UCA
Underground Cannabis Archives
Thomas King Forcade
Thomas King Forcade also known as Gary Kenneth Goodson was an American underground journalist​ and a cannabis rights activist in the 1960s and the 1970s. He was the founder of Orpheus magazine, High Times magazine and for many years Tom ran the Underground Press Syndicate later called the Alternative Press Syndicate. He also found a revenue stream to help keep the underground newspaper afloat. Tom grew up in Phoenix Arizona. He tested as a genius when he was seven. His father died in a car accident when he was just 11 years old.
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Tom blazed through college in two and a half
years, earning a degree in business administration
from the University of Utah. He faked a suicide
attempt in order to get out of the Air Force Reserves. Using the skills he acquired in the Air Force Tom would fly across the border and smuggle marijuana from Mexico and Colombia. Tom started a hippie commune in the Arizona desert, and he created an alternative magazine called Orpheus in 1967 which he ran from a 1946 chevy school bus. Orpheus was an anti-establishment, pro-pot and sociologically savvy magazine. Tom was running the Phoenix office of The Underground Press Syndicate in 1969 when it was infiltrated by an undercover narcotic agent and raided by the local police looking for drugs.
After that Tom shut down Orpheus magazine and headed east, ending up in New York city where he ran the New York city office of The Underground Press Syndicate. Tom was living in a loft on 11th street in Greenwich Village with a small group of people, during that time Tom and his partner Tim Hughes were smuggling thousands of tons of marijuana and hashish into the United States. Tom frequently talked to Tim about creating a magazine for the counterculture and hippie movement, together they founded High Times magazine and started moving forward with Tom's idea.​​
The first issue of High Times magazine came out in the summer of 1974, but distributing a magazine about marijuana and getting high was a problem. All of the first issue were distributed through their dope dealers. Tom created High Times magazine because he believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press he didn't do it for the money. High Times magazine became a huge success, with a circulation of more than 500,000 copies and revenues approaching 10 million dollars by 1977. Even with all his success Tom suffered terribly with depression.
Thomas King Forcade committed suicide on November 17, 1978, at his Greenwich Village apartment. That day the cannabis community lost one of the greatest pioneers of our time. Lost but not forgotten. Tom was inducted into the counterculture hall of fame in 2009. Tom believed cannabis could bring peace and harmony to anyone willing to give it a chance. I just wish Tom could have seen how far we have come. Millions of people use legal cannabis every day and I truly believe the world is a much better place.
Peace Tom
