Weed has gone mainstream. Cue the comeback for the stoner magazine High Times.
In a multimillion-dollar passion project, the founder of a rolling-paper company will revive the publication that was a voice of counterculture for decades. High Times celebrates cannabis culture with news, essays advocating for legalization and celebrity interviews.
U.S. cannabis sales are on track to reach just under $33 billion this year, according to cannabis data firm BDSA, and the substance is legal for recreational use in more than 20 states.
Josh Kesselman, who owns RAW rolling papers, paid $3.5 million for the High Times intellectual property rights. He is resurrecting the print magazine with special-edition releases and relaunching the flagship Cannabis Cup pot competition, trying to bring back the brand’s rebellious spirit in a joint effort with former High Times co-owner Matt Stang.
Kesselman is candid about the magazine’s prospects in an era of fractured media attention: He expects the magazine to lose money initially. He just hopes to pick up enough business with die-hard marijuana enthusiasts to eventually break even, he said.
He has already pumped an additional $1.85 million into jump-starting the magazine, covering costs including trademark fees and digitizing old content.
“I know typically in business people have this whole plan,” Kesselman said. “But the funny part, Matt and I always tell people, is we have no plan. The most important thing to us was to actually save High Times.”
Kesselman said the company’s prior owner lost buy-in from readers by focusing too much on profit. Trans-High Corp., or THC, the magazine’s publisher since its 1974 founding, sold its assets to private-equity firm Oreva Capital in 2017. The new parent company, Hightimes Holding, entered into receivership in April 2024 and the website hasn’t been updated in months. Its last print edition came out in September.
“The old High Times, the monetization one, had to be completely destroyed down to the ashes. That way of thinking had to go away,” Kesselman said.
In the year before High Times was sold to Oreva, its website drew about five million monthly visitors, Stang said.
The owners are relaunching the High Times website and special-edition print magazines, joining many publications expanding or reviving their print operations, including the Atlantic, the Onion and Tablet. Even as new outlets pop up to cover the growing cannabis industry, Kesselman said he thinks High Times can draw a strong audience. Stang, who co-owned the publication for seven years, until its 2017 private-equity purchase, is trying to coax some former colleagues back.
