UCA
Underground Cannabis Archives
History
Thomas King Forcade was a seasoned marijuana smuggler, journalist and civil rights activist in the 1960s and 1970s. Timothy Lloyd Hughes was a rebel in his own right, growing up in the shadow of the Vietnam war Tim embraced and was part of the counterculture and hippie movement. Together they founded High Times magazine. Tom met Tim in the early 1970s and they quickly became friends. While living in New York they smuggled thousands of tons of marijuana and hashish into the United States, becoming the fourth largest marijuana and hashish importer in New York city.
Tom frequently talked to Tim about creating a magazine for the counterculture. As they started moving forward with Tom's idea, they developed a four-page promotional flyer. It was said this flyer was supposed to raise interest and investors for the magazine. This is not true; the magazine was solely being funded by their illegal marijuana smuggling business. The flyer was created as a decoy to justify the huge amount of money they were putting into their new magazine. Tom and Tim also created Trans-High corporation (THC) to publish their new magazine. In the summer of 1974, High Times magazine became a reality. Tom is responsible for writing every article with a little help from Ed Dwyer. Tim wrote all of the letters to the editor. They even clipped advertising ads from Rolling Stone, Playboy and various Underground newspapers for the first issue of their new magazine.
The first shipment of High Times magazine arrived at the Underground Press Syndicate office in Greenwich Village, New York but they couldn't get anyone to distribute it. All of the distribution companies were run by organized crime and they didn't want anything to do with a magazine about marijuana. The solution was to use their dope dealers to distribute their new magazine. Distributing the magazine remained a problem for a while. As High Times magazine grew, Tom focused more on the magazine and Tim focused more on the marijuana smuggling, which helped keep High Times afloat for the first five years. High Times magazine became a huge success. With a circulation of more than 500,000 copies and revenues approaching 10 million dollars by 1977.
High Times magazine would lay the foundation for all other counterculture companies to build on. Trans-High corporation helped other subsidiaries of High Times like Dealer magazine and National Weed magazine get published. High Times also started the first cannabis cup in Amsterdam in 1988. Trans-High corporation sold High Times magazine in 2017 to Oreva capital in a deal valued around 70 million dollars. The magazine sold again in 2020 to an industry investor group. High Times opened its first cannabis dispensary on April 1, 2021, in Oakland California named the High Times market and in September 2022 High Times was the first counterculture magazine to go completely digital.
After taking the magazine out of print, High Times went into a downward spiral. Josh Kesselman and his partner Matt Stang purchased High Times in 2025 for 3.5 million dollars. In September 2025 they started printing the magazine again. Starting with the 50-year anniversary issue. They also completely revised the High Times digital archives. High Times magazine has been around for more than 50 years from the original founders Tom Forcade and Tim Hughes to the newest owners Josh Kesselman and Matt Stang. Their versatility and willingness to try new things has made High Times one of the greatest counterculture companies of our time.
