B-Real, Xzibit and Demrick have spent decades around rap and weed. On “This Thing of Ours,” the Serial Killers trio sound loose, sharp and fully in command. In this conversation with High Times, B-Real and Xzibit look back on first smokes, touring in the pre-legal era, building cannabis businesses and why age still means nothing if the hunger is there.

“We still can rap circles around half the motherfuckers that are doing this shit right now who are younger than us.” B-Real is filled with aplomb. The Cypress Hill frontman, now 55, has been pumping out albums and rocking stages for nearly 40 years, giving him the hard-won wisdom to school even the cockiest younger rappers. The same can be said about Xzibit, whose résumé includes multiple collaborations with Dr. Dre, most notably on 2001, an era-defining run on MTV with Pimp My Ride, and a spot on the legendary Up In Smoke Tour alongside Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Westside Connection, Ice Cube, Warren G, Kurupt, MC Ren and Nate Dogg.

Together with Demrick, B-Real and Xzibit are also part of Serial Killers, a side project they’ve been building since 2013 with albums like Day of the Dead and Summer of Sam. Their latest set, This Thing of Ours, is a master class in lyricism and, in many ways, a flex. As the title suggests, it’s fully theirs. They rap about what they want, pick the beats they want, this time courtesy of Scoop Deville, and make the music they want to make. There’s no pressure to chart, no label breathing down their necks and certainly no urgency to sell a million copies.

Both B-Real and Xzibit also have other ventures bringing in revenue, and some of them involve weed. B-Real has championed cannabis his entire career. In 1993, Cypress Hill made a stop at Omaha Music Hall, where a hilariously large fake joint dominated the stage and burned throughout the show. The group repeatedly pushed for legalization through activism and, today, B-Real owns Dr. Greenthumb’s dispensaries in California. Xzibit, meanwhile, has launched his own cannabis business, West Coast Cannabis, with locations in Bel-Air, Marina Del Rey and Chatsworth.

During the interview, Xzibit makes a stop at one of his facilities and walks through rows of marijuana plants waiting to be harvested. It’s a surreal sight. In the 1990s, when Cypress Hill and Xzibit were omnipresent, recreational and medicinal marijuana were still illegal. It wasn’t as easy as stopping by the nearest dispensary to stock up on your favorite strains. You had to rely on random fans in whatever city you were in, or have a plug. Here, B-Real and Xzibit look back on those early days, the current state of the cannabis business and ageism in hip-hop.

High Times: Cypress Hill’s relationship with weed goes way back. I want to ask you about a story that Sen Dog told me. He said one of the first times you smoked weed as a kid, you smoked a joint with him on his porch, then he had to go to work. When he came back eight hours later, you were still in the same spot and hadn’t moved. Can you corroborate that?

B-Real: That’s his exaggerated story. Of course he doesn’t tell people that he bullied me into smoking my first joint. But yeah, no, that happened. But it didn’t happen the way he said it. We smoked before he went to work, and we had a whole bunch of homies in the neighborhood, so I went and hung out with them. Then I came back to his crib when he was getting off work. That was the normal get-down. We’d link up with Sen before he went to work security at JC Penney, then we’d meet up with him to smoke him out after. So the story wasn’t exactly true. I’ll tell you that. I’ll smoke his ass under the table, hands down, today.

So it wasn’t like you were frozen there for eight hours and couldn’t move?

B-Real: [Laughs] No. Nothing has ever done that to me except maybe some mushrooms, but not no weed.

He said that his dad came home and was like, “I think there’s something wrong with your friend.”

B-Real: What was wrong with me was that I was friends with him [laughs].

What’s up, X? Welcome to the conversation.

Xzibit: What up! What’s going down?

Thanks for joining. We’re talking about weed origin stories. Do you remember the first time you smoked?

Xzibit: I was in high school. My friend Richard Harvey and I had a mutual friend called Wally, this short, white, redhead kid. We had some weed and I had never smoked weed. He had a green Buick Skylark that we went out and smoked in in the parking lot at lunch and, from what I know now about weed, it was some compressed, super-seedy, nasty motherfuckin’ brick weed, right? He broke it down and put it in the joint. He couldn’t roll very well and there were sticks coming out of the sides. I didn’t know what I was looking at, right? I smoked it and it was trash, but that was my first time.

High Times: Did you get high?

Xzibit: I don’t know. I was just like, “Damn, this is not a good experience.” But I didn’t know. I was just smoking weed. I was just happy to have the experience. But from what I know now, it was super trash. I didn’t really get high until I started smoking out of Philly blunts. Then we would just keep the whole thing. Instead of breaking it down, we would kind of squeeze the tobacco out, then pack it back and make it a full cigar again. I think that’s the first time I really got high. That’s how I started in the beginning. I didn’t know how to roll, so we would just dump out the tobacco.

But that first time, something about it made you want to try it again. Was it like, “Let’s see if this really works”?

Xzibit: You do things when you’re that young. Of course, I smoked it one time. Why not do it a second time? The second time was better. It was better weed.

Remember when bowls would pop because of the seeds?

Xzibit: Shit was popping everywhere. It was like, “What the hell?”

What about you, B? Do you remember your very first time?

B-Real: Absolutely. I was probably in the fifth grade.

Xzibit: Damn, you got me beat right there.

B-Real: I was a fast kid. I hung out with these four other kids and we all listened to metal, oldies and shit like that. We had one older homeboy who was a gangster to us. He was a young gangbanger at that point, but he was older than us. We looked up to him and, after school, we’d go to his crib and listen to either oldies or some metal. He’d break out this little acrylic bong, about eight inches tall, with big graphics. We’d smoke out of his fucking bong. I didn’t know what we were doing. I was just like, “Well, fuck, they’re doing it. Let’s go.” We’d all leave and go our individual ways. But when I got home, I didn’t realize I had the munchies. Every time I got home, I was asking my mother for food and she’s like, “Why are you so hungry when you come home from school all the time?” Because I had the fucking munchies and I didn’t realize that’s what it was. That was my first experience. I was hitting bongs before joints.

In the ’90s, we had to try really hard to get weed. I remember having to go to North Omaha to meet up with some shady individuals to get it, and now you can just go to a dispensary and get it yourself. When you were on tour back then, how did you get weed?

B-Real: It was a gamble because not everywhere had good weed. You had to know someone in that town or meet someone who knew somebody. It was hit and miss for the first six or seven years until we started cultivating our own shit and taking it on the road. It was stuff our friends grew because we didn’t trust what we’d be able to find. Once we ran out of whatever we brought with us, it got sketchy and you had to try to find people. Back then, there were none of these social media platforms to communicate with anyone. It’s so much easier now because there are so many cultivators out there in each state who are very talented, so even if it’s black market, it’s probably pretty good, whereas back in the day, black market was absolute shit.

[Editor’s Note: At this point, Xzibit pulls up to his dispensary and walks through rows of hanging marijuana plants.]

B-Real: Oh, wow. Damn, you got there fast. You were just in the car.

I take it you’re at West Coast Cannabis?

Xzibit: Yeah, I’m at my store in the Valley.

How many locations are there?

Xzibit: We have Bel-Air, Chatsworth and we just opened our store in Marina Del Rey.

I heard you just celebrated two years at Bel-Air, right?

Xzibit: Absolutely.

How did you go about getting weed on tour? Was it similar?

Xzibit: We always had it. We just illegally trafficked it.

When recreational and medicinal weed started becoming legal, were you surprised, or did you always think it would happen?

Xzibit: For me, it really didn’t change anything except now we’re just not getting in trouble for it.

B-Real: When we started going to places like Amsterdam in the early ’90s and seeing what they were doing, the structure of their cannabis culture and business, I knew it was possible for us. No one could call when, but as soon as people started getting into their activist and advocate bag and really wanted to make change, that’s when you saw the change happen. Like Xzibit said, it didn’t change much because we always had our own shit and we weren’t depending on anyone else, but it definitely made it easier to not have to sneak around or any of that shit. We could smoke freely and not have to fucking worry about it anymore, so it wasn’t necessarily a shock. It was more relief, like, finally these motherfuckers got it.

Is there any less allure because it is legal?

B-Real: Yeah, there is that, and for the thrill-seekers, the black market still exists. It’s out there for you if you want it. It ain’t going nowhere. And the work’s not done yet. There’s still a ways to go in terms of legalization. Until we’re federally legal across the board, there’s plenty of work to do. Because trying to be a multi-state operator with a licensing format is almost impossible to ensure that the licensees that, let’s just say, come under Dr. Greenthumb’s. Let’s just say I do licensing deals with Greenthumb’s, much like how Xzibit and the rest of us operate. We partner up with people through licensing unless we own a piece of that license. But in multi-state operations, you can’t necessarily supervise the shops everywhere and you can’t tell them what to do. You can only give them suggestions on how to operate. If they wanted to say, “Hey, fuck you, we got your name up here. We’re going to operate it the way we want. As long as we’re doing it according to the law, you can’t tell us how to operate.” When it’s federally legal and we’re allowed to franchise, then we could give them a playbook they absolutely have to follow. We can look through the books, we can do all the fucking things and make sure they’re operating the way all the others operate within the franchise. Right now, it’s too complicated.

The taxes in every state make it practically impossible for the margins to make sense, so there’s a lot of work to do. We need to get it federally legal so all of us who want to be in this business, whether it’s just in our home states or we want to operate as multi-state operators because we feel our brand has that sort of strength in the market, can do it with fewer complications and get a fair shake. A lot of these states turned over a lot of fucking money in tax revenue through the cannabis industry. We bailed out a lot of state economies through cannabis culture, legalization, decriminalization and all that we have in place. The fucking nation needs to say thank you to this business that brought money out of nowhere.

I’m pretty sure Colorado taxpayers got money back from the cannabis industry.

Xzibit: There’s definitely a lot of work to be done in that aspect. There needs to be a tax when it becomes federally legal. It should be 3%, the same as alcohol and tobacco.

What’s the tax now?

Xzibit: Right now, it’s at 38%.

Is federal legalization any closer?

B-Real: No, not yet. I think there’s too many other things going on for any one of those politicians to be focused on cannabis right now. It’s actually up to the cannabis advocates to keep pressing, instead of sitting on their hands and just being thankful for what we got. We got to keep pressing because politicians ain’t going to do it. This dickhead president ain’t going to do it. The people got to keep pressing.

What are your daily rituals when it comes to smoking these days? What do you prefer: blunts, joints, bongs?

B-Real: Xzibit smokes tree bark [laughs]. He wraps his shit with Backwoods, and I call it tree bark.

Xzibit: [Laughs] Look, man, you get samples of everything. So I just kind of like to roll joints and concentrates together, sometimes in the joint if I have to, but most of the time I roll it in the wood.

Are we smoking all day?

Xzibit: Yeah, it doesn’t really slow me down. It’s good. A cup of coffee and I’m good.

B-Real: For me, it’s joints on papers with a glass tip, and sometimes we’re smoking hash holes. And for those that don’t know what that is, some other folks call them donuts, but it’s a joint with hash lined right in the middle. High Times folks know what the fuck that is. We smoke through the day. It’s part of who we are, and it’s not because we have to, it’s because we want to.

Cypress Hill has always advocated for cannabis. It’s cool to see that you turned it into a business. You too, Xzibit.

Xzibit: But it takes the team. It takes a lot of good people around you, and good people are hard to find. So once you’ve got a good team, you take care of them, and it becomes like a family.

April 20 is coming up. I grew up on 420 North 41st Street. My dad didn’t understand why somebody stole our sign every single year. Now he knows [laughs]. How do you guys celebrate 4/20?

B-Real: Every day is 4/20. It’s still the same.

Xzibit: Yeah, what do you mean? What’s the difference?

B-Real: Everybody else parties on 4/20 because it’s like every stoner’s birthday and shit.

Are you doing anything special at your stores?

Xzibit: Yeah, our grand opening is on 4/20 at the West Coast Cannabis Marina Del Rey store, but I’ll be going to the other locations as well.

Anything happening at your store, B?

B-Real: There’s specials, there’s flavor drops, there’s meet-and-greets and stuff like that. Usually we’re out of town. This is probably the one 4/20 in the last couple years where we’re actually at home, not doing anything. But I might stop into one of the dispensaries, maybe San Diego or something like that. We’re dropping music that day as well.

One of my favorite songs you did was actually “Dr. Greenthumb’s.”

B-Real: Yeah, that’s the calling card. It gets lit.

Cypress Hill just released a new single, too. You’re busy.

B-Real: I’ve been blessed to be locked in with two amazing albums: the Serial Killers album, This Thing of Ours, and this Cypress Hill Spanish album. Two completely different things. I’m blessed to be working like this.

Who would have thought all these years later that you’d still be doing it at such a high level? No pun intended [laughs].

B-Real: We try to stay busy. I think our school, the gold school, we were very young at heart when we started this but advanced in our years because of the street life we led before this. It sort of gave us an advantage in the mentality, like only the strong survive shit, right? We were very young at it, and we’ve kept this young, competitive mentality throughout the years, even as we’re now in our 50s. We don’t look at ourselves like we’re in our 50s. We feel like we’re in our fucking 30s and 40s and still doing it at the highest level. It’s about the state of mind you’re in. If you feel you’re fucking too old for this shit, you will sound and feel like you’re too old for this shit, and it’ll be done for you. But those of us in this modern age of it, we don’t feel that way. We feel like we’re still competitive. We still can rap circles around half the motherfuckers that are doing this shit right now who are younger than us. Although we do recognize the youngsters that are right there with us, too, because there are plenty of youngsters that get down. But, you know, it’s the competitive spirit. And as long as we’re taking care of ourselves, we’re right in state of mind, we could do this as long as we fucking want.

Absolutely.

B-Real: Look at The Rolling Stones. They’re close to fucking 90 and still doing shows. All of you guys, we all have such a spirit of youth. Like, it’s still there. And I think that helps us age very well. If Madonna could be a pop star at 60-fucking-something or 70-something, whatever she is, why can’t we still be cutting it up? And it’s about how much you put into yourself and how much you put into the art. So fortunately, Xzibit still has that passion. He’s not as old as us yet, but he will be one day. He’ll still have it. He’s got it in him.

The work ethic is insane, too.

B-Real: You got to want to do this, and we still love to do it. I think it shows when you hear or see us do the music that we still love it. If we were just going through the motions, you would hear that and be like, “Ah, this shit is kind of OK,” and you’d flip forward to whatever the next shit is. But when someone still has passion about it, I think you can hear it, and we still definitely do.

<p>The post B-Real and Xzibit on Brick Weed, Backwoods and Why They Still ‘Rap Circles’ Around Younger Rappers first appeared on High Times.</p>

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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.

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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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It’s difficult to admit this—especially to the readers of High Times—but for most of my life, I flat-out hated the hippies. That’s curious, considering I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and, for a quarter of a century, have lived just three blocks from Golden Gate Park—ground zero for the very counterculture I went out of my way to avoid.

But my aversion to dancing bears and patchouli oil didn’t come out of nowhere. It was forged last century in a scene I can only imagine has played out in households across America over the past sixty years—when one member of the family starts wearing tie-dye, smoking weed, dropping acid, and then takes off to follow the Grateful Dead.

My Hippie Brother

As a teenager in the 1980s, I remember how painfully embarrassed I felt by my brother, who wore Birkenstocks and wooden beads, and looked like a mashup of Charles Manson, Jesus Christ, and a street poet carrying a tambourine. He danced around our high school with abandon, sharing messages of peace and love with everyone he met. I was mortified. But my brother was just being himself.

At the time, I was too young to grasp what I was witnessing. All that I could see was that my brother worshipped a band named after dead people—who seemingly all used drugs—and had images of skeletons wearing top hats plastered everywhere. None of it seemed the least bit fun or whimsical then. In fact, it scared the living daylights out of me.

That fear became real when my brother disappeared one day and couldn’t be found. Eventually, word arrived that he’d overdosed at a Dead show after ingesting an entire sheet of LSD, resulting in a full-blown medical emergency and a stint in rehab—which created a staggering amount of chaos in an already fractured family.

With all eyes on my brother, everyone forgot about parenting me. It went unnoticed that I was dyslexic and failing all of my classes, or that I, too, had been using drugs but simply hadn’t been caught. At just sixteen years old, I dropped out of high school and beauty college—both at the same time—and none of it was pretty.

Then, as often happens to people who live in a black and white world without a touch of grey, I buttoned up, flung myself in the opposite direction, and never looked back. After enrolling in community college at seventeen, I figured out some learning hacks, earned a master’s degree, and accomplished things I didn’t know were possible, which made me feel responsible.

But somewhere along the way, I let judgment take the wheel and distanced myself from anything counterculture. Burning Man, psychedelics, or even a whiff of kombucha was a hard pass for me, and I doubled down on my boycott of the Grateful Dead. It felt like self-protection rather than what it really was: a hardened heart. 2009 was the last time I’d seen or spoken to my brother.

How I Changed My Mind

Eventually, all of that unprocessed trauma caught up with me; it always does. For twenty years, I did all the “right things,” dragging myself to doctors’ appointments and therapy sessions all over town, spending incalculable amounts of time and money in the process. None of it moved the needle.

Having exhausted all available options and ready to give up, I reluctantly agreed to try therapist-assisted psychedelic therapy—a process where a trained facilitator administers psychedelics and guides patients to release deep-rooted trauma. Because these treatments are still largely illegal, I wasn’t a good sport about it at first and backed out several times before my first session. But much to my astonishment, it worked, and each session unlocked something new.

It wasn’t inexpensive, but I learned the hard way that chipping away at those layers cannot be done alone and requires a professional who can help navigate the process. I would never recommend this work without a qualified facilitator.

Eventually, I became curious to try psychedelics out in the wild. My friend Lisa came over with a boombox and a bag of mushrooms, and we walked to Golden Gate Park. I quickly realized I didn’t like it, as the medicine had become too sacred for casual use.

Then, as a group of people passed by, a humbling truth finally landed: I’d become the person I’d once criticized—fuzzy vest and all—doing psychedelics in the park. I snapped a photo so I couldn’t unsee the cold, hard truth: I owed my brother an apology.

I reached out shortly thereafter, sharing my journey and apologizing for being such a profound asshole. He received it with immense grace, and we began repairing our relationship one text at a time. Then, something truly unbelievable happened.

Facing the Music

The universe has a way of rewarding a humble heart with a bit of magic. I’d just taped a quote to my computer monitor that I’d heard for the first time in a meeting moments before. It arrived with a sense of urgency that compelled me to write it down: “The fortune is in the follow-up.”

Staring at the directive, I immediately thought of a business advisor I hadn’t spoken to in a while and picked up the phone. He mentioned he’d just been given an extra ticket to an upcoming benefit concert at the Oakland Zoo for a charter school he supports, and he invited me along.

The performer? Bobby Weir and the Wolf Brothers.

I had only recognized the name as being connected to the Grateful Dead, but I didn’t fully grasp the profound significance of what I was about to encounter—even as I drove from San Francisco to Oakland, crossed the bridge, and rode a gondola to the top of the zoo, a place I’d visited often as a kid.

Once there, I spotted my advisor among the small group of guests, and we discreetly stepped outside to smoke a joint before finding our seats. It was only then that I was struck by the irony that I wouldn’t be leaving this earth without seeing a Dead show after all.

As the performance got underway, I finally understood exactly who I was looking at, despite having never laid eyes on him before. Standing just ten feet away from me, in all of his glory, was a man who had started an actual revolution—right down the street from where I live—whose influence extended far beyond music. He was also the same person that I’d unfairly held responsible for the pain in my family I’d experienced growing up.

While I may have refused to hear his message before, I had somehow found myself face-to-face with Bobby Weir in a moment of reckoning. As he stared directly into my eyes with a haunting, soulful intensity, it became clear to me that I was meant to hear his message now—so I listened.

It was a formal, seated event, but after a few songs, I got up and danced anyway. I danced for my brother. I danced for the good fortune that I had ended up in that room. I danced because the things that had felt stuck inside me wanted to move. I danced with abandon.

Bobby sang the Bob Dylan cover “When I Paint My Masterpiece” right to my face. I’d never heard it before, but it struck a chord, and the lyrics mirrored the places I’d been—and what I’m quietly building. I decided to make it my song and use the title’s words as my new mantra.

I took very few photos that evening, remaining fully present as I opened my heart as wide as possible and took everything in. Then, with tears in my eyes, I chose to close a very difficult chapter of my life once and for all, silently apologizing to the beautiful spirit that had been serenading me, until I felt something inside me shift.

Arriving Full Circle

Following the incredible evening, I went online to learn more about Bobby Weir and was surprised to find out that like me, he had undiagnosed dyslexia and had dropped out of school. I’ve since done a deep dive on all things Bobby Weir & The Grateful Dead, but on that occasion,  as I made my way to his personal website, I discovered that tickets for Dead & Company’s sold-out residency at The Sphere had just been released for its opening weekend—which also happened to be my birthday. 

Knowing that a private concert with a few dozen people was hardly the same as attending a true “show,” and without any hesitation, dropped a small fortune for two VIP tickets and a suite at the Venetian and invited my boyfriend to join me. It was, hands down, the best concert I’d ever seen.

The same magic happened when Dead & Company played their final three shows in Golden Gate Park in August 2025. When I noticed that tickets had become available for the sold-out performances, I bought super VIP “Golden Road” passes for the first and last shows. I invited my brother to join me, but he told me his concert-going days were already behind him. With my fella out of town, I walked the last few blocks of my long spiritual crossing alone, and made up for lost time.

But the most important full-circle moment took place in Oregon, after I boarded a plane to visit my brother and his family for the first time in fifteen years. We stayed up until the wee hours sharing stories of our parents—who had both since passed away—and compared notes about our childhood. It was a revelation for him to learn how much I had struggled growing up, and his sadness for my younger self felt like a final layer of ice melting away.

In a special moment I’ll never forget, he gave me an olive green medicine pouch that had been a sacred part of his own healing journey. He wanted me to have it for mine. As we bonded over the music that I had now come to also love, we watched videos of old concerts while he told me what it was really like to leave home and follow the Dead. I looked at the gentle, kind person I’d distanced myself from for decades—and realized with a shock of joy that we had actually become a lot alike.

The Final Revolution

When the sad news broke that Bobby Weir had passed away, I felt a quiet, profound sense of awe—not just for the music I came to love, but for the miracle of giving me my brother back.

In the days that followed, I watched two outstanding documentaries—The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir and the six-part Long Strange Trip—to catch up on everything I’d missed, and finally understood the full message of the Grateful Dead. It turns out that I was wrong about the hippies.

Bobby Weir presented a masterclass in life and demonstrated for everyone—especially those of us who see the world differently—how to create a blueprint that hadn’t existed before but will echo for generations.

“The fortune is in the follow-up” wasn’t a business quote or a concert ticket after all. It was the immense value of making things right. I saw the masterpiece he created by staying true to himself—even when the world wasn’t wired for him. I chose to follow his lead—and now I’m part of the song.

All images courtesy of LL St. John.

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

<p>The post I Was Wrong About the Hippies first appeared on High Times.</p>

The post I Was Wrong About the Hippies appeared first on Paradise Found.

This piece is, first and foremost, a tribute to Bob Weir, and to a life spent creating, persisting, and refusing stasis. It reflects on the influence of an artist whose impact was not confined to charts, movements, or moments, but unfolded over decades through presence, continuity, and an uncommon willingness to keep going. Weir’s work, approach, and longevity shaped not only a musical lineage but a way of participating in culture that favored openness over control and evolution over preservation.

Viewed through that lens, the story also traces the evolution of cannabis from informal social practice to regulated commercial enterprise, and the tensions that transformation has produced. It considers how cannabis culture was sustained long before it was monetized, how community-based norms differ from institutional frameworks, and how scale, capital, and compliance can both legitimize and distort what they seek to protect. Interwoven are reflections on risk, longevity, decentralization, and influence without authority, while using Bob Weir’s path as a reference point for understanding what the cannabis industry has gained, what it has compromised, and what lessons may still be recoverable.

******

“The bus came by and I got on—that’s when it all began.”

Before the Law Caught Up With the Culture

Before cannabis was regulated, branded, taxed, and debated in committee rooms, it lived where Bob Weir lived: in parking lots and passenger vans, in half-lit arenas and muddy fields, passed hand to hand with the same unspoken trust as a lighter or a lyric. For the Grateful Dead, cannabis wasn’t a cause or a commodity, it was part of the shared language of curiosity, patience, and community. Bob Weir didn’t preach it. He inhabited it. And in doing so, he helped normalize a culture long before the law ever caught up.

It was 1963, and Bob Weir was sixteen years old when he met Jerry Garcia at Jerry Morgan’s Music Store in Palo Alto, California. Jerry was playing the banjo; Bobby heard the sweet sounds.  Bobby walked in, leading to a marathon jam session and the start of their musical journey together. Bob was just a kid with a guitar and an instinct. That accidental meeting didn’t just spark a band; rather, it ignited a culture, a community, and a way of thinking that would ripple through American music, counterculture, and cannabis history for decades.

The Grateful Dead didn’t arrive fully formed. Neither did the movement that grew around them. It was improvised, communal, messy, joyful, and defiantly human. Bob Weir would become one of the most singular rhythm guitarists ever to stand on a stage; his rhythm guitar playing is isolated in numerous online recordings; take a listen…mind-blowing. He was angular, conversational, intentionally off-center. While he often dominated the stage, he didn’t dominate the music. He challenged it. He complicated it. He kept it alive. 

Over more than six decades, Bob Weir never stopped.  The band kept playing on.  

The Long Road After Jerry

The Grateful Dead. Kingfish. Bobby and the Midnites. RatDog. Weir & Wasserman—anchored by the late great Rob Wasserman on stand-up bass. Dead & Company. Wolf Bros. Orchestral collaborations. Solo tours. Side projects that became lifelines. Once asked why he always had so many side projects, Bob simply said, “Because I love to play.” While others slowed down, retired, or calcified into nostalgia, Weir stayed restless. He toured relentlessly. He experimented openly. He trusted the road.

And when he passed, the music didn’t end, it won’t end, but the silence hits hard.

Bob Weir wasn’t just a legend to me. He was my compass.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I modeled so many parts of my life after him. Bob was a man of few words. Quirky. Aloof. Sometimes misunderstood. Often underestimated. But always himself. And always moving forward. Bob mused romantically about being a cowboy, as did I when I moved to Wyoming in 1998; this is the source of inspiration for so many Dead cowboy tunes. I once wrote a legal article titled “Victim or the Crime,” focused on hate crime legislation. My professional writing, including my Forbes columns over many years, always includes dedicated Grateful Dead lyrics. We named our daughter, Cassidy!    

When Jerry Garcia died in 1995, I was just starting to appreciate Grateful Dead tours and just beginning to understand how deeply cannabis, music, and community were braided together in the Dead universe. At the time, the Dead were already a thirty-year institution, but the scene felt timeless. Parking lots turned into temporary cities. A traveling carnival. A shared hallucination built on music, curiosity, kindness, and cannabis. Massive drum circles under overpasses with balloons bursting and nitrous tanks hissing in the background. It was a rainbow full of sound, with fireworks, calliopes and clowns. Everybody’s dancing.

The music was electric. Cannabis smoke drifted easily and unapologetically through the air. The crowd was multigenerational, with eight-year-olds and eighty-eight-year-olds dancing side by side. The culture was welcoming and alive. It welcomed my friends and me. After attending Catholic school for so long, it opened us up.  

That summer, with my buddies, Lew and Jason, I drove from home in South Jersey to RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. for a Dead show—June 24, 1995. Cannabis fueled our drive down I-95. This wasn’t a statement or a rebellion; it was simply part of the atmosphere. At the time, we mostly knew the studio albums, which, as any Deadhead knows, is not where the band truly lived. The Grateful Dead were a live organism.

None of us had a reliable car. I borrowed my Dad’s Mazda 929—a massive, plush four-door sedan built for comfort, not rebellion. We loaded it with CDs and Dead show cassette recordings. Tape trading was everything back then. You’d visit the Woodstock Trading Company in South Jersey, request shows that you picked from the book, DeadBase, drop off blank tapes, and wait weeks. When those tapes came back, it felt like treasure.

The Dead encouraged it. They created taper sections. They allowed recording. Music was meant to travel, to be shared, not controlled; the same quiet social contract that governed cannabis in the Dead world: communal, trust-based, and defiantly outside permission structures. Music was meant to travel, to be shared, not controlled. Some people built entire lives around those tapes. In hindsight, that philosophy mirrored cannabis culture perfectly, as it was decentralized, trust-based, and community-driven.

Driving south on I-95, buses and semis flying past us, we listened, and we argued.

Who really was this boisterous, deep-voiced frontman? The one who sounded cocky. Abrasive.  Maybe even obnoxious. Who did he think he was?  Not Jerry.

Back then, the jury was out on Bob Weir.

That wasn’t uncommon. Deadhead culture had a long tradition of skepticism toward Bobby. The short shorts. The swagger. The songs that didn’t always land. I remember parking-lot T-shirts featuring a block of Velveeta cheese that read “Cheese it up, Bobby.” Bobby was often perceived as cheesy; as rockstar Bobby.

Jerry, by contrast, was untouchable. He was the gentle guitar wizard, the spiritual center. In comparison, Bobby seemed brash.

And then the show started.

“Jack Straw” opened.

By the end of that night, everything we thought we knew was wrong.  We returned to Georgetown, where we were staying, our skin stained green from the $5 tie-dyes we’d bought in the parking lot. We dove deeper into the Bob Weir songbook.  

We listened differently. We leaned in. We started chasing Bob Weir songs—deep cuts, risky ones, sometimes flawed ones. “My Brother Esau.” “Picasso Moon.” “Festival.” Even the misfires mattered. Bob always added something. He never diluted the band, even when the audience wasn’t ready.

During a concert, the Dead had a rhythm where there was a Jerry song, Bobby song, back and forth. Not a rule, just the way it most often unfolded. And the philosophy of the Dead was one where everyone got to shine; everyone got to play lead, in effect. This was the Bobby mentality.  Slowly, Bobby won us over. Eventually, for many of us, he became the anchor.

This era followed In the Dark, the band’s first true commercial success. “Touch of Grey” cracked the pop charts. And if you want to understand why Bobby caught heat, just watch the online video for “Hell in a Bucket.” That explains a lot.

Then Jerry died.

For many of us, it felt like the end. And unfortunately, for many of us, it was just about the beginning of our love for this band. After all, it was a band beyond description. Were they ever here at all?

The Music Never Stops

Around that same time, my father remarried. At the wedding, my Uncle Jimmy mentioned a band called RatDog—and how much he loved Bob Weir. Who knew?  RatDog was Bob’s new band, and it was different. A horn section. A new groove. Same soul. It brought the road back to life. Many of us fell in love…again.  

Show after show. City after city. As many as I could afford as a student. We chased Bob Weir around the country. I even formed my real estate company, Weir Here LLC. W-E-I-R became my four-digit PIN.

Bob stayed on the road. Always. It’s been said that no one has played more live concerts than Bob Weir. Whether or not it is literally true, no one has played more large-scale shows over more decades with more consistency.

The music never stopped.

RatDog album Evening Moods remains one of the most underrated albums of that era.  It is brilliant from start to finish. You won’t find it easily on major streaming platforms, but it lives on YouTube. Like much of the Dead universe, it survives because people care enough to keep it alive.

In April 2008, RatDog closed its Spring tour at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. I flew back from law school in the West to meet friends from New York and Philadelphia. Three nights. Transcendent. Those setlists can be found on setlist.fm —go look it up. Fantastic!

After the last show of that run, my friends and I walked out buzzing, drifting north toward 72nd and Amsterdam on the Upper West Side. Standing in a circle outside a bar, decompressing, smoking, telling stories. A Lincoln Town Car pulled up. The door flew open. A man barked something into the back seat— “There will be repercussions,” the man said.  He slammed the door, and stormed through our group, inadvertently shoulder-checking my friend Jason.

It was Bob Weir.

He asked to bum a cigarette. We obliged. Turns out the band had rented the back room of that bar for their end-of-tour gathering.

Four Words That Changed Everything

Later, in the men’s room, guess who arrives at the urinal right next to me? Standing shoulder to shoulder at a urinal, I couldn’t help myself.

“Bobby—amazing tour. RatDog is incredible. Please keep playing. You have no idea what it means to so many people.”

Silence.

He zipped up, stepped back, looked me dead in the eye, and said:

“Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.”

And walked away.

Four words.

I didn’t understand them that night. But they followed me.

In 2008, my Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. That same year, my mother died from pancreatic cancer. I had two young children—four and six. I was working at a prestigious law firm in Denver and deeply unhappy. Every option felt safe. None felt right.

Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.

These four words inspired me to start my own firm—a law firm centered around ‘canna-business.’ Over the next fifteen years, it grew into the first and largest cannabis-only business law firm in the world—the Hoban Law Group.

All from a sentence spoken in a bathroom.

Culture Before Compliance

Now, Bob Weir was never a policy guy. No podiums. No white papers. He didn’t need them.

Some revolutions start in parking lots.

Cannabis culture didn’t begin with licenses, capitalization tables, or compliance manuals. It began with community. The Grateful Dead didn’t market cannabis—they normalized it. Quietly. Organically. Humanly.

The Dead lived defiance rather than preaching it. Their Haight-Ashbury home was raided in the 1960s. That wasn’t a scandal; it was a rite of passage. Cannabis wasn’t branded. It was passed. Shared. Laughed over. Trusted.

Culture always comes before regulation.

Bob’s relationship with cannabis was never performative. In a 1981 interview, Bob once said that “I am absolutely never stoned on stage…I can’t play stoned…,” as Jerry looked on with a wry smile, and a raised eyebrow of disbelief.  When Bob spoke about it, it was sideways—through humor, memory, and civic responsibility. Vote. Pay attention. Don’t let outdated laws calcify simply because power is comfortable.

He understood something critical: legitimacy without memory becomes control.

The Dead’s world was decentralized, communal, and improvisational. Today’s cannabis industry is centralized, capital-intensive, and often hostile to the very communities that carried the plant through prohibition. That tension matters.

Bob Weir never positioned himself as an architect of modern cannabis markets. And that absence is telling.  Because commercialization is not liberation. Regulation is not justice.

What Bob and the Dead provided was social permission; the kind that makes prohibition untenable long before laws change. They made it impossible to pretend cannabis users were outsiders.

Even “420” didn’t come from marketers or regulators. It came from kids, from Dead-adjacent culture, passed hand to hand as a code. Culture first. Always.

A Legacy That Couldn’t Be Licensed

Today, as cannabis inches toward federal reform and grapples with normalization, Bob Weir’s legacy sits quietly beneath the surface. The plant survived not because it was profitable, but because people loved it, trusted it, and refused to let it be erased.

You can license cannabis. You can tax it. You can regulate it. But you can’t unteach people what they already know.  

Bob Weir didn’t walk this road alone. Every long strange trip has its translators. These were the people who turned music into language, instinct into principle, and culture into something durable enough to survive the future. For the Grateful Dead, one of those translators was John Perry Barlow: lyricist, digital freedom pioneer, and Bob Weir’s close friend and collaborator.

I went to law school in Wyoming, which was Barlow’s home state. And one day at the University of Wyoming, outside of a restaurant, I saw an older man in a long leather coat, arguing intensely into a cellphone. Familiar energy. The same posture. The same refusal to bend.

I was having a smoke. He moved in. Introduced himself. John Perry Barlow. He was in town talking about cyberspace freedom, which is another frontier where culture would once again outrun the law.

Same instinct. Same resistance. Same thread. We talked about the songs and how they never really stop living.

Over the years, there was Dead50 in Chicago, with Phish’s Trey Anastasio. Great shows that I am proud and lucky to have attended. Numerous Playing in the Sand events on the Riviera Maya. Then, Dead and Company with John Mayer began. Ten years and dozens of Dead & Co. shows under my belt soothed my soul. Cannabis brought me to Las Vegas to teach at UNLV’s Cannabis Policy Institute, and I was able to attend numerous Dead Forever shows at the Sphere…what an experience!  

And all through 2025, the music definitely lived on. While traveling internationally for my cannabis industry work, I found myself in London while Bob Weir and the Wolf Brothers were playing at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. In typical Bobby fashion, questionable setlist choices, but an amazing experience. And then there were the final shows in Golden Gate Park—Dead60. These turned out to be his final shows. A fitting end to a career that ended exactly where it began. I was proud to see it all happen live.  

Music was meant to travel, and to be shared, not controlled. The Grateful Dead understood that instinctively. It’s why tapers were welcomed, why the music spread hand to hand, city to city, generation to generation. It was decentralized by design, governed by trust, sustained by community rather than permission.

Cannabis followed the same path. Long before licenses, compliance manuals, capitalization tables, and quarterly earnings calls, the plant survived because people shared it. Quietly. Reliably. Outside formal structures. Culture carried it when the law would not.

Today’s cannabis industry has achieved something remarkable: legitimacy. That matters. Regulation, when done right, protects consumers, creates stability, and ensures longevity. But in the rush toward scale and standardization, there is a real risk of forgetting what made legalization inevitable in the first place. Commercialization is not liberation. Regulation is not justice. And an industry that loses sight of its cultural roots risks becoming legal, and hollow.

Bob Weir never tried to control the music. He trusted it to move on its own. That may be the lesson still waiting to be learned.

Bob Weir wanted the songbook—the soundtrack of our lives—to survive three hundred years.

I believe it will.

Eight-year-olds. Eighty-eight-year-olds. Still dancing.

We grew up with Jerry, but we grew old with Bobby. And for that we will all forever be Grateful.  

Vaya con Dios, Ace.

Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.

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

<p>The post Nothing Ventured. Nothing Gained: Bob Weir and the Culture That Got There First first appeared on High Times.</p>

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There’s a trend increasingly debated in electronic music publications, cultural calendars, and the endless rabbit hole on Instagram and TikTok: UK clubs, the birthplace of some of the most significant countercultural movements of recent decades, are closing one after another.

According to statistics compiled by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), between the start of the pandemic and early 2025, 405 nightlife venues closed across the UK. And the number just keeps rising. The organization speculates that, if this trend continues, no British clubs will remain by December 2029, an idea they symbolically call “The Last Night Out.”

Here we have a snapshot not only of a global cultural, social, and economic shift that extends beyond the British Isles, but also of political decisions and economic models that are savagely devouring themselves in this particular region. This phenomenon is on everyone’s lips because, as is well known, the British love their music and fiercely defend it as a cultural capital, and the mythology surrounding clubs in cities like London or Manchester can perhaps only be compared to that of Berlin. But said phenomenon seems to be unfolding before everyone’s eyes in slow motion, with no one able to do anything to stop it.

The UK’s nightlife, and especially its club culture, is undoubtedly going through a profound crisis with multiple causes, which makes it difficult to find a scapegoat (let alone a solution, or at least a modus operandi, to address the situation). And while the pandemic dramatically accelerated it and brought new complications, it is a process that had already begun in the previous decade.

According to a report published by the BBC in March 2025, Sheffield is the hardest-hit city: since 2020, 40% of its nightclubs have closed their doors. The report, published as a YouTube video, cites the lockdown measures and the millions in losses they caused for the entertainment sector as the primary reason for the closures. However, it also attributes the closures to the exorbitant cost of living (which continues to rise) in the UK.

Nevertheless, it fails to mention two far more pervasive and equally relevant factors: gentrification and the shift in consumers’ patterns and habits. These factors, in a  chicken-and-the-egg style, are intertwined with the consequences of the pandemic, a weakened economy, higher levels of job insecurity, and a world increasingly leaning toward far-right politics and moral frameworks, which undervalue ​​(and even demonize) leisure and more rebellious cultural expressions.

This is a point worth paying attention to, because in today’s world, where human labor itself is in crisis, it’s very easy to believe arguments claiming leisure isn’t important. But it is.

Philip Kolvin, a British barrister specializing in licensing law, regulation, and public policy, particularly in areas such as licensing adult entertainment venues and other regulated sectors in the UK, says: “No venue has the right to exist. Before we had cock fights, and they no longer exist because of the law stopping them or because of the lack of demand. We could say same thing about the clubs. One argument is that if clubs can’t make a profit, something else can come instead: streamings, coffee shops, gyms. But there is something about clubs which is special. It’s a place that represents and generates culture, new music styles, new fashion styles, new ways of people to get together, new ways of expression. And it is not necessarily that they are getting squeezed out because people don’t want to do that anymore, they are being squeezed that often because of the way we go for urban areas, the way we tax clubs, the expensive energy and commodities. They are draining away at a very fast rate now, and that makes this conversation really urgent”.

Kolvin is regarded as one of the leading voices on the subject at both the political and economic levels. His report, Darkest Before the Dawn, presented by the NTIA and considered its manifesto, is a defense of and a call to action regarding the Night-Time Economy, highlighting its value and relevance by providing data and suggesting strategies for its development. The lawyer sees the situation of nightclubs as a serious and much deeper problem, encompassing this entire vital sector of the economy itself—the leisure sector: not necessarily the entertainment sector, but rather those spaces where people go to spend time, interact with each other, have a drink, eat, or dance.

“The Night-Time Economy is different from other forms of entertainment because it is where we go to express our joy, and our joy is not curated. When we go to the theatre we are going as consumers, but in the Night-Time Economy includes everything that happens, including the way we build our own joy,” Kolvin explains.

Gentrification: Urban Development or Cultural Displacement?

The case of Corsica Studios is one of the most lamented by the community: the iconic club in Elephant and Castle, South London, will close its doors in March 2026. According to industry sources, this is due to the growth of real estate development in the area, with its respective consequences, such as increased rents, goods and services, and fines for noise pollution. 

According to an article in Mixmag, back in 2018 “it was given £125k by Delancey, the real estate asset management and advisory company behind Elephant and Castle town centre development, in order to soundproof the club.” This corresponds to the Agent of Change Principle, which the NTIA is trying to promote and which is supposedly in effect—but not with the seriousness it should be. The idea is that, if housing is built near an existing club, the developer, not the club, is responsible for soundproofing.

Clubbers, DJs, producers: everyone deems Corsica as an irreparable loss. One of the capital’s darlings, the mid-sized venue, opened in 2002, boasts an extensive history of legendary nights, hosting both local and international artists of the caliber of Bicep, Nina Kravitz, Fred Again, Jamie XX, and Björk, among many others.

However, it seems the club’s future isn’t entirely bleak: official sources assure that the plan for the near future is to relocate, reopen and update the space to comply with all current regulations. But there’s still no solid information, and the community is pessimistic.

“I will be devastated when Corsica Studios in London goes. Some of my fave nights out as a clubber and artist were there and I care about the space so much. There are always the most varied sounds and events happening and the atmosphere is great and staff are wonderful too. We will really lose an absolute treasure with that place and I am genuinely angry about it,” says DJ and producer Shirley Temper. 

The gentrification process and its impact on club culture is more or less the same in all major cities. Historically isolated neighborhoods and areas with an industrial character are now being overtaken by real estate development and transformed into “trendy” zones, where rent and utility prices skyrocket and the rules of coexistence (both noise and traffic regulations) change. This threatens the natural ecosystem of many clubs, deliberately located away from residential areas, putting their survival at risk. 

Faced with a weakened Night-Time Economy, real estate development sharpens its teeth and advances with state complicity, which is conspicuously absent from public policies to protect these spaces; on the contrary, it burdens them with ever-increasing financial weight.

Kolvin points out: “We’ve got some sign that local authorities are understanding the need for a strategic outlook… Where I think we’re fundamentally lacking is at national level, where there’s been a lack of good work from government. Is the Night-Time Economy less important than other elements of industry? (…) I’d argue not: it’s £140 billion worth of economy. It’s one of the biggest employers of young people and it’s one of the biggest reasons why people choose to live, work and invest in the UK and its regions. So the fact that we don’t really have a minister devoted to the promotion of the Night-Time Economy, that we don’t really have a national strategy, I find very disappointing.”

He continues: “We need to side as a nation to care about this and to be supportive, and then we need to put in place measures which operate in the level of planning, licensing, fiscal policies, urban regeneration, and all the governance tools that we use for all the other sectors of our economy. It is not a crime to say ‘What is our vision for the Night-Time Economy?’”

Drugs and Risk Management: Another Point of Alarm

In this scenario of structural neglect, another uncomfortable point of debate emerges: how to manage the risk of substance use within the Night-Time Economy in the absence of public policies. 

The Drumsheds case (which, paradoxically, remains open) has been highly controversial: the mega-club, located in Tottenham, London, and currently considered the largest and highest-capacity club in the world, saw two suspicious drug-related deaths and a stabbing incident between October and December 2024.

Housed in a former Ikea building and with a capacity of up to 15,000 attendees, the club belongs to Broadwick Live, a company that also owns some of the other most important venues in the UK, such as PrinTworks and Manchester’s Depot Mayfield.

The case highlights a stark asymmetry that is difficult to ignore between the large corporate giants and the smaller venues that house the underground scene—historically the breeding ground of British electronic music culture. These mega-clubs have financial resources, institutional backing, and a trusting relationship with the police, local authorities, artists, and the public. And yet, they fail to prevent tragedy.

“Resolving that fundamental disagreement, at the same time as reassuring sceptical sections of the clubbing public, is a substantial challenge before Broadwick Live’s next season of events begins in March. If the UK’s leading club operator can’t make their flagship venue work, then the omens for other venues feel worrying, even if they aren’t operating at the same scale,” Ed Gillet reflects in his article for The Guardian.

At least four drug-related deaths were recorded in nightclubs in the UK during 2025. While information on all cases wasn’t made public, drugs adulterated with nitazenes have been a recurring factor. And, as in the real estate sector, the lack of effective government policies is glaring.

What Do DJs, Clubbers, and Promoters Think?

Among the raver community and nightlife workers, there’s a palpable sense of worry, resignation, and cynicism.

N-Type is one of the legendary DJs and producers of London’s dubstep scene. He sees a negative shift in every aspect:  “Any nightclub closing is sad. We have such an amazing nightlife in the UK and it feels it is at risk. Even the way people rave feels different now. Take me back to the sweaty warehouses and euphoric moments”.

Shirley Temper adds:  “UK clubs and electronic music venues are so much more than just spaces. They offer community, escapism, enrichment and enjoyment in a world where people work life balances are consistently encroached upon and there is so much financial pressure on people who are just trying to survive. Music is well known to have positive impacts on the body in mind and having spaces for people to come together and enjoy these things is genuinely a very beautiful and human thing. The fact we are losing more and more of these spaces almost makes it feel like the powers and money in charge don’t want us enjoying our lives anymore.”

Tessa Regueiro, a London-based DJ, promoter, and booker who is part of Antisocial Records UK and Caza Beats, lived in Buenos Aires for the last 12 years and returned to London this year. Her opinions are shaped by the contrast between what London was and what it is now: she also mentions the impact of COVID and how exorbitantly expensive the city has become.

“We saw the same in Argentina with the economic crisis. As promoters, we basically had to put on free events to ensure people would come, because asking people to pay ticket prices in a niche scene was almost impossible. Stopping wasn’t an option, because we felt these spaces are really important for people to come together through music, more so in hard times. I don’t know the stats or anything, but they say Gen Z are also way less likely to go out than we were when we started raving. So maybe it’s also impacted by a societal shift in younger people’s priorities,” she reflects.

The Consumers of the (Gloomy) Future

Another reason that emerges is not only a local phenomenon, but a global one.

Beyond the economic and political dimension of, in this case, the United Kingdom—a situation radically worsened post-pandemic, but which began almost a decade ago—this phenomenon also reflects the current state of consumer habits and social life patterns. This transcends regionalism and refers to changes in human behavior at a transcultural level.

It’s true that Gen Z (the current twenty-somethings, the longtime target of club culture) is going out less and less, and even those who do are drinking significantly less alcohol. This, coupled with the rise of wellness culture and a focus on mental health, which have strongly influenced consumer habits in the post-pandemic era, has shed light on an issue that, being so obvious, seemed invisible: clubs and parties in general depend on attendees drinking alcohol to survive. This is clearly problematic from a common sense and public health perspective, and, in this context of declining intake, also unprofitable. Therefore, the only thing these venues can do to accumulate more money is to raise entrance and bar prices.

As a response and as a symptom, sober raves are slowly but surely emerging: parties in which drug use isn’t encouraged, and alcohol isn’t sold. Not to mention BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle) parties… Very inclusive initiatives, perfectly suited to new consumers, but still figuring out how to become profitable.

Regarding youth behavior trends, Argentine trends expert Gaba Najmanovich predicts a swift “return of nightlife,” even though it never really went away. First, because DJs and electronic music culture are still on the rise, and second, because social spaces more associated with a healthy lifestyle and wellness culture, such as “social running” (going for a run in groups as a way to meet people), are declining.

“It’s a trend that will soon expire, and people are still looking for spaces to connect. So, I think it’s very important not to confuse ‘clubs’ with ‘nightlife,’ and the important thing is to think about what this new nightlife is like,” she says.

The question is what or who should take action to ensure there’s a place to return to when this is over.

Najmanovich isn’t a scholar of the UK specifically and its political dimensions, but she’s been following the rise and fall of electronic music culture and the party scene for some time now, in terms of global consumer habits. Observing the rise of music festivals in contrast to the decline of clubs, she believes there are key elements the club experience could incorporate to become more appealing: “Festivals offer open air, variety, and the possibility of a break. There might be something about the intensity of the club scene that isn’t working for this generation of young people who grew up accustomed to something else, which I find curious considering the stimulation they receive from screens,” she explains. “But there’s something about the club scene and the social anxiety of this generation, who aren’t so used to socializing in person.”

The economic situation, the cost of living, and job insecurity are undoubtedly another factor driving this shift in consumer habits. Kolvin points out that many consumers simply can’t afford a night out at a club, leading them to bring their own drinks or throw parties at home. In Najmanovich’s words, “Clubs aren’t going to disappear entirely because there will always be a niche market. But consumers are going to change, and we have to change with them or let them go.”

However, regarding habits, Najmanovich anticipates a return to nightlife and “the death of the wellness imperative.” Because she emphasizes that, while this generation is the most impoverished of the millennium so far, spending hasn’t stopped, it’s just changed: “I believe that in the next 5 years nightlife will make a strong comeback, but it will be necessary to create the conditions for these people to want to keep attending. The budget issue will still be complicated. So we have to look at the business model and make sure it’s not so financially overwhelming for these new consumers, although when priorities change and people spend less on sneakers and skincare, perhaps there will be more money to spend going out at night. It depends on the target audience’s priorities.”

A Warning Before the Music Stops

The first thing to understand is that this problem speaks to fundamental issues that affect not only ravers but the entire cultural fabric; it has to do with preserving the few spaces (not only physical, but also temporal and conceptual) where productivity isn’t everything; giving leisure, human connection, and enjoyment an important place in social life. This goes without even considering the sustained loss of jobs, and on a deeper level, the irreparable damage that the extinction of nightclubs inflicts on artistic production.

That’s why it’s important to call things by their name, something Philip Kolvin and the entire NTIA emphasize when using the term “Night-Time Economy”:  “It’s really important to name it because it’ss under threat, in a form of other ways of entertainment are not under threat. By naming and dissecting it we can use all the tools we have, social, political, economical, urban, to protect this Night-Time Economy.”

Failing to support these spaces with government policies during a context of such radical economic and social change—and, on a larger scale, neglecting the country’s nightlife, and more specifically electronic music—is to abandon an invaluable cultural asset. Looking to the future, it’s killing the breeding ground where artists and movements emerge, which then keep cities culturally relevant, attract tourism, and create legends. No one would let museums, film archives, or theaters die. This shouldn’t be so different.

“Be it jungle music in Bristol, dubstep and grime in London, bassline in Sheffield or donk from Wigan Pier, the UK has it all. These sounds and cultures stem largely from the vibrant black, working class and queer communities that we are lucky to have, and they have pioneered so many of these genres. These sounds people enjoy all over the world once started out completely underground and through sound systems,” Shirley Temper reflects. “Smaller venues in the underground scene now allow for a space for these sounds to continue to develop with a community around it. They’re also the way newer artists and promoters can make their impact on their local scenes and become part of something. If we lose these spaces, how are we ever going to discover someone or something new?”

The UK case is paradigmatic and especially alarming because of the speed and depth with which it is developing, given that it is a first-world country with a globally recognized rave culture. But it is merely the tip of the iceberg of a global phenomenon, and it should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. The future of club culture looks bleak, and while interest in electronic music is growing exponentially, tons of new DJs are appearing every day, and mega-festivals are increasingly prevalent, clubs—the seed and foundation of all electronic culture—, left without state support or a shift in the general awareness of their cultural relevance, will have to reinvent themselves or disappear.

“In times when everything is thriving, the Night-Time Economy will look after itself; in times when it is not, we need to take a concerted approach as a nation for the kind of Night-Time Economy we want to leave to our children,” Kolvin concludes.

Cover photo: McCann London for The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA)

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As a metaphor for the passage of time, The Simpsons’ episode “Homerpalooza” (season 7, episode 24) portrays Homer in an exercise in nostalgia: while reminiscing about his youth, he assures his father that despite his age, balding head, and growing belly, he’ll keep on rocking forever. Forever. Forever. The innocence and raw truth of that scene seem trifling for Concert Joe, a Brooklyn resident who dedicates his life to rocking out: at 72, he has been in the game for over 50 years and has attended a staggering 24,000 live concerts.

“I feel like a worn-out tire,” Concert Joe tells High Times, in a confessional tone, while lamenting the leg and foot pain that’s taken a toll on him. At his age and with his hectic lifestyle, he’s bound to deal with some ailments: “I need a dozen operations, have severe asthma, a bad heart and bad lungs from exposure by 9/11.” To deal with these ailments, he smokes weed, and to keep going, he attends concert after concert, nonstop. “My entire life is nothing but weed and music!” he confesses.

A quick calculation suggests that he has spent about eight full years of his life traveling on the subway. “I may have taken the NYC subways more than anyone in history, average 4 or 5 hours per day, around 300 days per year for 53 years.” And so far in 2025, Concert Joe has spent about 131 consecutive days and nights attending live music shows. Sometimes, he even sees up to three entire concerts a night. A truly insane feat and a genuine physical achievement. We’re talking about 196 concerts from July 8th to today, nonstop, for a total of 327 full shows during 2025.

But it’s not all sunshine and roses: noise, feedback, and distortion do take their toll. “My health is pathetic,” he insists. However, he’s not planning on stopping, not for his body, not for anything. In fact, to finance his habit (a rather expensive one, by the way), he’s taken out about three loans to buy tickets and has already spent more than… $700,000 on tickets. “I hardly slept for 50 years from rushing all over NYC to attend concerts and get home and then to work and college, and then 3 concerts per night in the 90’s!”

Of course, this staggering string of 24,000 shows began somewhere. And to add to the mystique, he pinpoints two moments: Richie Havens, at his cousin’s wedding, but—officially—marks his debut as a concertgoer in February 1971, at a Byrds show at Carnegie Hall. Ready, set, go! 1, 2, 10, 100, 10,000, 20,000, 24,000, and who knows how many more. But there was one concert that truly redirected the course of his life, and that was the Grateful Dead concert at Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey in September 1972. That’s the show that “seriously redirected my life,” he states.

For Joe, the best moment of concerts is at the beginning, specifically when the audience is desperately trying to find their spots. Furthermore, amidst the lights and explosions, he identifies the band’s entrance on stage as “the best time to light up.” Basically, he says, because “security is usually overwhelmed and distracted.” Joe has a point; and that’s not Joe speaking, it’s his experience doing the talking.

In that sense, after years immersed in the rock and roll scene, Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia (their legendary guitarist and singer) concerts mean a lot to him, since they were the ones that have always fostered the most 420-friendly ecosystems. Those are, ultimately, the ones he enjoys the most, and that guide his audience toward a distinctly spiritual experience.

“There was a Grateful Dead concert during the Weed Drought of 1979. Almost no one had weed at the show, and an old friend came by and gave me two Thai Sticks. As I licked the glue on the Rolling Paper, the lights went out and the show began,” ​​he recalls. More recently, a concert from the Chronic World Tour 20 years ago comes to mind, featuring Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Dr. Dre, that “featured an 8 feet tall chrome skull that spoke and blew out smoke.”

Through wisps of smoke, Joe distinguishes the rock audience from the rest: “Quite often, I go to see classical music and then right after that another concert featuring Rock n’ Roll music, and there is a tremendous difference in the vibe between classical and JamBand audiences… JamBands have the best cannabis vibe. Classical concerts don’t have light shows, whereas rock concerts do, which has a big effect when you’re stoned, but these days I’d rather concentrate on the band or orchestra and not be distracted by the lights.”

Beyond all that, Concert Joe is a man of experience, a seeker who can never settle. And who, for having been there, in the thick of it, he knows some stories inside out. For instance, he sees this present moment as “more open and more corporate since it is legal,” referring to weed. However, he doesn’t consider it strictly positive: “Totally corporate these days, with all attention on money and little on the consumer or cannabis quality. NY State legal dispensaries had terrible weed for the first 18 months they were open. NY State had the worst and most mis-managed cannabis legalization program in American history.”

Until recently, Joe had to build his own “special stealth cannabis toking devices” to avoid getting caught. There’s even a list: “Frisbee-pipe, joint balloons, smokeless pipes, under the seat smoking devices, etc., and blowing out smoke through a rolled up sock after taking a breath mint. Insert doobie into metal funnel attached to plastic tubing and light under the seat, so security can’t see.” A true prodigy of technique that also led to a kind of artistic escape: his hands are now also those of a weed artisan.

“One time at the Jerry Garcia Broadway Concerts in 1987, promoter Bill Graham had the ushers crawl on their knees to look down each row to look for smokers, but they couldn’t catch me… Except once, and I have the entire episode recorded on tape. In 1990, mayor Doomberg instituted the New York City non-smoking law for all venues and Concert Halls. At the Madison Square Garden’s Grateful Dead show that year, security told me that I was the first one busted under the new anti-smoking law, but they couldn’t find anything on me so they let me go.”

Time and again, the Grateful Dead are at the heart of his stories. In fact, the 1976 Beacon Theater concert, which erupted in riots when 200 people stormed the upper level, driving the police crazy, ranks among the most unforgettable of his life. And it wasn’t precisely because of the music, but because of the adrenaline rush.

Even with all these adventures under his belt, with their ups and downs, Concert Joe considers New York, specifically Brooklyn and Manhattan, to be the true 420 capital, the home of magical concerts, and the epicenter of rock culture. “The Brooklyn Bowl is listed as the greenest club in history. Feels like Cannabis Central,” he emphasizes. And the friendliest place to smoke pot, of all the places he’s been? “Woodstock, NY has probably been the most cannabis-friendly place in America since the 1969 Woodstock Festival.”

So, even if his memory were to fade, some concerts would remain tucked away in his mind. There, he lists the Watkins Glen concert with the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and The Band (600,000 attendees) on July 28, 1973; the Ronnie Lane ARMS Benefit with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman, and Joe Cocker (all in one band!) at Madison Square Garden on December 8, 1983; and The Three Tenors, with Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras, at Giant Stadium in New Jersey on July 20, 1996.

At the time, Concert Joe’s addiction to live music led him to uncompromising positions. These stances, to most people, might seem utterly crazy. For example, he hasn’t listened to recorded music for almost 50 years. Not on the radio, not on CDs, not on vinyl, and only occasionally, yes, online. He confesses: “I check out a few seconds of a YouTube video to determine if a band is worth seeing.”

And with so much rocking out under his belt, this record-breaking man (mind you, none of this is for record-breaking reasons, he’s just living life on the edge, fueled by his addiction) knows that his always chasing “the next high —music, that is,” for his “love of cannabis and addiction to live music,” he concludes, as he heads off for his next 24,000-plus show. Because he can. Because he wants to. Because rock ‘n’ roll is his thing. Because, despite the passage of time, and despite the paunch and bald patches, Concert Joe will keep on rocking forever. Forever. Forever.

<p>The post This 72-Year-Old Has Been to 24,000 Concerts. Weed Is How He Keeps Going. first appeared on High Times.</p>

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In case anyone still doubted that hip-hop is one of cannabis’ most powerful cultural platforms, a new academic study has finally put hard numbers behind what the culture has been saying for decades.

According to research published in the journal Substance Use & Misuse, more than 37% of hip-hop and rap music videos produced in the United States feature cannabis imagery.

Sounds about right, doesn’t it? But this isn’t a vibe check or an editorial take. It’s a large-scale content analysis. Researchers reviewed 1,160 music videos, in both English and German, that appeared on YouTube’s Top 100 charts throughout 2024, logging every instance of cannabis and nicotine. They then cross-referenced those appearances with total view counts through March 2025.

They found thousands of cannabis scenes which, when multiplied by audience reach, resulted in an estimated 49 billion cannabis impressions. And there’s more: this isn’t just about geography. It’s about genre.

The U.S.: more weed, more hip-hop, less nicotine

When it comes to the U.S., the data is pretty unambiguous. Within hip-hop and rap videos:

• 37.2% include cannabis
• Only 8.8% show nicotine
• Hip-hop accounts for the vast majority of cannabis depictions across genres
• Other genres trail far behind

Statistically speaking, hip-hop music videos are 13 times more likely to feature cannabis or nicotine than videos from other genres.

But beyond the numbers, the study confirms something hip-hop culture has been rapping about for decades: weed isn’t a prop or a costume in hip-hop, it’s part of the language.

From the genre’s earliest days, cannabis has signaled identity, creativity, and belonging. It’s been there for the cyphers, the bedroom studios, the tour buses, the pre-session rituals, and the day-to-day life narrated in the lyrics. Lyrically and visually, cannabis has long been tied to resistance, leisure, the neighborhood, and (when it arrives) success. It’s cultural continuity. And that continuity has played a real role in normalizing cannabis within mainstream popular culture.

Germany: Less weed, more tobacco

One of the study’s most striking contrasts comes from Germany. In German hip-hop and rap videos:

• Only 9.4% include cannabis
• 38% feature nicotine
• Tobacco remains the dominant substance
• Cannabis appears far more marginally

In short: less weed, more cigarettes.

That gap matters. It raises cultural, regulatory, and generational questions. While cannabis visibility in the U.S. has grown alongside legalization efforts, public debate, and a rapidly expanding industry, Germany’s mainstream imagery —even amid recent regulatory shifts— still appears more anchored to nicotine.

And yet, the broader pattern holds on both sides of the Atlantic: hip-hop is the genre most likely to depict substances, regardless of country.

Why this matters (without moral panic)

The researchers make an important clarification: their findings are descriptive, not judgmental. They don’t assess whether cannabis appears in a positive, negative, or neutral light. They simply document how often it shows up, and where.

So why pay attention? Because YouTube remains one of the most heavily used platforms among young people, and hip-hop is one of the most listened-to genres in those age groups. At that intersection, cannabis becomes a routine part of the media environment, not an outlier.

The study suggests these findings can help inform discussions about:

• Age-appropriate content labeling
• Media literacy
• How shifting social norms and legal frameworks are reflected in popular culture

Not to ban or censor, but to understand.

Cover photo created with AI.

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The actor jumps on EsDeeKid’s “4 Raws Remix” for his biggest rap moment yet, winking at months of internet theories that the masked UK rapper and Chalamet were secretly the same person.

Somewhere between a drill remix, an A24 rollout and the internet’s most committed inside joke, Timothée Chalamet popped up rapping alongside masked UK artist EsDeeKid. Yes, it belongs in High Times.

The track is the “4 Raws Remix.” The hook does not overthink things. Every time I smoke, I light four Raws. That’s the thesis. Whether that means four skinny soldiers or one biblical fatty is between you, your rolling tray and whatever spiritual entity watches over grinders.

Within hours of dropping, clips of the “4 Raws Remix” detonated across the internet. The video and related posts surged past tens of millions of views on Instagram, cleared 100 million on X alone, and quickly outpaced the daily audience of major live events like award shows and playoff games. This was not niche hype. This was a full scale internet takeover.

This hits stoners for the simplest reason. He’s rapping about smoking, plainly, casually, without apology. The title reads like a rolling paper dog whistle. “RAW” isn’t explained. It doesn’t need to be. If you know, you know. If you don’t, welcome to the convenience store aisle of culture where weed references are no longer subtext. They are the headline.

The video leans into it. Hoodies up. Bandanas on. Fluorescent lights. Two silhouettes nodding like it’s 2:17 a.m. and the snacks are mandatory. Then Chalamet steps forward and drops a verse that mixes self awareness, flexing and pure meme fuel. He name checks his own fame, his career arc and the movie he’s currently rolling out, Marty Supreme. It works because it knows exactly what it is.

For months, the internet insisted Chalamet was EsDeeKid. Same eyes. Same fashion instincts. Same “this guy could absolutely pull off a second life” energy. The remix is the punchline. They appear together. Masks come off, then go back on. Case closed, joke intact.

What makes this especially High Times coded is how weed functions here. It’s not a PSA. It’s not a lecture. It’s not a lifestyle sermon. It’s shorthand. Smoking as rhythm. Smoking as punctuation. Smoking as a repeated action that anchors the song the way a lighter anchors a session. “Four Raws” isn’t metaphor in weed culture. It’s a visual, a quantity, a ritual.

This is also sharp modern marketing. A24 has turned film rollouts into cultural events, and the orbit around Josh Safdie understands that humor and chaos travel farther than polished press releases. Chalamet didn’t try to become a rapper. He stepped into a lane, nodded to weed culture, delivered a verse that knows how ridiculous it is and stepped back out smiling.

That’s why stoners clocked it immediately. Weed people are professional vibe detectors. We can sense try hard energy from a mile away. This didn’t feel forced. It felt like someone having fun, lighting up the idea of “four Raws” as an image, not an instruction manual.

Will people debate whether it’s four joints or one monster cone? Absolutely. Will the conspiracy crowd keep digging? Of course. Will someone freeze frame the video to inventory hoodies, hats and bandanas like it’s evidence? Already happening.

Zoom out. An Oscar level actor is rapping about smoking, casually, in a way that lands with drill fans and anyone who knows the sound of a RAW pack cracking open. That’s weed culture not asking for permission, not hiding in metaphor, and not pretending it’s niche anymore.

Light four. Or one. Okay.

Photo: Shutterstock

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Wiz Khalifa has been sentenced to nine months in prison in Romania for lighting up a joint on stage during a music festival. A small amount of cannabis in a country with little tolerance, a crowd packed with young fans (something judges said worsened the offense), and a criminal ruling that crossed borders.

According to the BBC, the sentence was handed down by a Romanian appeals court, which overturned an earlier fine and opted for a custodial sentence, even though the artist is not currently in the country.

The incident itself isn’t new. It happened in July 2024 at the Beach, Please! festival in the coastal city of Costinești. After the show, the rapper was briefly detained by police and later charged with drug possession for personal use.

What Romania’s court said and why they toughened the sentence

In a written ruling, judges from the Constanța Court of Appeal said the punishment wasn’t based solely on possession, but on the public message they believe Khalifa sent. According to the court, the act amounted to “a message normalizing illegal behavior” and encouraged “drug use among young people.”

They also described the gesture as an “ostentatious act,” stressing that Khalifa performed “on the stage of a music festival very popular with young people” and consumed cannabis in front of “a large audience, predominantly made up of young attendees.”

Authorities stated that the artist had more than 18 grams (roughly 0.6 ounces)  of cannabis in his possession and consumed an additional amount during the performance.

What did Khalifa say?

A day after the incident, Wiz Khalifa took to X to defuse the situation, promising he’d be back, just without the big ass joint next time:

Last nights show was amazing. I didn’t mean any disrespect to the country of Romania by lighting up on stage. They were very respectful and let me go. I’ll be back soon. But without a big ass joint next time

— Wiz Khalifa (@wizkhalifa) July 14, 2024

Since then, the rapper has continued his usual schedule, appearing at shows across the United States and streaming from home on Twitch.

The sentence was issued in absentia, and all signs suggest it won’t be enforced in practice, at least as long as he doesn’t return to the country. Romanian criminologist Vlad Zaha said extradition is highly unlikely and described the ruling as “unusually harsh.” As he explained, Romania has little legal or political leverage to compel the U.S. to hand over the artist to serve the sentence.

The case highlights a growing and increasingly visible tension: global artists operating under cultural codes that don’t always align with local legal frameworks. Wiz Khalifa isn’t just known for hits like See You Again or Young or  Wild & Free, he’s also built a public identity deeply tied to cannabis, including founding his own brand back in 2016.

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