules, transparent processes, and no favoritism. We grew because we respected the community and refused to cut corners.”

3. How will the skills and experience you’ve gained in both the private and public sectors strengthen your role as governor?

“I’ve seen what happens when bureaucrats try to solve problems from a windowless room, and I’ve also felt the pressure of making payroll as a business owner. Those worlds collide in cannabis.

To move this industry forward, you need someone who understands both the people trying to start a dispensary and the systems that could shut it down.”

4. How do you envision cannabis slotting into the conservative agenda, such as in states where the party remains divided?

“Freedom is a conservative value. Choice is a conservative value. Keeping the government out of your private decisions is a conservative value.

Cannabis doesn’t divide the conservative movement – the old stigma does. The more Republicans hear the real stories — veterans sleeping through the night, seniors cutting back on opioids, families staying out of jail — the more they realize the movement aligns perfectly with conservative principles.”

5. How can a Republican governor approach cannabis regulation in a way that considers industry interests, including public health and safety?

“We can protect consumers without turning cannabis into a political toy. High testing standards, honest labeling, real science – these things make the industry stronger.

People forget: the old prohibition model never protected anyone. Responsible regulation does.”

6. What obstacles have you overcome as a conservative advocating for cannabis legalization and reform, and how have you accomplished those feats?

“The stigma. The suspicion. And honestly? The sideways looks from my own party. But I didn’t walk into cannabis to win a popularity contest. I walked into it because the people using cannabis — patients, veterans, workers — deserved someone who was willing to stand in the fire with them.”

7. You say that the government shouldn’t pick winners or losers. Please elaborate on this in the context of cannabis regulation, and kindly explain how you would ensure a level playing field for businesses in the space?

“When certain companies get special treatment, the whole system rots. A level playing field builds trust. Cannabis already has enough challenges without political favorites and backroom deals.”

8. As someone who built a well-respected company in the cannabis space, what cannabis policy mistakes do you think the state and federal governments are making?

“Federal paralysis. State overregulation. And too many politicians who pretend cannabis doesn’t exist while communities and businesses carry the weight. We need a consistent national framework that respects science, encourages entrepreneurship, and honors the human stories behind legalization.”

9. In your opinion, how can conservative principles like free-market capitalism and limited government be applied to cannabis regulation, and what does that look like in practice?

“Limited government. Free enterprise. Individual liberty. These aren’t slogans – they’re a blueprint for how to regulate cannabis with common sense. The market thrives when the government sets the guardrails, then steps aside.”

10. Cannabis legalization is a divisive issue within the Republican Party. What do you think is the biggest misconception that Republicans have about cannabis, and how would you address it?

“The biggest misconception? That cannabis in 2025 looks like cannabis in 1975. The science is different. The needs are different. And the people using it are your neighbors, your coworkers, your parents.”

11. Considering your experience in the healthcare and cannabis sectors, how do you respond to concerns about cannabis use affecting public health? Do you think industry regulation and innovation can effectively address these concerns?

“We answer those concerns with knowledge, not fear. Today we have precise dosing, rigorous testing, and real medical data. Regulation and innovation is how we protect public health – not by pretending the plant doesn’t exist.”

12. Do you see cannabis as a tool for addressing broader issues like criminal justice reform or opioid addiction? If so, how would you expand on those goals as a potential governor?

“Yes, cannabis can help us tackle bigger issues. Criminal justice reform. Opioid dependency. Racial equity. Economic development. This plant has been part of the problem only because the law made it so. It can be part of the solution too – if we let it.”

13. You are a Republican who is publicly embracing cannabis – do you notice a generational shift occurring within the party when it comes to issues like drug policy and social reform?

“There’s a quiet revolution happening. Younger conservatives overwhelmingly support legalization. Older conservatives are seeing the medicinal benefits up close. The ground is shifting right under the party’s feet. We’re moving toward an era where cannabis isn’t a wedge – it’s a bridge.”

14. How do you plan on capitalizing on your position as governor to ensure that cannabis businesses succeed, while also protecting consumers and communities?

“I’d build a system that rewards good actors, protects consumers, supports communities, and doesn’t shove small operators aside. If cannabis succeeds, New Mexico succeeds. And vice versa.”

15. Looking to the future, what role do you see cannabis playing in the political future of the United States, especially as more states consider legalization?

“We’re reaching a national tipping point. You can feel it – culturally, economically, generationally. Cannabis is no longer a counterculture. It’s becoming common sense. The states that embrace this moment will own the future of an industry that’s only getting bigger.”

Capitalizing on Cannabis as a Vehicle for Larger National Reform

Cannabis legalization can serve as a stimulus for broader national reform since it combines law, economics, civil rights, public health, and governance. Building an evergreen industry that continuously thrives and benefits everyone depends on various factors, including:

• Criminal Justice Reform

The subject of criminal justice reform stands at the forefront of larger national cannabis reform. Research suggests that cannabis-related arrests sank in states with decriminalization and legalization laws. Currently, there is no evidence that relaxing cannabis restrictions inflates criminal activity rates, presenting an opportunity to redress decades of disproportionate enforcement. (4)

• Opioid Crisis Mitigation

Cannabis reform may offer harm reduction benefits by replacing addictive opioid prescriptions with safer alternatives. Studies indicate that cannabis could be a powerful tool for tackling the nation’s growing dependence on opioids, with the number of opioid-related deaths plummeting from 17,029 in 2017 to 13,026 in the year 2023. (5)

• Economic Development Across States

States are collectively generating billions in cannabis-related tax revenue due to job creation, agricultural expansion, and surges in tourism and hospitality associated with the U.S. cannabis industry. Per a 2023 report from the Tax Foundation, nationwide cannabis legalization could generate $8.5 billion annually. (6)

• Equity & Social Justice

Cannabis reform helps social equity through the crafting of policies that support local communities, while simultaneously wiping old records clean, keeping people out of jail, avoiding corporate takeover, presenting business opportunities for all races, and reinvesting tax dollars into places most affected by prejudiced drug laws. (7)

New Mexico as a Case Study for the Future

Figures published by the Cannabis Control Division show that both adult-use and medical cannabis sales have exceeded $1.9 billion since cannabis was legalized across New Mexico in April 2022. With a rapidly growing state market, the landlocked state demonstrates the epitome of great potential, opportunity, and volatility.

New Mexico could become a model or a warning, with its success or failure revealing a lot about the national picture. Rodriguez foresees only one outcome: a thriving market that states can closely monitor and mirror, so long as the state has leaders capable of balancing both government and business. Clarity and consistency will determine the future of cannabis as a bipartisan issue in a divided country.

“If New Mexico can show that cannabis policy can be practical, compassionate, and economically sound — without ideological excess — we can help lead a national conversation focused on solutions, not sides.”

Federal agencies can’t ignore the industry forever, as cannabis rapidly becomes normalized in all areas of life, including wellness, medicine, and recreation. The key is to shield small businesses while promoting competition through incentives for innovation, streamlined tax structure, and guardrails against monopolization.

A Greener Future

Duke Rodriguez’s message is a call for fairness, clarity, and depoliticization on a subject that rises above and beyond party identity. Now, the question is whether the nation can establish a system that fulfills its true potential.

“Cannabis has always been about people who just needed another option,” Rodriguez said. “I saw that in healthcare first. And it changed everything I thought I understood.”

As the industry approaches a critical, pivotal juncture, America can either move in the direction of modernization and lead the global cannabis market, or latch onto old-fashioned policies and trail behind. Federal policy debates are reaching a state of urgency, steered by economic, legal, and regulatory pressures.

The next five years matter more than the next 50; industry maturation is escalating and the future is being written now. SAFE Banking and other reforms remain critical, considering that large-scale, powerful corporations are still smoking out smaller businesses operating in the federally illegal market. Let’s not forget that cannabis grows naturally on our planet and should be fair game for everyone.

There’s no denying that the U.S. cannabis market is facing a structural reset following the administration’s directive to pursue Schedule III, but as we reach America’s tipping point, cultural acceptance is outpacing legal change. It’s time to see cannabis as a unifying political force, not a dividing one.

References:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9543368/

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/03/26/most-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana-for-medical-recreational-use/

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/08/facts-about-marijuana/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-03854-3

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/255061.pdf

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/state/cannabis-tax-revenue-reform/

<p>The post A Republican Weed CEO Wants To Be Governor. Can Cannabis Be His Bridge Issue? first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Two sharp fangs pierce a thin layer of skin. There have been several bites throughout his life, but he still remembers that first one. “I’ll never forget it.” His muscles twitch in a chaotic melody, and in that sudden burst, far from terrifying him, something clicked in his brain. Was that what had been scaring him all these years? Yes: and suddenly, fear turned into curiosity, and then into obsession. A mania he deliberately pushed to the extreme. “From that moment on, I was hooked,” Highdro confesses to High Times regarding his obsession with… snakes!

American rapper Highdro is one of those people who have always faced their own fears head-on. That’s why, at one point, he confronted his fear of heights by jumping out of a plane and, later, with the same drive, he began rock climbing. At last, of all his fears, one remained: snakes. So he faced them. After overcoming that terror—because this man goes from one extreme to the other—he began successfully raising them. Yes, you read that right: Highdro raises snakes. “The next step was to turn that passion into a business,” he says.

And from that mindset, he offers a striking definition: “Snakes taught me that fear is a story we tell ourselves. When you eliminate that story, anything becomes possible.” He never thought he would be around snakes, let alone raising them. “They also taught me patience, adaptability, and that ‘misunderstood’ doesn’t mean ‘dangerous.’ I used to think that people who loved snakes were weird… now I’m one of them, and it turns out we’re just passionate, misunderstood, and too cool for the stereotypes,” he continues.

Not many people know this, but reptile therapy is a thing that exists. Yes, the wonders never cease: there are people who treat various ailments by interacting with snakes! How come? Highdro posits a possible explanation: “Snakes offer a different kind of connection energy. They are silent, calm, and predictable. When a snake trusts you enough to relax in your hands or around your shoulders, it’s a completely different kind of connection.” This rapper definitely has Barry White vibes from The Simpsons episode “Whacking Day”.

Highdro—who is also a rapper and obviously smokes pot, hold on, we’re getting there!—claims that Hollywood demonized snakes to sell movies “at the expense of these incredible animals.” He compares them to cats and calls them “low-maintenance” since, as he says, “they don’t scratch the furniture.” Let’s talk numbers for a moment: a snake can sell for up to $100,000. Whoa! “There are snakes out there that would make a snake-hater fall in love in five seconds.” So… innovative entrepreneurs, you know what to do.

Let’s get down to business. In his life, weed has brought him peace and, artistically, has opened up new creative outlets. “Cannabis makes the world slow down so I can hear myself think. And the crazy thing? Snake genetics work very similarly to cannabis genetics,” the rapper insists. “My history growing weed definitely gave me an edge in understanding how snake genetics work. Both worlds teach you patience, precision, and appreciating the magic hidden in the details.”

Besides, Highdro has been a fan of the RAW Rolling Papers brand for many, many years, since way before. “I found my first pack trying to quit blunts, and I couldn’t stop talking about them. I got like half the city to quit blunts and switch to RAW. The company noticed and reached out, and they’ve supported my music and my movement ever since. Almost two decades later, and it still feels like family. RAW isn’t a brand to me; it’s part of my story,” the rapper says, aware of his influence.

Clearly—one doesn’t need to be particularly perceptive to notice—everything Highdro does is intrinsically linked: music, weed, and, of course, reptiles. Aware of this, he tries to explain it in his own words: “The crazy thing is, without even trying, all the paths I go down end up intertwining as if they were meant to be together. My purpose is to challenge the status quo, push people to face their fears, and make them think deeper about who they really are.” 

These days, he’s working on his reptile-inspired music because—as he well knows—”the reptile world deserves an anthem.” So everyone listen up: the reptile hit is coming, the one that will be playing in cars, in supermarkets, on TikTok, and while you’re housecleaning. “My music is the soundtrack to the ascent from self-doubt to self-confidence and then to self-mastery. If someone leaves feeling more capable than they did before pressing play, I’ve done my job.”

He’s also preparing an exclusive album for “Josh (Kesselman) and the RAW family.” Later, he’ll travel to Spain, and more songs about snakes and pot are on the way. And then another album, plus some further homage to the serpentine creatures themselves, his true muses. Ladies and gentlemen: Highdro, unusual character, and the true guardian of the scales.

Photos courtesy of Highdro.

<p>The post From Fear to Obsession: Meet Highdro, the Serpentine Prophet Who Blends Rap, Weed & Reptiles first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post From Fear to Obsession: Meet Highdro, the Serpentine Prophet Who Blends Rap, Weed & Reptiles appeared first on Paradise Found.

From LSD-fueled beginnings to a misunderstood HuffPost quote, a High Times–style look at Bob Weir’s nuanced relationship with cannabis, the Grateful Dead, and the culture they helped shape.

With singer, songwriter, guitarist, and concert legend Bob Weir’s passing into the next plane of existence on January 10, the last OG frontman of the legendary Grateful Dead (GD) has faded from the still-prosperous jamband scene he helped create, joining fellow GD singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995, and bassist and singer Phil Lesh, who passed in 2024.

Mere months prior to his death, Weir capped off sixty years of a creative career spent playing psychedelic improvisational music with his final band, Dead & Company, whose farewell concerts were fittingly performed in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on August 1, 2, and 3, 2025.

For the last thirty years, the same length of time the original Grateful Dead existed, Bob Weir did his part to preserve the band’s remarkable catalog through live performances. That body of work stands as a postmodern entry in the Great American Songbook.

In recent weeks, much prose has been dedicated to Bob Weir’s life and legacy. As a High Times–style eulogy, this piece focuses first on Weir’s complicated and often misunderstood relationship with psychoactive substances such as cannabis and LSD, dating back to the 1960s.

Before becoming the Grateful Dead in 1965, the band was originally called The Warlocks. During those early days, Bob Weir was a committed weed smoker, according to GD drummer Bill Kreutzmann. In his Instagram tribute to Weir, Kreutzmann described their early exploits, which included pulling pranks and smoking joints in the alley behind a music store where the young band rehearsed. The pair also tripped together on STP, a powerful and unstable psychedelic common in those hazy early countercultural years.

One of the interview subjects for this article was David Gans, creator of the syndicated radio program The Grateful Dead Hour and a longtime host on SiriusXM’s Grateful Dead Channel. Gans is also a touring musician who has performed onstage with members of the Grateful Dead, including Bob Weir, notably during a late-night gig at San Francisco’s Hilton Hotel in December 1997. He also regularly teaches a college course on the Grateful Dead through Stanford University Continuing Studies.

Gans reflected on the complex relationship between the Grateful Dead and psychoactive substances:

“The categorization of the Dead as a ‘drug band’ is both technically true and utterly bullshit. The Grateful Dead were formed in a time of psychedelic urgency, and I firmly believe LSD was an important catalyst in the creation of their music. But to categorize them as a drug band, or as part of a drug culture, is to completely miss the point. We used drugs as tools, not anesthetics. This culture isn’t built around people losing their minds to drugs. It’s built around people using drugs to enhance their spiritual and creative lives.”

The Grateful Dead’s origins were forged while serving as the house band for the legendary 1965–66 Acid Test parties organized across California by author Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Dennis McNally, the band’s longtime publicist and author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, described how those experiences shaped the band’s ethos.

“What made the Dead unique was that the Acid Tests gave them the option to play or not play as they chose. They were not the show. Everyone tripping on LSD was the show. The band was simply the soundtrack, if they even chose to play. That informed their attitude toward the audience. There was no power imbalance. The audience were partners in a shared quest for magic.”

It is generally accepted that Weir stepped away from recreational drug use earlier than most of his bandmates, with the exception of original frontman Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, whose tastes leaned more toward alcohol than psychedelics.

Weir’s ruggedly individual persona allowed him to de-emphasize drug use even when cannabis and other substances were readily available.

“Bobby wasn’t a big pothead,” Gans said. “When I used to hang out at his house in the early 1980s, there was always really good weed around, but he didn’t smoke much.”

Gans added that while he personally considered Grateful Dead music “pothead music,” Weir never judged others for their use.

“Bobby was always known as the clean-living one. He was a mountain biker, a jogger, a football player. He still used drugs, but it wasn’t the center of his life.”

Gans emphasized that his own recollections reflected personal experience rather than a comprehensive portrait.

“I did cocaine with Weir a number of times, but it wasn’t central to his life in any way. Jerry was more a victim of drugs than the others. Bobby maintained his physical health and never encouraged excessive use.”

The primary controversy surrounding Weir and cannabis stems from a 2014 interview with HuffPost, in which Weir was quoted as saying, “I know guys who are thoroughly addicted to marijuana. If they had to stop now, they’d get the shakes, they’d get the sweats.”

While psychological dependence on cannabis is possible, the physical symptoms Weir described are more commonly associated with alcohol or opioid withdrawal.

Those comments were later cited by Promises Behavioral Health in an online blog post about marijuana addiction, positioning Weir as an authority on cannabis dependence. Dennis McNally expressed surprise at that characterization.

“I never saw Bob opposed to pot,” McNally said. “He was always around dope smokers and never complained. I don’t know what mood he was in that day, but that comment seems out of character.”

McNally added:

“As someone who has observed both pot and heroin use for decades, I wouldn’t compare their effects or withdrawal. That attribution surprised me.”

As a person, both Gans and McNally spoke warmly of Weir’s character and integrity. Gans described him as “a fundamentally decent human being,” noting his work with HeadCount, the Seva Foundation, and his long-standing environmental advocacy.

McNally echoed that sentiment, emphasizing Weir’s sincerity and reliability, as well as his efforts to use his public platform to support environmental causes.

There is a certain symmetry to the Grateful Dead’s history: thirty years with Jerry Garcia, followed by another thirty years in which Weir and his bandmates carried the music forward in various forms. As Gans put it, “Phase One ended with Jerry’s death. Phase Two ended with Bobby’s. Now we’re in Phase Three. Let’s make it joyous.”

Ultimately, regardless of his personal habits, Bob Weir and the Grateful Dead created a cultural space where cannabis and psychedelics could exist openly and creatively, even when society at large resisted that openness.

On a personal note, after first joining High Times as a contributor in 1993 and writing for the magazine for 31 consecutive years, it is a joy to be back contributing to the publication’s revival.

Long live High Times.

Source links:

https://www.promises.com/addiction-blog/bob-weir-grateful-dead-marijuana-addictive/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bob-weir-jerry-garcia_n_5205803

https://relix.com/news/detail/bill-kreutzmann-remembers-bobby-weir-every-day-felt-like-a-great-american-adventure/

minds-eye, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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East Forest wants your attention for two hours. In 2025, that’s borderline illegal.

I called East Forest from Buenos Aires. He answered from Boise, Idaho, inside what he casually referred to as “my studio.” Same planet, same year. 

Culturally, though, the gap closed fast. Two urban guys on opposite ends of the hemisphere, talking through a screen about nervous systems, panic, mushrooms, capitalism, and why modern life keeps insisting that you become separate, isolated, and personally responsible for problems that are obviously structural.

Born Krishna-Trevor Oswalt, reborn East Forest, this mystical person in front of me on a screen has a new documentary out, Music for Mushrooms. 

It follows his work at the edge of music, ceremony, and what passes these days for mental health infrastructure. It also follows his quests. He puts some doubts on camera too, both in the documentary and in our friendly get-together, which already puts him ahead of most people selling “personal transformation” on TikTok.

And in a move that feels generous and militant, he’s putting the film online for free.

Music for Mushrooms is available on YouTube starting Sunday the 21st, free to watch, initially through the end of January, possibly longer “if it’s working.” 

The central hub is MusicForMushrooms.com, and the movie is online here.

As the responsible journalist and human experience lover that I try to be, I watched the film, which fortunately isn’t a sales pitch for psychedelics, and listened hard to most of the material that East Forest has online.

What I can tell you is that Music for Mushrooms is kind of a field report from someone who has spent nearly two decades watching people crack open at his shows without really understanding why, but trying to understand why.

A late bloomer with a recorder

Oswalt grew up in Oregon. He went east for college, then moved to New York City and stayed for almost a decade. Leaving, he says, felt like escaping. Big cities train your nervous system to accept permanent alertness as normal. Once you leave, it’s hard to pretend that’s healthy.

He didn’t start writing songs until he was about 19. In school, he did everything musical that was offered: choir, band, musical theater. In college, he took music classes, studied harmony, jazz history, film scoring, electronic music. He’s largely self-taught as an engineer and producer. “You learn by doing,” he said, which is musician code for I made a lot of bad tries and survived.

In his early 20s, he was also pursuing acting. The real shift came earlier, in 2008, when nothing was working as he played in traditional bands in New York. 

Oswalt wanted to be a musician and an actor. Following the suggestion from a friend, he decided to make music specifically to listen to on mushrooms. When he later took mushrooms with that music, the experience changed his life. 

Long before the documentary, before the tours, before Spotify playlists titled “Psychedelic Healing,” there were private gatherings with friends and friends of friends. 

East Forest was born when a friend started organizing small circles where people would take mushrooms and he would play live. At first, these happened in New York City apartments. Then they moved upstate, to a farm on a commuter train line about 70 miles north. A mystical place that still exists. 

They did this for years underground, with no audience growth strategy or social media, and eventually it began to grow. 

Forgetting, Remembering, Forgetting Again

A conversation with East Forest

Rolando García: In the documentary, you repeat a line that stuck with me: sometimes you forget, and then you remember. What is it exactly that we forget?

East Forest: I think we forget that we’re part of something bigger than just ourselves. In normal life we feel very separate—like we’re just this individual, isolated, alone. But in truth,h we’re part of an ocean. We’re a drop in that ocean, but we’re not separate from it.

Modern life tells you a different story. It tells you that you are separate, that you need to protect yourself, that you need insurance, that there are winners and losers. Psychedelic medicines show you something else. They don’t explain it as an idea. They show it through feeling.

And you can’t really argue with a felt experience. It’s not something you read in a book. It’s something you understand in your bones.

García: But then the experience ends. You go back to your life. The same problems are still there. Structurally, nothing has changed. Isn’t that why we forget again?

East Forest: I think what changes isn’t the world, it’s your perspective on it. The recognition is that the change we want externally actually starts internally. You go inside, you do work on yourself, you look at things that happened to you, you heal what you can. And hopefully you come out of that more loving, more compassionate, more understanding.

That’s how collective change happens. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. It happens from the inside out. That’s why inner work matters. It’s not optional.

García: A lot of people in the film talk about anxiety, depression, and how scary the world feels. But the “bad guys” are still there. How do you think about good and evil?

East Forest: I think people make choices, and choices have consequences. That’s real. We live in a universe of cause and effect. You can call it karma if you want, but it’s almost Newtonian.

A lot of what we call evil comes from wounding. Things happen to people, they react, then more things happen, and it builds. So, to me, the calling of our time is trauma work. Going back, looking at what happened to us, helping each other work through it.

Life isn’t about being blissed out all the time. Life is the point. The friction is the point. I don’t really buy into a simple us-versus-them story, because that game never ends.

What I do believe in is compassion. Not building higher walls. That never works.

García: Your work sits right next to psychedelics, but you’re not a clinician. What responsibility does an artist have in this space?

East Forest: These medicines are amplifiers. They’re very powerful. They can help, but they can also be destabilizing or traumatizing if people aren’t supported.

What I’ve found is that music, if it’s intentional, can guide a journey in a really meaningful way. It’s one of the lowest barriers to entry. That’s why Music for Mushrooms exists as music before anything else. The album came first. It’s on YouTube, on Spotify. It’s essentially free.

The title already tells you what it’s for. If you’re in the right place, with the right mindset, music can be the guide. Of course, psychedelics aren’t for everyone. But music is.

García: Do people take mushrooms at your shows?

East Forest: Some do. Some don’t. And that’s the tension I’m working with.

I don’t really call them concerts or ceremonies. They’re a hybrid. Some people show up wanting to be entertained. Others are there for something deeper. I’m trying to meet both.

We live in a world of very short attention spans. I’m not going to play ambient soundscapes for four hours. The shows are about two hours. You should be able to enjoy them even if you’re totally sober and don’t know anything about psychedelics.

It’s an experiment. I change things all the time to see what works.

García: How do you know when something is working?

East Forest: You just know. It’s energetic. I’ve played enough shows to feel when something lands and when it doesn’t. You hear from people. You see if they come back.

(In East Forest shows, people often bring yoga mats and rest on the floor while listening, which I think is really cool) 

There are metrics, sure. But mostly it’s just paying attention.

García: Let’s talk about scale. You started with small, private circles. Now you’re touring, releasing a film. How do you deal with the tension between ceremony and commodification?

East Forest: There is a tension. Definitely.

But people’s interest in psychedelics is a symptom of what’s happening in the world. There’s pressure. There’s collapse. People are looking for ways to cope, to heal.

Capitalism is going to try to absorb everything. Weed already went through that. Psychedelics are going through it now. It’s going to be messy. There’s no pure version where it all just works.

Humans learn by making mistakes. We’re complex beings socially. That’s what makes being alive rich… and complicated.

García: Some anthropologists talk about psychedelic narcissism: powerful experiences without ethical frameworks, leading to ego inflation. Do you see that?

East Forest: Absolutely. It’s a trap, and it happens a lot.

That’s why community matters. You need mirrors. People who can reflect things back to you honestly. And let you know if you are full of shit. If everyone around you is an asshole, it’s probably you.

Social media makes it worse. The more grandiose and controversial someone gets, the more the algorithm rewards them. Numbers go up, money comes in, and they think, “I must be right.”

That’s how people lose the plot.

García: There’s a moment near the end of the film with young men from very difficult backgrounds. No drugs, just music. Why was that important for you to show?

East Forest: Because it showed me something universal.

There was one kid we didn’t film. He was the toughest guy there. Gang member. Shot nine times. And he had the strongest reaction. He broke down crying. It felt wrong to put a camera on that.

It was a bigger response than I sometimes see from wealthy yoga audiences. All we did was create a simple structure: sit on the ground, be in a circle, listen.

Music doesn’t discriminate. You don’t need money for it to reach you. But at the same time, basic needs matter. It’s hard to focus on anything if you’re hungry or unsafe.

Both things are true.

García: What do people misunderstand most about your work?

East Forest: They think it’s only about mushrooms.

I don’t actually do psychedelics that often. What I’m really interested in is living. How to make sense of being alive right now. We’re all going to die. That’s not morbid, it’s just true.

So what do we do with the time we have?

The answers never come to me as ideas. They come as feelings. From walking, from music, from helping someone. It’s a remembering process, over and over again.

At the end of the day, I just believe in the power of music. I want it to stand on its own. You shouldn’t need to know anything about me to enjoy it.

After almost an hour of talking, it became clear that Music for Mushrooms isn’t really about mushrooms. 

In an era where everything competes to fracture your focus, offering two uninterrupted hours of diving into music and compassionate talks might be a radical move. Music for Mushrooms is now available for free on YouTube at least through the end of January.

<p>The post Music for Mushrooms Isn’t What You Think It Is first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post Music for Mushrooms Isn’t What You Think It Is appeared first on Paradise Found.

Who better to spend the holidays with than John Waters? Few artists are as festive as Mr. Waters, who releases holiday covers and tours with A John Waters Christmas — evenings of storytelling and indispensable life advice from the filmmaker behind Female Trouble, Hairspray, Polyester, Multiple Maniacs, and Pink Flamingos, to name a few of his indisputable classics.

Waters is nothing if not a Renaissance man. He’s the bestselling author of Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, Role Models, and his most recent published work, Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, long overdue for its planned film adaptation. On top of his wordsmith title, he’s also a singer.

Last year, Sub Pop Records released his cover of “The Singing Dogs.” This year, Waters returns to serenade all — in good and bad cheer — with a cover of Little Cindy’s “Happy Birthday Jesus.” As a holiday treat, there’s a “Pig Latin Visit From St. Nicholas” as the B-side. In short, it’s the perfect holiday gift from the Santa Claus of Baltimore. 

It’s nothing short of a pleasure for High Times to present an interview with John Waters. The magazine interviewed him back in 1982. He is indeed one of the High Times greats, an artist who has always seen the beauty, fun, and truth in absurdity.

Thanks for speaking with High Times, Mr. Waters.

Glad you’re still coming out. That’s kind of amazing.

We went away for a bit, but then we got resurrected.

Yeah, but you’re not in print, right?

We just came back in print. 

Oh, you did? Good, good, good, good, good. Well, good to hear, even though I don’t think I take drugs anymore. But anyway, we can talk about any drug you like. I’ve taken everyone.

What are some of your earliest memories of High Times Magazine?

I just remember always liking it, because when it first came out, it was really radical that there was such a thing, when marijuana was legal nowhere, ever. Your parents used to get scratch and sniff, where they smell like pot, and they could tell you that’s what your kids have, which is part of the reason I did Odorama [for Polyester]. But I always just thought it was a great magazine that most people who are all celebrities were afraid to be on the cover, even though they wanted to be.

I’ve experienced [that] fear, I will tell you.

Really?

It’s not always easy getting a yes. 

You can never tell. Johnny Knoxville, who is a total straight boy who isn’t a closet queen, and very gay friendly, when we made A Dirty Shame, he said, “All I want to be on the cover is American Grizzly, the bear magazine.” And they said no, because he wasn’t gay. I said, “Are you crazy? You should put him on it.”

They wouldn’t budge?

They wouldn’t do it because he wasn’t gay, which is so ridiculous. That’s reverse discrimination. So you’re interviewing me and I don’t take drugs anymore. But as I said, I was taking everyone. What made me stop taking drugs was Ecstasy, the drug that made you love everybody. That’s the worst high I could ever imagine.

Your experience wasn’t enjoyable?

No, to love everyone, it’s too frightening a concept to ever take the drug, because that sounds like the worst high. That’s the baddest trip you could ever have, if you loved everybody.

It’s funny you say that, because your work is very loving of people.

It is, it is. I’m accepting of everybody, but that doesn’t mean I want to be in a cuddle pile and suck my thumb with a cuddle pile. I’d rather die than be in a cuddle pile.

How did pot make you feel the first few times you tried it?

I wrote all those movies on pot. Now it just makes me worry about things.

When did that change?

When I had success. I wrote all the movies on pot till I had success. And then, unlike most other people who become drug addicts, I stopped taking drugs, which was a wise decision.

You’ve always seemed like someone who’s very comfortable with success, with their place in pop culture.

Well, I’m very lucky. I say this in my Christmas show, “I could take drugs. I did shoot heroin once, and didn’t become a junkie. I could drink and not become an alcoholic. I did everything. But other people I know who did it with me became drug addicts, and had horrible lives and everything.”

I loved LSD. I took it again when I was 70, and wrote a whole chapter in my book about it. I hadn’t taken it for 50 years, but I took it again with Mink Stole at 70. And it was great. I don’t tell young people to take drugs. I mean, the ‘60s are over – stupid. But old people should take them. And then when they go home for Christmas, they can’t say you have dementia. You just say you’re tripping. 

[Laughs] Cannabis helps a lot of our readers and friends during the holidays, especially at family get-togethers.

Me, if I have one toke, I start worrying about things. But I have other friends who are my age who still smoke it every day. It does not relax me at all anymore.

You stopped before more mass legalization, huh?

I did. Well, what fun are legal drugs? [Laughs] And now, poppers, RFK has made – R-F-U-C-K Kennedy Jr. – has made poppers illegal. Online, all the CEOs, they took everything down.

[Editor’s note: Poppers have long been restricted for human consumption; recent reports in 2025 describe stepped-up FDA enforcement actions against certain sellers.]

That’s unfortunate.

Well, poppers, I didn’t know we used poppers for sex. We used to take them… I don’t know, it’s very politically incorrect, but there’s this movie by Lars von Trier called The Idiots, where people purposely act mentally [redacted], and you could say that then.

But we did the same thing with poppers. We would just go out and do poppers in public and scare people. At the department store where five of us all do poppers and start laughing at people for no reason. [It was about shocking people]. It was fun.

[Laughs] Sounds like a good time.

And there is a movie called Assholes about popper addicts that’s pretty good. It’s actually pretty good. It’s the only movie about being a popper ever out. I know you might want to do a feature on it.

Any enjoyable drug-fueled holiday memories?

Oh, my God. I mean, I have always had great acid trips. I even did eat morning glory seeds, and then you’d puke for two hours, and then you get high. But I would think I was a parakeet. I’m eating all those seeds. But that worked. I did glue. I did every possible thing you could do. 

But I liked best, if I had to pick best, it was liquor and Quaaludes. Coke, I liked, but I would be high for 10 minutes and then it’d take two weeks to recover. So, that never seemed worth it to me. And heroin, I’m not a jazz musician. I don’t have to take heroin.

Speed – it was fun. I love diet pills. But now with Ozempic, it gives you a big dick. So, why? That’s 10 pounds you don’t want to lose.

[Laughs] Throughout your drug years, you were incredibly disciplined. You still are, but unlike some artists, it didn’t negatively impact your work.

No, they didn’t, really. They might have impacted how I thought, but I would say drugs never got in the way of my career, no. We never took drugs while we were making the films. I certainly smoked pot when I was thinking it up, and people smoked pot when it was over, but no one was high when we made that movie that I knew of. 

I can’t imagine making movies while high, with all the work you have to do.

No. I can’t, either. I don’t even like to watch movies high, really. I don’t like to watch movies while people are eating, either. It’s disgusting.

[Laughs] Valid. As a very well-traveled man, do you still enjoy life on the road?

I don’t mind it. I still don’t have to hitchhike. I mean, I’m certainly never going to hitchhike across the country again. But I did it, and I hitchhiked recently once when I couldn’t get anywhere in Provincetown. People picked me up in one second. So, I’m not afraid of being stuck anywhere, ever, because I know I can always hitchhike.

What keeps you entertained these days when going from city to city?

I’ve always got good books. Yep. That’s always the most important thing, to have a good book. And my favorite book of the year is about the girl who said the Virgin Mother appeared to the shepherd girls in the Fatima Letters. The Obsessive History of That is my favorite book of the year. So, look up a new book about the Fatima Letters. It’ll come up.

In Mr. Know-It-All, you wrote about the importance of having more than one profession. Today, it seems like you need to have five jobs or more.

That’s true. I just had a record come out, where I sing “Happy Birthday, Jesus.” I have a clothing line, where we sell celebrity cumrags and barf bags. I just did the audiobooks for all six of my screenplay books that were just re-released, and I play every character.

What books are you hoping to get from the holidays this year as presents?

Oh, I have a whole list.

[Note: Here’s the list, courtesy of his office]

Adèle Hugo by Laura El Makki (English translation only, please) 

Two Of Me by Eleanor Coppola 

David Lynch: His Work, His World by Tom Huddleston

Living In the Present with John Prine by Tom Piazza

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood 

Fish Tales by Nettie Jones

The Pelican Child by Joy Williams  

When you go out on stage, what are you hoping to accomplish with every show?

Well, every year, I hope the jokes work. I hope people laugh. I just want to make people feel great about themselves when they leave, in a way that genuinely might shame them.

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, do you?

No. Why would you be guilty about pleasure? One time, they asked me to do a guilty pleasure album for Film Comment. I did all severe art films, because most people put exploitation or horror films, or something. I did the opposite. I did the most obscure French art films.

I think the best thing I ever did journalistically for Film Comment, I reviewed, and it’s in one of my books, the Godard film Hail Mary that caused all the trouble. I talked him into having a little sidebar that said, “One stupid question for a genius,” and they put Godard on the phone with me, not knowing that. I said, “What’s your favorite color?” And he started stuttering and was so mad. He finally said, “Blue,” and hung up. That was my best journalism I’ve ever done.

You should be proud.

This is my top moment of the Nobel Piece of Ass Award, I should say.

[Laughs] People often review your shows as “cozy.” Does that also make you proud?

I guess they’re cozy, because my audience, I mean, I say this in the show, they could drop a net on us and get all of us in one shot. There they all are. And people say, “Did your audience dress for Halloween?” How would I know? They look like they’re dressed for Halloween every day.

Do you enjoy Halloween?

No, I hate it, because my father used to always say, “Not Halloween, you know,” every time I went out. But Christmas, they do wear Christmas. I do hate blinking corsages, because I think it’s somebody videotaping, and it makes me crazy.

You recently covered Little Cindy’ “Happy Birthday Jesus.” The original recording is chilling. What made you want to cover it?

Well, it’s done without any irony. She stumbles over one word and I purposely stumble over the exact same word, and I did it for authenticity. That record was not meant to in any way be ironic, funny, or a novelty song. I’ve made it into a novelty song, definitely, but I’m a huge fan of novelty records. 

Why was there no COVID novelty song? They don’t have novelty songs anymore. The last blatant one was “Valley Girl.” Gag me with a spoon. It’s like grody. It’s, like, totally! She’s a valley girl, but Moon Unit Zappa spoke all in that language.

[Laughs] The holidays can be tough. Do you have any words of wisdom for our readers during the holiday season?

Yeah. I tell them the ultimate high that we’re all going to do it. I talk about that in the show, and I’m not going to give you that for free. You’ve got to come see the show to do it. We’ll all do that together, later in life.

Mr. Waters, thank you for your time, and thank you so much for your work.

Thank you. I’m going to go sniff some glue [laughs].

Editor’s note: Statements about substance use reflect the subject’s personal anecdotes and humor. High Times does not encourage illegal or unsafe behavior.

PEN American Center, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

<p>The post John Waters’ Drug Confessions: ‘I’ve Taken Every One’ first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post John Waters’ Drug Confessions: ‘I’ve Taken Every One’ appeared first on Paradise Found.

Who better to spend the holidays with than John Waters? Few artists are as festive as Mr. Waters, who releases holiday covers and tours with A John Waters Christmas — evenings of storytelling and indispensable life advice from the filmmaker behind Female Trouble, Hairspray, Polyester, Multiple Maniacs, and Pink Flamingos, to name a few of his indisputable classics.

Waters is nothing if not a Renaissance man. He’s the bestselling author of Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, Role Models, and his most recent published work, Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, long overdue for its planned film adaptation. On top of his wordsmith title, he’s also a singer.

Last year, Sub Pop Records released his cover of “The Singing Dogs.” This year, Waters returns to serenade all — in good and bad cheer — with a cover of Little Cindy’s “Happy Birthday Jesus.” As a holiday treat, there’s a “Pig Latin Visit From St. Nicholas” as the B-side. In short, it’s the perfect holiday gift from the Santa Claus of Baltimore. 

It’s nothing short of a pleasure for High Times to present an interview with John Waters. The magazine interviewed him back in 1982. He is indeed one of the High Times greats, an artist who has always seen the beauty, fun, and truth in absurdity.

Thanks for speaking with High Times, Mr. Waters.

Glad you’re still coming out. That’s kind of amazing.

We went away for a bit, but then we got resurrected.

Yeah, but you’re not in print, right?

We just came back in print. 

Oh, you did? Good, good, good, good, good. Well, good to hear, even though I don’t think I take drugs anymore. But anyway, we can talk about any drug you like. I’ve taken everyone.

What are some of your earliest memories of High Times Magazine?

I just remember always liking it, because when it first came out, it was really radical that there was such a thing, when marijuana was legal nowhere, ever. Your parents used to get scratch and sniff, where they smell like pot, and they could tell you that’s what your kids have, which is part of the reason I did Odorama [for Polyester]. But I always just thought it was a great magazine that most people who are all celebrities were afraid to be on the cover, even though they wanted to be.

I’ve experienced [that] fear, I will tell you.

Really?

It’s not always easy getting a yes. 

You can never tell. Johnny Knoxville, who is a total straight boy who isn’t a closet queen, and very gay friendly, when we made A Dirty Shame, he said, “All I want to be on the cover is American Grizzly, the bear magazine.” And they said no, because he wasn’t gay. I said, “Are you crazy? You should put him on it.”

They wouldn’t budge?

They wouldn’t do it because he wasn’t gay, which is so ridiculous. That’s reverse discrimination. So you’re interviewing me and I don’t take drugs anymore. But as I said, I was taking everyone. What made me stop taking drugs was Ecstasy, the drug that made you love everybody. That’s the worst high I could ever imagine.

Your experience wasn’t enjoyable?

No, to love everyone, it’s too frightening a concept to ever take the drug, because that sounds like the worst high. That’s the baddest trip you could ever have, if you loved everybody.

It’s funny you say that, because your work is very loving of people.

It is, it is. I’m accepting of everybody, but that doesn’t mean I want to be in a cuddle pile and suck my thumb with a cuddle pile. I’d rather die than be in a cuddle pile.

How did pot make you feel the first few times you tried it?

I wrote all those movies on pot. Now it just makes me worry about things.

When did that change?

When I had success. I wrote all the movies on pot till I had success. And then, unlike most other people who become drug addicts, I stopped taking drugs, which was a wise decision.

You’ve always seemed like someone who’s very comfortable with success, with their place in pop culture.

Well, I’m very lucky. I say this in my Christmas show, “I could take drugs. I did shoot heroin once, and didn’t become a junkie. I could drink and not become an alcoholic. I did everything. But other people I know who did it with me became drug addicts, and had horrible lives and everything.”

I loved LSD. I took it again when I was 70, and wrote a whole chapter in my book about it. I hadn’t taken it for 50 years, but I took it again with Mink Stole at 70. And it was great. I don’t tell young people to take drugs. I mean, the ‘60s are over – stupid. But old people should take them. And then when they go home for Christmas, they can’t say you have dementia. You just say you’re tripping. 

[Laughs] Cannabis helps a lot of our readers and friends during the holidays, especially at family get-togethers.

Me, if I have one toke, I start worrying about things. But I have other friends who are my age who still smoke it every day. It does not relax me at all anymore.

You stopped before more mass legalization, huh?

I did. Well, what fun are legal drugs? [Laughs] And now, poppers, RFK has made – R-F-U-C-K Kennedy Jr. – has made poppers illegal. Online, all the CEOs, they took everything down.

[Editor’s note: Poppers have long been restricted for human consumption; recent reports in 2025 describe stepped-up FDA enforcement actions against certain sellers.]

That’s unfortunate.

Well, poppers, I didn’t know we used poppers for sex. We used to take them… I don’t know, it’s very politically incorrect, but there’s this movie by Lars von Trier called The Idiots, where people purposely act mentally [redacted], and you could say that then.

But we did the same thing with poppers. We would just go out and do poppers in public and scare people. At the department store where five of us all do poppers and start laughing at people for no reason. [It was about shocking people]. It was fun.

[Laughs] Sounds like a good time.

And there is a movie called Assholes about popper addicts that’s pretty good. It’s actually pretty good. It’s the only movie about being a popper ever out. I know you might want to do a feature on it.

Any enjoyable drug-fueled holiday memories?

Oh, my God. I mean, I have always had great acid trips. I even did eat morning glory seeds, and then you’d puke for two hours, and then you get high. But I would think I was a parakeet. I’m eating all those seeds. But that worked. I did glue. I did every possible thing you could do. 

But I liked best, if I had to pick best, it was liquor and Quaaludes. Coke, I liked, but I would be high for 10 minutes and then it’d take two weeks to recover. So, that never seemed worth it to me. And heroin, I’m not a jazz musician. I don’t have to take heroin.

Speed – it was fun. I love diet pills. But now with Ozempic, it gives you a big dick. So, why? That’s 10 pounds you don’t want to lose.

[Laughs] Throughout your drug years, you were incredibly disciplined. You still are, but unlike some artists, it didn’t negatively impact your work.

No, they didn’t, really. They might have impacted how I thought, but I would say drugs never got in the way of my career, no. We never took drugs while we were making the films. I certainly smoked pot when I was thinking it up, and people smoked pot when it was over, but no one was high when we made that movie that I knew of. 

I can’t imagine making movies while high, with all the work you have to do.

No. I can’t, either. I don’t even like to watch movies high, really. I don’t like to watch movies while people are eating, either. It’s disgusting.

[Laughs] Valid. As a very well-traveled man, do you still enjoy life on the road?

I don’t mind it. I still don’t have to hitchhike. I mean, I’m certainly never going to hitchhike across the country again. But I did it, and I hitchhiked recently once when I couldn’t get anywhere in Provincetown. People picked me up in one second. So, I’m not afraid of being stuck anywhere, ever, because I know I can always hitchhike.

What keeps you entertained these days when going from city to city?

I’ve always got good books. Yep. That’s always the most important thing, to have a good book. And my favorite book of the year is about the girl who said the Virgin Mother appeared to the shepherd girls in the Fatima Letters. The Obsessive History of That is my favorite book of the year. So, look up a new book about the Fatima Letters. It’ll come up.

In Mr. Know-It-All, you wrote about the importance of having more than one profession. Today, it seems like you need to have five jobs or more.

That’s true. I just had a record come out, where I sing “Happy Birthday, Jesus.” I have a clothing line, where we sell celebrity cumrags and barf bags. I just did the audiobooks for all six of my screenplay books that were just re-released, and I play every character.

What books are you hoping to get from the holidays this year as presents?

Oh, I have a whole list.

[Note: Here’s the list, courtesy of his office]

Adèle Hugo by Laura El Makki (English translation only, please) 

Two Of Me by Eleanor Coppola 

David Lynch: His Work, His World by Tom Huddleston

Living In the Present with John Prine by Tom Piazza

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood 

Fish Tales by Nettie Jones

The Pelican Child by Joy Williams  

When you go out on stage, what are you hoping to accomplish with every show?

Well, every year, I hope the jokes work. I hope people laugh. I just want to make people feel great about themselves when they leave, in a way that genuinely might shame them.

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, do you?

No. Why would you be guilty about pleasure? One time, they asked me to do a guilty pleasure album for Film Comment. I did all severe art films, because most people put exploitation or horror films, or something. I did the opposite. I did the most obscure French art films.

I think the best thing I ever did journalistically for Film Comment, I reviewed, and it’s in one of my books, the Godard film Hail Mary that caused all the trouble. I talked him into having a little sidebar that said, “One stupid question for a genius,” and they put Godard on the phone with me, not knowing that. I said, “What’s your favorite color?” And he started stuttering and was so mad. He finally said, “Blue,” and hung up. That was my best journalism I’ve ever done.

You should be proud.

This is my top moment of the Nobel Piece of Ass Award, I should say.

[Laughs] People often review your shows as “cozy.” Does that also make you proud?

I guess they’re cozy, because my audience, I mean, I say this in the show, they could drop a net on us and get all of us in one shot. There they all are. And people say, “Did your audience dress for Halloween?” How would I know? They look like they’re dressed for Halloween every day.

Do you enjoy Halloween?

No, I hate it, because my father used to always say, “Not Halloween, you know,” every time I went out. But Christmas, they do wear Christmas. I do hate blinking corsages, because I think it’s somebody videotaping, and it makes me crazy.

You recently covered Little Cindy’ “Happy Birthday Jesus.” The original recording is chilling. What made you want to cover it?

Well, it’s done without any irony. She stumbles over one word and I purposely stumble over the exact same word, and I did it for authenticity. That record was not meant to in any way be ironic, funny, or a novelty song. I’ve made it into a novelty song, definitely, but I’m a huge fan of novelty records. 

Why was there no COVID novelty song? They don’t have novelty songs anymore. The last blatant one was “Valley Girl.” Gag me with a spoon. It’s like grody. It’s, like, totally! She’s a valley girl, but Moon Unit Zappa spoke all in that language.

[Laughs] The holidays can be tough. Do you have any words of wisdom for our readers during the holiday season?

Yeah. I tell them the ultimate high that we’re all going to do it. I talk about that in the show, and I’m not going to give you that for free. You’ve got to come see the show to do it. We’ll all do that together, later in life.

Mr. Waters, thank you for your time, and thank you so much for your work.

Thank you. I’m going to go sniff some glue [laughs].

Editor’s note: Statements about substance use reflect the subject’s personal anecdotes and humor. High Times does not encourage illegal or unsafe behavior.

PEN American Center, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

<p>The post John Waters’ Holiday Drug Confessions: ‘I’ve Taken Every One’ first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post John Waters’ Holiday Drug Confessions: ‘I’ve Taken Every One’ appeared first on Paradise Found.