Great Moments in Weed History

Great Moments in Weed History

Great Moments in Weed History delves deep into humanity's 10,000+ year relationship with cannabis (a.k.a. marijuana) to explore the humor, heart, and historical importance of the planet's most revered and maligned plant. Hosted by David Bienenstock.

Episodes

'What is Hype Weed?' w/ The Highest Critic

September 24, 2025 • 85 mins
Caleb Chen is a weed enthusiast, researcher, reviewer and academic, who runs "The Highest Critic," and is well on his way to earning a doctorate in the subject. He's also a Ganjier and a reviewer with Budist. Caleb joins the podcast for an engaging discussion of what's cutting-edge in cannabis, or "hype weed" as the young people like to say when it comes to our favorite plant. PATREON Please ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠support Great Moments in We...
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Weed History in the Middle East

September 11, 2025 • 55 mins
From ancient traditions to the evolution of modern cannabis culture in Morocco, India, Egypt, Nepal, and other traditional hashish regions, get ready for a fascinating time getting high on history with Dr. Maziyar Ghiabr, Director for the Centre of Persian And Iranian Studies at the University of Exeter’s Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies.  Maziyar is also the author of a fascinating new book called We Smoke Flowers: On Be...
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From Shy Weed Nerd to Supernova Woman

August 27, 2025 • 65 mins
Amber E. Senter’s impressive legal cannabis career began with years of underground weed growing, hashmaking and edibles slanging. Amber is the founder and CEO of MAKR House, a cannabis house of brands, and she has served as the Chief Operations Officer of a prominent cannabis dispensary. In addition to her various business ventures, Amber is also co-founder and Executive Director of Supernova Women, an organization formed in 201...
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Can 'High Times' Rise from the Ashes? (w/ Josh Kesselman)

August 14, 2025 • 48 mins
When a bunch of vulture capital d-bags ran High Times into bankruptcy, the magazine's illustrious fifty year history appeared to be burnt out. But then, in June, Raw Papers founder Josh Kesselman announced that he’d bought the brand for $3.5 million. In this episode, Josh explains how and why he bought High Times, and his high hopes for a return to glory. Josh also shares his own weedy life journey, an inspiring tale of a youn...
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The 'Mayor of Oaksterdam' Fought the Man to Free the Weed

July 30, 2025 • 58 mins
Richard Lee's life changed forever in 1990 when he slipped on a catwalk while setting up the lights for an Aerosmith concert, suffering a spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. A Texas native raised by conservative Republican parents, he would subsequently dedicate his life to educating his family, the government, and ultimately the entire country about medical cannabis. Along the way, he transformed an eight-b...
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Meet the Founder of An Iconic 1970s Weed Magazine

July 16, 2025 • 26 mins
Charlotte Parker started Head magazine while working an entry level publishing job at Penthouse, in order to cover the world of weed in depth at a time long before legalization. Looking back at a few covers from those 1970s glory days shows she was well ahead of the curve, with stories like “How to Make Hash Oil in Your Kitchen,” and “Grow the Most Potent Pot Plants Indoors.” Plus, Head featured interviews with the likes of Patti...
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How A Weed Outlaw Became The Ultimate Cannabis Connoisseur

July 2, 2025 • 81 mins
After being incarcerated as a teenager for weed, Kevin Jodrey joined the military and trained as a deep sea diver, only to end up conscripted into performing anti-drug interdiction raids out in the middle of the ocean.  From there he slid back into the weed underground, spending the next few decades moving serious weight in from Mexico and joining Northern California’s second wave of off-the-grid growers. Before at last coming out...
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High Times, Free Weed, and Home Grown: The Danny Danko Story

June 19, 2025 • 63 mins
From judging the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, to touring Northern California during harvest season, to seshing with the steady stream of growers, dealers, breeders, smugglers, rogues, outlaws, musicians, celebrities, and activists who stopped by the High Times offices in New York City during our illustrious tenure at the mag, Danny Danko and I have shared many incredible adventures in the field.. So lets exhale the bullshit…. inhale...
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Celebrating Weed, Pride and Weed Pride w/ Laganja Estranja

June 4, 2025 • 43 mins
What does it mean to talk about Pride when it comes to cannabis? First and foremost it means celebrating the central role that the LGBTQ+ community has played in the global struggle for weed liberation. Pride also has a special meaning for all of us weed enthusiasts who’ve been stigmatized, criminalized or ostracized for our love of this plant.  Prior to this conversation, I’d never met Laganja Estranja—who made a star turn in ...
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A Weed Expat Inhales Amsterdam's Glory Years

May 21, 2025 • 87 mins
Adam Dunn first arrived in Amsterdam as a teenager, and quickly found himself at the center of the city's famed international cannabis scene. In time, Adam would launch his own innovative ventures, including T.H.Seeds, which developed world-famous and award-winning strains including Bubblegum, S.A.G.E., Heavy Duty Fruity, and Chocolate Chunk.  He also started Hempworks, Europe’s first dedicated hemp store, with its influential in...
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How 'Appellations' Will Put Cannabis on Par With Champagne

May 7, 2025 • 51 mins
Much how wine, cheese, and other agricultural products are authenticated as coming from their traditional geographic zone of origin, a new program about to launch is California will help old school growers in traditional cultivation communities protect their regional legacies in the world of weed. To explain this exciting new development, we shared a sesh with Genine Coleman, founder and Executive Director of Origins Council, a...
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John Lennon's Hash Bust Set Off an Immigration Battle for the Ages

April 23, 2025 • 64 mins
In 1971, John Lennon performed publicly, for the first time in five years, at a rally decrying the injustice of Michigan police targeting a radical political activist for an elaborate undercover sting operation, resulting in a sentence of ten years in prison for passing two joints. The concert brought massive media attention, and John Sinclair soon after walked out of prison a free man, landing John Lennon on Richard Nixon's offi...
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4/20 Special : Mylar Bag Art Show + "How The Waldos Created a High Holiday"

April 9, 2025 • 87 mins
As our annual celebration of 4/20 rapidly approaches, please roll up and get ready for the incredible true story of how a small Northern California weed crew created an analog meme that grew into an international high holiday of cannabis liberation. But first, we check in with acclaimed journalist David Downs and Lance Lambert from Grove Bags about "weed week" in San Francisco, particularly the "Get to the Bag" art show, which ch...
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"Weed brings slack to the ever-tightening vice inside my body."

March 26, 2025 • 50 mins
Faced with the rare neurodegenerative condition Friedreich's ataxia, John Cernosek decided to become a patient-advocate and write a book about his healing journey with cannabis. He's currently headed to Las Vegas as an invited guest of the National Ataxia Foundation, where he will present an excerpt from his book at their annual conference. This is a huge step for a conference that has never before addressed the issue. John will a...
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The Trailer Park Boys— 'Baked on a True Story'

March 12, 2025 • 60 mins
Whether rolling up a six-paper-joint or hiding their hashish by making it into a driveway, the Trailer Park Boys have been growing, smoking, and celebrating the herb on their hit TV series for more than 25 years. So when GMIWH sat down with Robb Wells (who plays Ricky), there were more incredible weed stories to share than Randy eats cheeseburgers. So roll up and settle in for the behind-the-scenes origin story of one of the funni...
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From Rock Star to Weed Connoisseur

February 26, 2025 • 54 mins
System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian has won a Grammy and played on multi-platinum selling records, all fueled by the creative boost he gets from cannabis. In fact, he loves the plant so much he started his own brand, 22 Red, and serves as his own quality control expert. We talk about his first puff, the weed dealer who changed his life, the adventure and occasional pot-holes of trying to score good herb while touring the world,...
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Bob Dylan Got the Beatles High for the First Time

February 12, 2025 • 45 mins
In 1964, in a NYC hotel room, Bob Dylan met the Beatles for the very first time and turned them on to cannabis. Sounds like the stuff of legend and lore, but it really happened, and a rock journalist of the era was on hand to document in detail how the whole sesh went down. For starters, the Beatles made Ringo serve as "royal taster," to see if puffing a joint made him go insane before the others committed to trying it. PATREON Ple...
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Seth Ferranti: From LSD Kingpin to Weed Fugitive to Jailhouse Journalist

January 29, 2025 • 60 mins
This episode features an outlaw, a fugitive, an inmate, a journalist, a weed dealer, an LSD distributor, a defendant and an accomplished filmmaker. And they’re all the same person. I first started reading Seth Ferranti’s writing back in the late 90s, when he was the official prison correspondent for VICE magazine, while serving a 21 year sentence, after getting busted for possession of 100,000 doses of acid and then jumping bail an...
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Ramon Reyes Went From Slanging Dime Bags to Leading an Industry

January 15, 2025 • 67 mins
Ramon Reyes started out selling herb on the streets of NYC as a teenager and subsequently climbed through the ranks of the underground, the gray market and the legal industry to now run a licensed dispensary in the same heavily Dominican neighborhood where he grew up. Along with partner Vlad Bautista, Ramon originally co-founded Happy Munkey as a speakeasy style consumption lounge after a trip to Amsterdam convinced him that the tr...
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From 'Blair Witch' to GrowGirl

January 1, 2025 • 58 mins
In 1999, this week's guest starred in one of the most financially successful films of all time, but the circumstances around the making and marketing of Blair Witch Project meant that her incredible accomplishment actually came with a lot of very steep downsides.  A story that’s briefly chronicled in her memoir: Growgirl: The Blossoming of an Unlikely Outlaw… by Heather Donahue (now known as Rei Hance). On paper, it certainly sound...
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