After publishing for 43 years from its headquarters in Greenwich Village, one esteemed publication is following the cultural trends and leaving New York for Los Angeles. Not Vanity Fair or Bon Appétit (though we could certainly see either being happily based in our fair city), but High Times.
High Times has been, well, riding pretty high lately. According to their own numbers, subscription rates are shooting up as American attitudes and laws about marijuana have changed in recent years. The magazine has even increased its physical size from 112 pages to 160 per issue because commercial cannabis industry advertisers suddenly find themselves competing for customers in the new, semi-legal marketplaces of several states. With California’s recent legalization referendum, they are looking at what they expect will be even more growth.
“The center of the cannabis universe has moved to California,” the chief revenue officer of High Times, Matt Stang, told Crain’s New York Business.
Another factor in moving to L.A. is the brand’s expansion into other entertainment projects beyond the magazine. High Times just inked a deal with United Talent Agency to develop film and television spin-offs to reach even larger audiences.
High Times was founded in the summer of 1974 by Thomas King Forcade, a colorful activist, journalist, commune-founder and occasional international drug-smuggler who hit a cultural nerve with the launch of what he envisioned as a “Playboy for the counterculture,” featuring new work by the likes of Charles Bukowski and Andy Warhol. By 1977, the magazine was selling as many copies as Rolling Stone, and has managed to maintain an audience through decades of change in both the publishing and cannabis worlds.
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