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 2014 while competing on RuPaul's Drag Race—but I feel like we immediately hit it off and got on the same wavelength in the way weed people often do. So please settle in for the incredible origin story of an overnight weed icon that was actually many years in the making...

For more on cannabis and pride, please check out episodes of this podcast about Denis Peron, Brownie Mary and the organization WAMM.

PATREON

Please ⁠⁠⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠⁠⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

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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-house clothing label.

Twenty years after first encountering Adam at the Cannabis Cup, where he was fumigating the room with a modified leaf blower full of weed, Bean sits down for an epic sesh with an old friend about the good old days when Amsterdam was the center of the canna-universe.

Check out Adam's podcast The Adam Dunn Show.

PATREON

Please ⁠⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 California nonprofit advocacy, education and research organization dedicated to sustainable economic development for rural cannabis producing regions.

Genine has been working directly with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and researchers at Cal Poly Humboldt University to develop and implement a statewide appellation system where local communities can create their own standards and have them recognized nationally and even internationally as legal cannabis sales evolve around the world. 

PATREON

Please ⁠support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon⁠. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 official enemies list. For the next three years, the President's "plumbers" harassed the former Beatle and his wife Yoko Ono, while the INS threatened him with deportation over an old hashish bust back in England. Meanwhile the FBI tapped his phones and sent agents to tail his every move.

Lennon, Ono, and their legal team fought them every step, and along the way created a new legal precedent in immigration law that still stands as today's DREAM act.

Read John Lennon vs. The USA (written by Lennon's immigration attorney Leon Wildes) for more info.

Long live Nutopia!

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 chronicles the fascinating history and subversive artistry of the mylar bags that became industry-standard cannabis packaging for licensed brands and illicit operators alike starting about fifteen years ago.

And speaking of 4/20, if you're in Portland on 4/19 please grab tickets to my live show The History of Weed, happening at Kickstand Comedy theater.

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 also be speaking with the hundreds of patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers who attend the conference and generally spreading awareness via his grassroots advocacy group Cannataxia. 

I first met John because he's a GMIWH supporter on Patreon, and signed up to do a secret sesh with me over Zoom. As he heads to the desert to spread the good word about medical cannabis, I'm proud to share our original interview from 2023.

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 funniest and most heartfelt shows of all time. And as a bonus, your host shares a few TPB stories too, from the time Bean played "Greasy Stoner #1" in an episode, to getting the boys on the cover of High Times, to going to a wrap party held right in the heart of Sunnyvale Trailer Park—one of the most mythical realms in all of Stonerdome.

Episode edited by Matthias Junker

Grow Your Own: If you want to keep the vibes high, you can acquire some Ricky's Hash Plant seeds from their suppliers at Brothers Grimm Seeds.

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible.

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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, discovering sativas in Amsterdam, and why he became an outspoken advocate for legalization way back before that was cool.

Check out Shavo's new solo band: Seven Hours After Violet

Episode edited by Matthias Junker

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible 

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible 

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 150+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.

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 and living as a fugitive for two years while on the US Marshals’ 15 ‘Most Wanted’ list.

And that's just the start of Seth's story....

PATREON

Please support Great Moments in Weed HIstory on Patreon. Supporters get exclusive access to video versions of this podcast and private seshes, plus cool rewards like a signed book. And it truly helps us make the best show possible 

EPISODE ARCHIVE

Visit our podcast feed for 130+ episodes of Great Moments in Weed History, and subscribe now to get a new weekly podcast every Weednesday.