Drugs & the Counterculture

The fun and fascinating story of harvesting, cultivation and smuggling of marijuana in America.

Reefer Madness is a 1936 American propaganda film revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana—from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, hallucinations, and descent into madness due to marijuana addiction. The film was directed by Louis Gasnier and featured a cast of ...Read More

Hunter S. Thompson meets Barry McKenzie in this dark nonfiction comedy about a real-life, legendary but down-and-out tabloid television journalist who heads to Hawaii to film a marijuana travel series, only to become lost in a fog of drugs, sex and paranoia as he uncovers a secret government war to control the marijuana trade. The film touches on the controversial f...Read More

At the height of the Bush administration, Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong was charged with selling bongs over the internet and sentenced to nine months in federal prison. As part of the government's $12 million 'Operation Pipe Dreams' drug paraphernalia sting operation, Chong, a vocal opponent of Bush's handling of the War on Terror, was singled out among 55 defenda...Read More

Join HIGH TIMES for the world's biggest pot party in Amsterdam judging the world's top strains. The 20th Anniversary Cannabis Cup DVD is loaded with over 60 minutes of performances (exclusive Redman performance), interviews and non-stop smoking and judging of the biggest and best buds in the world. The Cannabis Cup is a week long celebration of marijuana in all form...Read More

Of all the filmmakers who toiled in the world of exploitation, no one made films as consistently rude, offensive, and jaw-droppingly outrageous as roadshow pioneer DWAIN ESPER, the man who made Maniac (1934) and Marijuana (1936). Written by Mrs. Esper, HILDEGARDE STADIE (who allegedly based the main character on an opium-smoking uncle), and filled with enough plot f...Read More

Since 1983, acclaimed international cannabis cultivation writer Jorge Cervantes has sold over 500,000 copies of his book Indoor Marijuana Horticulture, while contributing common sense advice about marijuana growing to dozens of publications including a monthly Q+A column in HIGH TIMES. Now, for the first time, the worlds ultimate ganja guide brings his expertise to...Read More

Newspaper headlines denounce a rash epidemic of barbiturate overdoses. Even more shocking is that the abusers are juveniles out for cheap kicks. Responding to the rising public outrage, a prominent female judge sends young detective Sergeant Dave Kerrigan to uncover the source of the dangerous contraband. His dogged search leads to a crooked weight-loss "gym" whe...Read More

“The Film That’s Scorchin’ The Nation’s Screens!” The She who Shoulda Said ‘No’! is honeypot LILA LEEDS (Lady in the Lake, Moonrise) who was busted for doing doobies with rugged Robert Mitchum just months before this updated upgrade of Reefer Madness. Cashing in on the notoriety of “The Screen’s Newest Blonde Bomb,” KROGER BABB, “America’s Fearless Showman,” ...Read More

"Compelling. Furiously combative." - Variety Married couple Jim and Lucy run a commune in the early 90's for sober living out of their suburban New Jersey home. The motley members eat, bathe and work together selling homemade "health tea" out of their van. Although there's constant bickering and plenty of fires to be put out, Jim and Lucy have managed to establish ...Read More

In response to President Nixon's Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, adult filmmaker Alex de Renzy weighs in with Weed his take on "The Great American Grass Problem" in which he interviews customs agents and drug dealers, travels to Vietnam ("Just ask for Number One cigarettes!"), Cambodia (in search of "Cambodian Red"), and Nepal (where shops offer tourists "Be...Read More

A real-life "Breaking Bad" for the psychedelic set, "The Sunshine Makers" reveals the untold story of Nicholas Sand and Tim Scully, the unlikely duo at the heart of the 1960s American drug counterculture. United in a utopian mission to save the planet through the consciousness-raising power of a form of LSD called "Orange Sunshine," "The Sunshine Makers" documents t...Read More

A fine entry in the Stoner Slasher canon from director Dylan Reynolds. Five young women decide to celebrate a birthday by camping in a nearby national park over a weekend. However, their fun ends when they stumble on an illegal marijuana operation hidden and protected by a bloodthirsty maniac. "Whatever else can be said about “4/20 Massacre,” at least it lives up to...Read More

NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS EXCLUSIVE. Cocaine Cowboys, released in 1979, was directed by German director Ulli Lommel (Blank Generation) and was one of the early films distributed theatrically by Night Flight creator Stuart Shapiro’s International Harmony. Filmed on Andy Warhol's Montauk Estate (and featuring Warhol himself), Cocaine Cowboys stars Tom Sullivan and Jack Palanc...Read More

During the golden age of the roadshow, no exploiteer returned to the drug theme more often that DWAIN ESPER. After the infamous short Sinister Menace and the feature-length Narcotic (both 1933), Esper and his screenwriter wife, HILDAGARDE STADIE, unleashed Marihuana, the first of the famous trilogy of anti-pot films of the 1930's which included Reefer and Assassin o...Read More

Before he relocated to Spain and made the gender-bender shocker I Hate My Body and a handful of Paul Naschy movies (including Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman), director LEON KLIMOVSKY shot this warped anti-pot thriller in his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Like earlier "warning" films which purported to tell the truth about marijuana abuse, Klimovsky's is naive...Read More

Not a lot is known about this exploitation clip-collage which examines the classic marijuana scare-films of the 1920s through the 1940s. However, the year of release, tone of the narration, and the complete lack of credits indicate that The Devil's Joint may well have been some kind of underground film. After all, it was released around the time when vintage drug fi...Read More

With World War II raging in Europe, roadshow shockers all but faded from the exploitation scene… with Devil’s Harvest one of the few exceptions, and doing its patriotic duty by warning Americans everywhere to stay vigilant against the Menace of Marijuana, specifically the peddling of marijuana to high-school kids. “Here, before us, in peace and tranquility, stands o...Read More

High Times presents Watermelon's Baked & Baking. Famous for her pot-focused family recipes, High Times "cover girl" Watermelon walks us through how to prepare and bake some very special treats in this one-of-a-kind cooking show, produced by Night Flight creator Stuart S. Shapiro in 2003.

Catnip is all the rage with today’s modern feline, but do we really understand it? Is it a source for harmless kicks, or a potentially crippling addiction? Is it a tool to expand one’s consciousness, or a downward spiraling path that can eventually lead to insanity? Once and for all the facts about this controversial substance are frankly discussed, in the long-lost...Read More