For almost 50 years High Times has been a voice for the cannabis community—not just pushing for plant freedom, but by championing the breeders and cultivators that make our community great. By sharing first-hand accounts of those on the front line, and behind the masks, the brand’s work has inspired generations of us to follow the calling of the plant and pick up a shovel (or a pen) ourselves.
Over the past few years that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with the brand, I’ve been privileged to hear some of the most incredible stories, first-hand accounts, and musings that I’ve ever heard from characters across the industry. While some of them have appeared in our coverage, most hadn’t really fit the mold of what we’d been publishing the past few years. We do our best to be all encompassing in our reporting, but some of the best details are often the hardest to verify, and therefore have, in the past, gotten lost on the cutting room floor so to speak.
Given the positive response to our magazine updates lately, and with some of those incredible stories in mind, we’ve decided to create a more formal home for these unique voices to share their tales. Direct from the smokers mouth, I am pleased to introduce you to our newest endeavor, a home for our vibrant network to rant and rave, The WEIRDOS.
Now, while I’ve always worn the ‘weirdo’ title proudly, some people are somewhat put off by our new section title. To be blunt, that’s sort of intentional. It’s important when you’re reading WEIRDOS pieces that you understand these are not journalistic coverage, and mostly opinions or retellings, and that they all should be taken with a grain of salt and the appropriate sense of humor. But, with the buzzkills in mind, I’ve come up with this fun lil acronym to better frame these conversations, should you need that sort of thing: Weed Enthusiast (and) Insider Rants, Diatribes & Original Stories. W.E.I.R.D.O.S. Hopefully that cools your jets.
It’s worth noting that we’d been hesitant to create a ‘contributor’ section under our banner for many reasons, but likely the most distinctive was the desire to protect both the brand and the community from our site being used as a vehicle to attack or undermine. We’re not going to let that happen here, and the first and most important way we’ll combat this is through our selection process. All the W.E.I.R.D.O.S. will be hand-picked by our editorial staff, and all of their pieces will be edited before publishing. This means you won’t be hearing from anyone that doesn’t have something worth saying, and they still have to follow our basic guidelines, but we’ll provide a bit more slack for the colorful extraneous details.
The rules for this for our writers will be simple:
- First Hand Accounts Only
- No Brand Promotion or Defamation
- No Slander, We Only Take Shots At The Gov’t
Basically, what we’re building will be a collection of fun, important, and/or entertaining stories that don’t tear anyone down—besides of course our ruling class, that merely amuse or make you think.
We’ve got some real fun stuff in store for you from some of our favorite voices from across the world, and internet, and we’ll be dropping one a week right here to start. You’ll always see our W.E.I.R.D.O.S. tag in the headline so you’ll know what you’re in for, even though you’ll never really know just what you’re in for. Keep an eye out for the inaugural W.E.I.R.D.O.S. feature, that I’ve of course written myself to not seem above the title, dropping this week, and let us know who else you’d like to hear from on our socials!
