High Times editor Ellen Holland optimizes a strange experiment

Fresh from a Barcelona plant celebration, the Oaktown journo popped over for a chat. Then I stepped outside.

The idea was to make our conversation feel less mediated, but without breaking the West Coast Sojourn podcast format. So, I poured Ellen a cup of coffee and then stepped outside with my phone, so that we might communicate without echo.

In the Q&A sesh below, this week’s guest is a few feet from me, on the far side of a wall. Drop me a message if what I’m doing here annoys you.

Now, if the stretched-out ol’ memory is holding up, Ellen Holland and I first hung out in the end of July, 2022 at the inaugural California State Fair Cannabis exhibition. We both stood masked before a grinning civilian public, most just dipping their toes into the largely-suppressed history of the plant. Being masked didn’t stop us from hitting it off.

Not sure whether I sold or signed any copies of my stoner memoir, but people were super into Ellen’s book Weed. The 256-page coffee table book was made for the room. Begun in the midst of 2020’s shutdowns and the harvest season fires, the book had necessarily come together quickly. Nevertheless, the work came out visually appealing and full of serious Mary Jane info that the public craves.

Craig Hackey

Because weed all but sells itself—and Holland’s longtime association with plant-growing legend Ed Rosenthal gives her monster cred—Weed sold 21,000 copies. Publisher The Quarto Group has brought the Holland text back in a stylish, youthful form as Weed: Smoke It, Eat It, Grow It, Love It.

In our sesh we talk a bit about the Holland print debut, but not nearly as much as her Central Coast professional origin story, her editorship of High Times—physical mag, not digital—in the brand’s 50th anniversary year, and Spannabis, the seed-focused Barcelona gathering where international weed heavies exchange opinions and information and network. Ellen had just returned from Europe on Friday, and in 2024 worldwide cannabis is just too critical a subject to shortchange.

Also, High Times is making the move to sell weed, too. We didn’t talk about that enough.

Regardless, check the session out. Feels like we’re in the same room. I’m proud.