By Charles Bukowski

Warming up Blue Mongoose on the backstretch before the last race, Larry Peterson noticed that the horse was really rank, almost spooked. Larry had been riding for 15 years and he knew his horses. This one really had a bug up its ass.

Larry tried to let the horse ease out of it, but at post time things weren’t any better. He rode up to the gate ahead of the other horses and found McKelvey. He told McKelvey, “This fucking beast is unfit. I want him scratched.”

“He looks all right to me,” McKelvey answered. Larry knew that McKelvey was one of those stewards who worried that the money the track lost on a scratch was a serious matter. The money loss was negligible, though, because the fools got their money back and bet it on something else.

Larry dismounted and gave the reins to McKelvey: “Get a feel of this skitterish motherfucker! See if you can hold him on the ground!”

McKelvey was a big fat guy, he grabbed the reins. Blue Mongoose bucked, rolled his head. The horse was in a lather.

“You son of a bitch, calm down!” McKelvey yelled at the horse. He yanked at the reins and swung the horse in a circle, then in another and then another.

“McKelvey, you’re only making him worse!”

McKelvey pulled the horse straight and glared at Peterson: “Nothing wrong with him, Larry! Either you mount up or I’m recommending they ground you five racing days for refusing to ride a fit mount!”

“You’re taking the food out of my mouth, McKelvey!”

“Ride or starve, boy!”

“Shit!”

Larry mounted. The crowd, not knowing anything, applauded. Blue Mongoose was the 8 horse. They had the first seven in. Mongoose wouldn’t enter his stall. Several of the gate men pushed at the horse’s rump until they got him in. The beast was quivering and snorting. When they placed the 9 horse into the stall next to him, that did it—Mongoose spooked, he reared high in the gate and dumped Larry loose and backwards, hard into the dirt. It was some bang but he was still conscious. He moved slowly, getting up. Then he walked around, limping, his right leg throbbing. He was dizzy and he had bitten his tongue.

Larry spit out some blood and there was the fat boy standing there looking at him. Larry said, “McKelvey, you son of a bitch, I hate every part of you!”

McKelvey gave the order and then the announcer came on over the public address system: “Ladies and Gentlemen, by order of the stewards, Blue Mongoose is scratched from this race. Your tickets will be refunded…”

Larry walked off the track and down through the tunnel.

A bad day, one third-place finish and four out of the money and one of them had been a 6 to 5 shot. Larry liked to run on or near the pace. Seemed like his agent never got him any early foot horses anymore.

He got to the the locker room, took off his tack. His valet was gone, the fucker had a hot date with a McDonald’s counter girl…

It was nice under the shower. Lance Griffith was a stall or two down—he’d finished second in the feature race with a 16 to 1 shot and was feeling pretty good.

“Hey, Larry!”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go and get fucked tonight!”

“I’m a married man, Lance—”

“What the hell’s that got to do with it?

I am too!”

“I don’t play it that way—”

“Don’t be a fool, Larry, while we’re riding those horses, our old ladies are riding something else.”

“I don’t look at it that way—”

“You think they sleep with us because we scale in at a hundred fourteen? You’ve got some learning coming your way, man.”

“Listen, I just got thrown by my last mount. I don’t want to listen to a lot of shit.”

“Okay, Larry, okay.”

The right leg had stiffened, and driving in was painful.

Goddamn McKelvey, worried about the track take. That track would be there long after all of them were gone.

He pulled into the drive, got it into the garage, went up the steps to the door, opened it and Karina was on the telephone, all lovely six feet of her. Larry was like most of the other jocks: he liked tall women. Long hair. Class. College education.

“Reena, baby,” he said.

Karina glanced at Larry, waved an arm, mostly to motion him off. She was heavy into the phone.

“Yeah, mom, well, listen…you should take better care of yourself… You need more friends… Oh, I can tell when you’re down… I know your voice intonations… Listen, when are you coming to visit us? Everything’s lovely here… The trees are bearing fruit: tangerines, oranges, lemons… Larry and I love your company!… What? Oh, don’t be foolish! I mean it! Look, here’s Larry!”

Karina glanced at him, forcefully, said in a quiet voice: “Say hello to mama!”

Larry took the phone. “Hello, Stella… How you doing?… That’s good… Oh, I just got in… What? Oh, I’ve been riding… No, no winners today… Tomorrow maybe… Yes, oh, yes, it’s warm out here… Well, look, you be good now… Here’s Karina…”

He handed the phone to his wife. Then he walked across the room and up the stairway. He went into the bathroom and let the hot water run into the tub. The leg was really getting stiff.

Larry walked to the bedroom, took off his shoes and stockings. Then, sitting on the bed, he tried to get out of his pants. The right leg had stiffened. The pain was immense. He could hardly get his pants off. Struggling with it all, he laughed. It was so ridiculous. Then he had the pants off.

The undershirt and shorts were easier. He managed to get up. He took a few steps. The leg held up. He moved toward the bathroom. He got in there, bent over the tub, ran in some cold water and mixed it into the hot with his hand. As he was bent over the tub like that, Karina walked in.

“I think you were a little offhand with mom—”

“Reena, I didn’t mean to be. I just couldn’t think of anything to say—”

“You couldn’t? Well, you could try a little harder. Mother has feelings just like anybody else! That woman has been through a lot, she’s a brave and a wonderful woman.”

Larry stood up, looked at the bathroom wall behind the tub.

“Kid, I’m sure she is—”

“You really don’t mean that, you’re just saying that—”

“Well, hell, I don’t really know your mother.”

Larry managed to climb into the tub. The water seemed about right. He eased himself into the water. That hot water was so good on the leg…

“Well, you should make an effort to know her.”

Karina stood over him, so tall there, staring down at him. All that body. Those graceful legs. Some filly. And she knew how to dress. Style, class. Grooming.

That long hair. Red mixed with gold. And natural. Those green deep eyes. Those eyes that could laugh. And those perfect teeth. Nice nose, nice chin. Neck a bit long. But a good mind. And she knew how to dress. She had on his favorite, the dark blue dress that fit just right.

“I said, ‘You should make an effort to know her’!”

“Reena, I’m really beat—”

“Thinking of yourself. Always thinking of yourself, your goddamned self!”

“Goddamned self?”

“Don’t you think there’s anybody else around? Just you, the great jockey? And lately, the not-so-great jockey!”

“Reena, are you about to have your period?”

“No, are you? Are you about to have your period?”

Karina leaned over the tub, her hands resting on the edge, her gold red hair swirling down.

“Listen, babe, I’m sorry if—”

“Don’t babe me!”

Larry decided to give it up. There was nothing to say. Words would just lead to more ugliness.

Just peeking a bit he saw her smile and he thought, ah, it’s going to get better, the whole thing was some kind of joke.

But it wasn’t that kind of smile.

And then it left. And then he heard her again.

“So, now you’re withdrawing! You don’t want to talk to me!”

Larry splashed some water up under his chin, feeling quite foolish as he did so.

“Look, Reena, let’s forget everything and start all over. Let’s have a drink and ease off. Things aren’t that bad—”

Karina leaned closer. “A drink? A drink, a drink, a drink, a drink. A little drink…That solves everything, doesn’t it?”

“It helps-“

“Can’t you face anything without a drink?”

He knew what she wanted to hear and so he said it: “No.”

Karina reached angrily into the water and splashed a handful into his face: “You asshole! You idiot asshole!”

Her tears were coming. He felt ill in his stomach. He wanted to be anywhere but there. He wanted to be in jail, he wanted to be on skid row, he wanted to be lost in a desert, he wanted to be sucked away by quicksand.

“Just leave me alone,” he said.

Karina leaned closer. She no longer seemed as beautiful. “Leave you alone? Leave you alone? What for? So you can diddle with yourself? So you can play with yourself?”

“Yeah,” said Larry, “that. Let me have that—”

“Oh, oh…my God, that I’d have to end up with this!”

Larry looked at her: “I beg you, just get out of here and leave me alone!”

“Why did I have to marry a miniature man,” she began, “I could have—” and then a flash of roaring red fell upon him, and then darkness, and he grabbed her by the hair and then by the neck and pulled her into the tub with him.

There was the crash and splash of legs, elbows, dress, and she was in there. He was big enough to handle her, and he worked over on top of her as she kicked and flailed—he was used to handling 2,000 pounds of wild meat or whatever the hell those fuckers weighed. He felt his fingers digging into her mouth, her nostrils, against her forehead, and he pushed down hard, hard, and the head went under and he held it there, he held it down there, thinking, she’s silent now, but he couldn’t do it, he let her up, he got out of the tub, ashamed. He grabbed a towel, and put it about himself as Karina just sat there in the tub in her dark blue dress and put both of her hands up to her face and just sat there like that.

Larry felt horrible, demented, more than evil.

He walked into the bedroom, got into a robe. He sat in a chair by the bedroom window. Evening had gone into night. To the east he could see the lights of the city, they looked very peaceful.

Then he heard Karina getting out of the tub. It made a splashing sound. She coughed.

Then he heard her walking. He heard the water dripping as she walked. He felt her walking up behind him. He waited and looked at the lights of the city.

This article was originally published in the July 1983 issue of High Times Magazine.

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Earlier this month, my brother and I got tickets to see Argentina play against Canada in the Conmebol Copa America at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and naturally we smoked a bit before heading over. Gorging on pulled pork and sipping cold cans of Stella Artois till our stomachs hurt, it didn’t take long for my mind to stop focusing on the game itself and start philosophizing about what sports events like this represented on an abstract level. 

The sweaty players, tiny as ants from my viewpoint, struck me not as professional athletes but pretend hunter-gatherers pitted against each other in a fight for survival and victory that pushed their bodies to the limit. Conversely, the 70,000 or so people in the stands struck me not as spectators but alien overlords, watching the bloodbath in the way the ancient Romans would have watched gladiators battle in the Colosseum. 

These overlords, I mused, were rather content with their having risen above the unforgiving state of nature, drowning themselves in food and drink while others fought for their lives for their amusement. But, so I imagined, they also felt ashamed, perhaps because they knew that – deep down – they were not living life the way human beings were supposed to, unlike those on the field. 

I cringe a little when I look back at the misspelled notes I jotted down on my phone during halftime – but only a little. By and large, I tend to be quite happy with the stuff I write when I’m high. And I write high quite a lot. For years now, I’ve indulged in small amounts of weed whenever I’m working on challenging journalistic projects. Not only because it takes away some of the pressure I put on myself, helping me jump over sporadic bouts of writer’s block, but also because – and this is what I’ll try to argue in the following article – because there’s something about cannabis that, at least for me, really gets the writing juices flowing, allowing me to see the world in a new light, make astute observations, and put thoughts that would otherwise evade articulation into words.  

I am, of course, far from the first writer-slash-journalist to flirt with marijuana. Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables, belonged to a society of Parisian hashish aficionados. Hunter S. Thompson smoked copious amounts of cannabis, as did Truman Capote, and while I wouldn’t go as far as saying that substance use was the deciding factor in their literary success, I do think there is a reason that a magazine like High Times – which both these guys contributed to – was, for a long time, celebrated as one of the finest literary publications in America. 

I still remember vividly the first time I realized the creative and analytical potential of cannabis. I was in bed watching Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris on MUBI. I had watched the film several times before during cinema studies classes at NYU, and was always bored senselessly. The famed Russian filmmaker was thoroughly avant-garde, telling his stories primarily through visuals rather than dialogue – a stark contrast to the explosive Hollywood blockbusters I grew up with. This time, with the help of a small joint, I finally felt I got it. Glued to my screen, images that had previously struck me as empty were suddenly filled with meaning. Sequences that previously seemed to take ages flew by in a heartbeat. Cannabis had opened my eyes to details I did not notice before. And now, I can’t unsee it. 

Most people are shocked when I tell them I use weed to help me focus, rather than procrastinate. But it’s the truth, and I actually think it makes a lot of sense. Just as the average stoner forgets the world when they sit down for a big, fat, greasy meal or a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, so too does my field of vision shrink to the lines of text in front of me. My mental bandwidth shortened, I focus on a single task and become fully immersed in the story I’m writing. 

And as I write, I stop thinking and start following the self-imposed rhythm of the words. The cliché is that good stories write themselves, and although this diminishes the role of the writer, I think there’s something to it – that writing, like painting or playing music or any other type of “art” – isn’t a constructive process so much as it’s one of discovery, the way some great sculptors say they are merely removing bits of marble to free the statue that already exists inside the block. Before marijuana, said the cannabis-loving author Norman Mailer, “I’d been someone who wrote for the sense of what I was saying.” After, “I began to write for the sound of what I was writing.” 

While I don’t have the medical background to assess the scientific extent to which cannabis boosts creativity and perceptibility, I can – in my capacity as a journalist and critic – connect my own experiences to relevant concepts of literary theory. In his seminal essay “Art as Device,” the Russian scholar Viktor Shklovsky argued that great works of literature hinged on something he called “estrangement,” which can be loosely defined as an author’s ability to make the familiar unfamiliar, the old new, the ordinary extraordinary – the ability to, in short, describe something as though we are witnessing it for the first time. 

To illustrate what he means with “estrangement,” Shklovsky referred to Kholstomer, a short story by the celebrated author Leo Tolstoy, written from the perspective of a horse, who sees the human world differently from humans. My personal go-to illustration of Shklovsky’s ideas is a different text, also by Tolstoy: the opening paragraph of his final novel Resurrection, which functions as a very literal wake-up call for readers to recognize and celebrate the beauty of the natural world – a beauty ruined by the trappings of modern civilization:

“Though men in their hundreds of thousands had tried their hardest to disfigure that little corner of the earth where they had crowded themselves together, paving the ground with stones so that nothing could grow, weeding out every blade of vegetation, filling the air with the fumes of coal and gas, cutting down the trees and driving away every beast and every bird – spring, however, was still spring, even in the town. The sun shone warm, the grass, wherever it had not been scraped away, revived and showed green not only on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards but between the paving-stones as well, and the birches, the poplars and the wild cherry-trees were unfolding their sticky, fragrant leaves, and the swelling buds were bursting on the lime-trees; the jackdaws, the sparrows and the pigeons were cheerfully getting their nests ready for the spring, and the flies, warmed by the sunshine, buzzed gaily along the walls. All were happy – plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people – adult men and women – never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God’s world, given to all creatures to enjoy – a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love. No, what they considered sacred and important were their own devices for wielding power over each other.”

Tolstoy wasn’t the first to make this point. Mankind has heard it millions of times before, from spiritual scriptures to modern-day self help books. And yet, Tolstoy’s language and examples present it in an entirely new light, turning a tired cliché back into an original revelation, into a reminder of something we already knew, but which overexposure has caused us to forget in much the same way that we do not notice the tip of our own nose poking out between our eyes unless we pay express attention to it. 

Smoking weed isn’t dissimilar from feeling estranged. When you’re high, food you have eaten a million times before suddenly tastes like you’re eating it for the first time, movies you have seen over and over receive new meaning, and places you visit on a regular basis – a coffee shop, a bar, a club – feel utterly alien. Not because they are, but because you become receptive to stimuli your tired old brain would normally filter out. 

Being high, to me, has always reminded me of what it felt like being a child, discovering the world for the first time. There was an intensity to everyday existence that faded away with age and experience, as the new became old, the unfamiliar familiar, the extraordinary ordinary. The job of a writer – or any artist for that matter – is to recapture that intensity and freshness, and weed can help with that. 

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The drug of choice in How To Play a Necromancer’s Theremin is bookpowder: “ground-up pages of a reality-disrupting book called The Unfashionable Western Spiral.” The effects are similar to DMT, and the powder can be sucked up like an anteater, made into tea, or sprinkled into a blunt. Several of the characters in the novel—a “postpostpostpostmodernmodernisthyperrealitypataphysicalexperiment” written by Chase Griffin and Christina Quay, published by Maudlin House—are on a constant trip, slipping in and out of actuality, free from the constraints of “spacetimeconsciousness.”

“I stared in stoned awe at a beast with a body made of books, the head of an alligator, and teeth of broken piano keys. I gawked at a giant baby doll climbing the Eiffel Tower with thousands of spindly naked people flying out of its mouth. The visual journey ended with a serpentine creature whose lamprey mouth coiled around the door’s border as hundreds of tiny tendrils extended from the mouth’s center. The tendrils reached toward the baby doll and alligator book creature and its piano key teeth, while other nightmare beasts danced at their feet and in the background.”

If a plot must be attached to this book, it’s that a group of people—fans of a cult psychedelic writer named Rocco Atleby—go on a journey to all of his old stomping grounds, beginning in Paris and ending…?

It reminds me of a handful of books, though much weirder than all of them: Juan Emar’s Yesterday, where a married couple wanders around Santiago, Chile, seeing all sorts of beheadings and strange animals; Soledad Brother by George Jackson, in its frenzied attempt to write its way out of a cage; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, self-explanatory; Mount Analogue by René Daumal and Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician by Alfred Jarry, both of which can be put into the same unidentifiable category.

How To Play a Necromancer’s Theremin is Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, if Wittgenstein dropped the act. “Synthesis is not a merging. It should be renamed Step Fucking Three. Step Fucking Three is the solidification of bifurcation. Step Four, Parentheses, is when the cooperation near the center begins to get gunked up with the system’s own inherent unsustainability. And then comes Paralysis, which we already talked about.”

There’s reference to glossolalia, or speaking in tongues—described as “the spontaneous discovery of the universal text that exists just below our layer of actuality.” Also, in case you’d forgotten or never knew, a theremin is an electronic musical instrument that can be played without any physical contact.

For those of you that read High Times’ WEIRDOS column, I imagine this book will put a smile on your face because it’s chock-full of rants and raves, some of which touch upon the same subjects we’ve covered.

“What a journey it’s been. It’s one narc after the next. These narcs keep approaching me and asking if I needed an archetypal old man in my life. What happened, by the way? Why did we stop using the word narc? Do we think narcs don’t exist? And that there’s no such thing as psy-ops? And that people from the bad side are unable to pose as a member of your good side? Why are all of us so nervous about admitting that psy-ops are real? Do all of us believe that psy-ops conspiracy fuckery is equal to lizard people and nanobot vaccines? The GSN blasted its classic rotten archetype, fnordz, holomultigraphic interfacing proscenium arch eristic analytical overlays.”

The book also adds a lot of unnecessary z’s to the ends of words, like the cannabis industry—a match made in trippy drippy, goopy plasmate, phantasmagorical heaven. It can seem overwhelming, until you start to go with it. Then, like all expeditions, including regular ol’ boring life, the words begin to prove themselves kind and rather inviting. How To Play a Necromancer’s Theremin is a step in the right direction toward breaking down the walls of what’s considered “normal” and “acceptable,” in literature and beyond. Hats off to those traveling in a formless state.

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Many cannabis icons have expanded their respective fields of expertise and fame, and today’s news features an announcement that Willie Nelson and his wife Annie Nelson are releasing a cannabis cookbook later this year, with an official title of Willie & Annie Nelson’s Cannabis Cookbook.

Tagged as “mouthwatering recipes and the high-flying stories behind them,” the cookbook is slated to release on Nov. 12. “In the Nelson family’s first ever cookbook, we’re cooking with good vibes only. Drawn from their favorite meals on nationwide tours, at the ranch, at home, and in their favorite cities along the way, these recipes have stories to tell—and what better way to enjoy a good meal than with a high-flying tale and a relaxing buzz?” the description from publisher Simon & Schuster stated.

The book will span 256 pages with recipes from many inspirations. “Each recipe provides a cannabis kick to ease the mind as much as the body, making their cookbook an exciting, comforting, and lively way to dive into their story, as they draw from meals shared with family, friends, and fans alike,” the description continues. Classic recipes such as buffalo wings, chocolate cake, and fried chicken will be included, alongside cannabis-infused ingredients such as “cannabutter, finishing oil, simply syrups, sugars, salts, and tinctures.”

Willie Nelson has penned two other books that became New York Times bestsellers, including Willie: An Autobiography (1988) and The Facts Of Life And Other Dirty Jokes (2003). Additionally, he has written forewords for Farm Aid: A Song for America (2005), and authored or co-authored other books such as The Tao of Willie: A Guide to Happiness in Your Heart (2007), On the Clean Road Again: Biodiesel and the Future of the Family Farm (2007), A Tale Out of Luck (2008), Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road (2013), It’s a Long Story: My Life (2016), Pretty Paper (2016), Willie Nelson’s Letters to America (2021), Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band (2020), Sister, Brother, Family: An American Childhood in Music (2021), Me And Paul: Untold Stories of a Fabled Friendship (2022), and his most recent book, Energy Follows Thought: The Stories Behind My Songs (2023).

Nelson just passed his 91st birthday, but shows no signs of slowing down. He recently performed at the Stagecoach Festival this past April, and will be appearing for one performance with Chris Stapleton on July 27 in Seattle, Washington. He’s going on tour with Bob Dylan for the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, which begins at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in Georgia on June 21 and travels through North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Idaho, Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, and ending at the BankNH Pavilion in New Hampshire on Sept. 20. Select dates and destinations will also include special performances by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, John Mellencamp, Billy Strings, Brittney Spencer, Celisse, and Southern Avenue.

Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young founded a benefit concert called Farm Aid in 1985, which helps farmers thrive and promotes access to good, locally grown food.  Farm Aid also hosts a live concert annually to help celebrate and raise money for this mission, which is set to return this September but has not yet officially been announced. Currently the lineup includes Willie Nelson & Family, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews & Time Reynolds, and Margo Price.

Nelson’s discography is chock full of albums and collaborations, with his 75th album The Border just recently announced in March for a release on May 31, 2024.

Nelson’s cannabis brand, WILLIE’s REMEDY, originally launched in 2015. “This is a culmination of Willie’s vision, and his whole life,” said brand spokesperson Michael Bowman at the time. “I’m not sure any of us could have predicted how fast the dominoes would start falling once they started falling [in terms of legalisation].” Now WILLIE’s REMEDY is available in a variety of locations, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington. The product lineup has grown over time as well, and now includes pre-rolls, vape cartridges, flowers, and edibles.

Most recently in November 2023, the brand expanded to being offered in a variety of dispensaries in Michigan as well, in partnership with Michigan-based Aardvark Industrees. “This model is twofold in its purpose—first to help meet the expected demand of the product and, secondly, to support small independent growers in the state,” said Aardvark Industrees partner Hilary Dulany. “By working with smaller growers, we can ensure that the product we bring to market is truly Willie-worthy while being able to pivot with market demand.”

Although Nelson told Associated Press in 2019 that he was no longer smoking cannabis, but still consuming through other methods. “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful,” Nelson said.

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Attorneys for the Biden administration contend that Prince Harry’s admissions in his best-selling 2023 memoir, Spare, of using cannabis, cocaine, and magic mushrooms don’t necessarily prove the royal’s drug use. The lawyers suggested that he might have exaggerated these claims to boost book sales, the Telegraph reports. Such arguments come after Prince Harry’s immigration status is being pulled into question. 

This assertion comes in light of a case that a D.C. court is currently reviewing, which revolves around whether the U.S. government should be ordered to disclose Prince Harry’s visa application due to his use of illegal substances. DHS lawyers insist that releasing such paperwork, which would have inquired the shunned royal about his history of drug use, would be “an unwarranted invasion of Prince Harry’s privacy.”

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has been pressing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for several months to release these documents, citing the admissions made in his widely read memoir, Spare, as the basis for their argument. As High Times reported, The Heritage Foundation wants Prince Harry to be deported because he wrote about using drugs.

Spare also contains revelations such that William and Kate encouraged him to wear his infamous Nazi costume to a Native and Colonial–themed costume party in 2005, his body count while serving in Afghanistan (25), physical fights with William, and that he worked with a medium to try to get in touch with the ghost of his late mother, Princess Diana. 

In an effort to protect his privacy and immigration status, as well as those who helped him obtain such protected status, DHS attorney John Bardo informed the court that “the book does not constitute sworn testimony or evidence” confirming the Duke of Sussex’s actual drug use. “Just because it’s written in a book doesn’t mean it’s factual.”

Nile Gardiner, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, dismissed the idea that the Duke had invented his drug use stories as a “preposterous argument.” “This is Prince Harry’s own book,” he remarked after the hearing. “He has never refuted any content in his book… that includes the detailed accounts of drug use.”

Perhaps the most “preposterous” takeaway is that one’s immigration status would come into question for indulging in recreational drugs. 

Per Newsweek, in Spare, Prince Harry wrote the following about enjoying cannabis: 

“I don’t remember how we got the stuff. One of my mates, I expect. Or maybe several. Whenever we found ourselves in possession, we’d commandeer a tiny upstairs bathroom, wherein we’d implement a surprisingly thoughtful, orderly assembly line. Smoker straddled the loo beside the window, second boy leaned against the basin, third and fourth boys sat in the empty bath, legs dangling over, waiting their turns. You’d take a hit or two, blow the smoke out of the window, then move on to the next station, in rotation, until the spliff was gone. Then we’d all head to one of our rooms and giggle ourselves sick over an episode or two of a new show. Family Guy. I felt an inexplicable bond with Stewie, prophet without honor.”

The court was informed that there are three potential methods by which the Duke could have entered the U.S.: either by falsifying his drug use on his immigration form, obtaining a waiver, or entering with a diplomatic visa.

At the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse hearing, Bardo said it was “entirely possible” that the Duke was granted entry into the U.S. on a “category A” visa, which is designated for diplomats and foreign officials visiting on official business. “He remains a part of the British Royal Family and retains the title of Duke,” Bardo noted.

Gardiner expressed skepticism about Prince Harry being deemed a diplomat, stating it was “highly unlikely” since “he had no official role on behalf of British people, his own relationship with the Royal family, that was at a low point as the judge himself actually referenced in his remarks.”

The Heritage Foundation previously contended that the ex-royal relinquished his privacy rights when he “sold every aspect of his private life for, in some estimates, over $135 million,” noting that his privacy claims have faced “widespread public ridicule.”

In Friday’s court hearing, Samuel Dewey, a lawyer for the Heritage Foundation, brought up the Duke’s recent appearance on Good Morning America earlier this month, where he mentioned he had thought about applying for U.S. citizenship. 

Back in October 2019, Prince Harry, along with his wife, Meghan Markle, who reportedly dealt with a ton of racism and hate while actively living in England as part of the royal family, moved to California, stating their intentions to step down within the royal family. While the Duchess, Megan, started applying for U.K. citizenship, she didn’t finish the process. Because she’s already a U.S. citizen, the couple’s kids have dual citizenship. Per U.S. immigration regulations, “any applicant who holds any titles of heredity or positions of nobility in any foreign country must renounce such title or position.”

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The Rochester Public Library in Rochester, New York is recognizing the vast potential for jobs in the state’s budding new market. And while cannabis sales in the state launched last December, Rochester’s own first dispensary—Herbal lQ—opened up just a month ago, on Aug. 30, but began as a temporary pop-up. 

New dispensaries means new job opportunities. City leadership plan on capping dispensaries in the city at nine—which amounts to one dispensary per every 12,500 residents. Under the proposal, new cannabis businesses would not be allowed to sell products until January 1st, 2025.

With a job boom forming in the city, the Rochester Public Library Business Insight Center will host “Get Weeding with the RPL,” a five-week workforce development course to prepare city residents for careers in New York State’s legal cannabis industry, a Monday press release from the city reads. The event runs on Saturdays Sept. 30 through Oct. 28 in the Bausch and Lomb Public Library Building’s Kate Gleason Auditorium, 115 South Ave.

“As we prepare for legal cannabis dispensaries to operate in our region, it is important to make sure we have a pool of qualified employees ready to start working in these businesses as soon as they open,” said Mayor Malik D. Evans. “The City of Rochester puts a lot of consideration into our processes to make sure cannabis businesses are set up to succeed in our city, especially for Black and Brown people who were most negatively affected by the war on drugs. I want to thank the Rochester Public Library’s Business Insight Center and our partners at the Cannabis Workforce Initiative and the Cannabis Employment and Education Development Unit for holding these valuable training sessions to give our residents a jump start into careers in this new industry.”

Those who are able to complete the initial coursework will be awarded a certificate in Cannabis Career Exploration and Worker Rights, which would fine tune them as a candidate to work as budtenders at legal dispensaries. Those who complete the in-person, five-week are then eligible to participate in an 8.5-hour virtual Responsible Vendor Training course.

“Get Weeding with the RPL,” is hosted in partnership with the NYS Cannabis Workforce Initiative (CWI) and the New York State Department of Labor’s Cannabis Employment and Education Development Unit (CEED). 

There are plenty of opportunities. The in-person component of the training, the announcement reads, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., on five consecutive Saturdays: Sept. 30; and Oct. 7, 14, 21, and 28. You must attend all sessions in order to receive the certificate.

“The cannabis industry is bringing exciting new career opportunities to communities across New York State,” said New York State Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon. “The Department’s Cannabis Employment and Education Development (CEED) Unit is here to help New Yorkers gain the skills they need to have successful careers in the wide array of careers growing in this new economic engine.”

“We are excited to be partnering with the Rochester Public Library to offer the Cannabis Career Exploration and Worker Rights Certificate program,” says Esta Bigler, Co-Chair of CWI. “It is critical to be out in the community, raising awareness of the range of cannabis jobs that will be available. We want to emphasize how important it is for communities negatively impacted by the prohibition of cannabis to have access to the opportunities opening up and to know they have rights on the job. These are real opportunities, and we believe this kind of training is key to helping folks find their path to good jobs in this new industry.”

Sales of legal, regulated adult-use cannabis launched on December 29, 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced last year. “We set a course just nine months ago to start New York’s adult-use cannabis market off on the right foot by prioritizing equity, and now, we’re fulfilling that goal,” Governor Hochul said. “The industry will continue to grow from here, creating inclusive opportunity in every corner of New York State with revenues directed to our schools and revitalizing communities.”

When sales began the state launched the Seeding Opportunity Initiative, designed to help the state fulfill the goals of New York’s Cannabis Law by building an adult-use cannabis industry that rights some of the wrongs resulting from the disproportionate impact of cannabis prohibition.

WXXI reports that Herbal IQ-Rochester was the first dispensary to open, but in doing so, operators had to battle “myriad legal hurdles that have kept licensed dispensaries from opening.” One of the final tests was a recent court injunction that halted the issuing of new licenses in the city, stemming from a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by four disabled veterans who argued that the state’s policy of giving priority to people previously convicted of a cannabis offense is unconstitutional.

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In an interview with Book Club Chicago, Vic Mensa described the details of his Books Before Bars program, which aims to supply prisoners with books that can transform their lives. Mensa also mentioned his Books Before Bars program to High Times in 2022.

Currently, tens of thousands of prisoners are currently locked up on federal and state cannabis-related charges, which is one of the reasons why some cannabis brands and the leaders behind them aim to change that.

Mensa is one of the rappers trying to do that. He explained that Books Before Bars can trace its story back nearly a decade ago. Mensa gave a copy of Huey P. Newton’s autobiography Revolutionary Suicide, 1973, to an incarcerated friend.

The book tells the story of how Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers, “mastered his memories and, essentially, transported himself mentally beyond the walls of a prison” during his own time behind bars in the ’60s.

“I’ve seen how the right book at the right time can be a seed which, if watered and natured, can grow an internal freedom even within the walls of a modern-day plantation,” Mensa said. “I started [Books Before Bars] with the cannabis company because I wanted to provide a freedom.”

According to data from the Illinois Department of Corrections, in 2019, the department banned hundreds of books including many about race and racism, before being forced to change its policy after public outcry.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Illinois has the third-highest racial disparity in cannabis possession arrests, with Black people 7.5 times more likely to be arrested than white people despite consuming cannabis at similar rates.

Some of the other books include The Autobiography of Gucci Mane by the Atlanta, Georgia-based rapper to Sister Outsider—a collection of essays and poems by Audre Lorde. Mensa told Book Club Chicago that he buys the books in bulk from the Black-woman-owned bookstore Semicolon which is in the Wicker Park area of Chicago. 

Semicolon is scheduled to be closed until August as it converts into a nonprofit model, however Mensa bought books in bulk before the store closed. 

Books Before Bars program is an initiative funded through Mensa’s cannabis line 93 Boyz. Mensa said he launched 93 Boyz to “address prison reform and equity in the cannabis space.” Books Before Bars is a big step towards that goal. “Cannabis has been used to snatch freedom from so many families,” Mensa said. “I felt it was imperative to provide freedom in whatever ways I could. It wouldn’t be responsibly aligned with my values to not have that socially minded angle within the larger framework of the cannabis business.”

A year ago, Mensa explained to High Times how he’d be launching a project with Books Before Bars, which was in the early stages at the time.

“Our first project that we’re launching […] with the release of our full strain portfolio is a project called Books Before Bars,” Mensa told High Times in the October 2022 issue. “We’re putting over one-thousand books into Illinois jails and prisons. This is an idea I had from my own experience sending literature to people in prison and seeing how their entire life experience can be—and has been—shifted by reading the right books. If you can’t attain freedom yet in the physical, you can get it in the mental while you’re still in the cage.”

93 Boyz is Chicago’s first Black-owned cannabis brand. Mensa co-founded the brand with rapper Towkio about a year ago. The brand sells eighths of flower, pre-rolls, and vape pens, and you can find strains like Jet Fuel, Gelonade, Gary Payton OG, Rainbow Belts, or The Lotto.

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