Emerging in the conformist 1950s, the Beat subculture pushed back against corporatism and consumerism in favor of a contemplatively nonconformist lifestyle focused on art, poetry, jazz and “kicks.”

The small circle of young writers at the core of this lit-erary movement—Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Neal Cassady—were all heavily influenced by the improvisation, illumination. and imagination they found in cannabis. 

Among their most acclaimed and lasting works are Kerouac’s generation-defining novel On the Road and Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl.

On this episode, Martin Torgoff—author of Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats and Drugs—explains just how central cannabis was as a creative tool for the Beats as they sought to bust through the conventions of both literature and society. And how along the way, they founded LeMar, America's first cannabis legalization organization.

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