Cannabis culture publication High Times is poised to make its Hollywood debut next month as the 42-year- old company heads west to set up offices in Los Angeles.
Its “marijuana 2.0 creative hub” is scheduled to open Oct. 1 at the Desmond Building on Wilshire Boulevard on the Miracle Mile. A staff of eight to 10 will join Green St., a marketing agency catering to marijuana businesses, and other bud-related firms. The move comes on the heels of the announcement last month that the publisher had signed a representation deal with United Talent Agency for representation in all media.
David Bienenstock, head of content at High Times, will be leading the L.A. outpost and said he expected the proximity to the entertainment community would breed collaboration and create a bastion of “creative marijuana business.”
The new office is reflective of the moment in California as the state inches toward legalization, he said. Voters will decide in November whether to legalize and tax the recreational use of marijuana under Proposition 64, which in recent polling was favored by nearly two-thirds of respondents.
“California has always been the center of the culture for cannabis, but as California makes this historic change, we see it growing to be the center of the industry,” Bienenstock said.
That industry, which is already profitable, is expected to become a behemoth as more states, including possibly California, vote to legalize the drug for recreational use. While the medical cannabis market in the state is valued at more than $1 billion annually, the national recreational market could grow to more than $40 billion, said Matt Stang, the 36-year-old chief revenue officer and director of advertising and sponsorships at High Times, with other estimates reaching $100 billion due to a variety of factors.
But while experts quibble about the size of the market, many agree that California will be where the industry is most potent due mainly to the tens of millions of potential customers in the state.
“Southern California is going to be the largest legal cannabis market in the world in about two months,” said Stang.
It would be a welcome change for many, including Stang, who in 2010 was arrested in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep the government said broke up a ring that had dominated the marijuana market in New York for 20 years. He subsequently accepted a plea bargain, paid a fine, and received probation but served no prison time.
Expand brand
High Times had three major agencies pursuing it, Stang wrote in an email, but UTA had the best grasp of cannabis culture and shared High Times’ vision for building a digital media and licensing powerhouse.
The account is now being handled by a team of 20 people, led by Sid Kaufman and David Wienir, and although Stang won’t share many details about upcoming projects, he wrote that there are multiple TV, movie, and digital media projects in the works.
High Times claims its deal with UTA marks the first time a cannabis business has been signed by a leading agency. The agency pact covers media, content, licensing, and consumer products deals, according to a statement released by the publisher.
“We signed with UTA because we really feel the time is right now, to take the work that High Times has always done … and bring that conversation to a wider audience,” Bienenstock said.
While High Times has been up front about efforts to establish deeper roots in Hollywood and other industries, UTA declined to comment on the relationship.
Although the perception of pot as a gateway drug has changed since the days of “Reefer Madness,” the talent agency’s reticence to comment is likely due to the lingering controversial nature of marijuana legalization, said Mary Murphy, a senior lecturer specializing in entertainment at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Regardless of the political implications, it was a smart business decision to sign High Times now, she added, as there’s a tremendous amount of money to be made if Proposition 64 passes in November.
“I think UTA signing on means that whatever research they’ve done indicates that it will (pass),” said Murphy.
A survey published in August from Probolsky Research found that nearly 62 percent of likely California voters would vote to approve Proposition 64. High Times’ Stang said that as young people turn out to vote against Donald Trump, they’ll vote in favor of legalization.
“I don’t see any real possibility that it won’t pass,” said Stang.
Going mainstream
UTA is one of the most powerful agencies in Hollywood, said Murphy, and could tap its long list of A-list celebrities to become the new faces of pot commercials, in addition to other sponsorship and product placement opportunities.
But the possibilities don’t end there.
“This is not just about advertising, this is about programming,” said Murphy. “We’re talking about an entire creative market opening up around marijuana.”
Networks and streaming services have already begun to beef up their marijuana-related media offerings, with new shows slated to premiere in the coming months. In July, Netflix picked up Chuck Lorre comedy “Disjointed,” which stars Kathy Bates as a legalization advocate who also owns an L.A.-area pot dispensary. HBO will premiere “High Maintenance” on Sept. 16, a comedy about the marijuana-smoking habits of a group of New Yorkers. And in December, Amazon Prime announced development of “Highland,” a dramedy starring Margaret Cho in which, after rehab, a woman moves in with her dispensary-owning family.
Commercial entertainment isn’t the only industry influenced by possible legalization; marijuana coverage in the media has begun to go mainstream as well. In December 2013, just a few days prior to legalization in Colorado, the Denver Post launched The Cannabist, a website devoted to covering all things weed – from politics to culture. The site even includes “strain reviews,” editorial critiques of different types of pot. Initially, the site took more of a pop-culture approach to marijuana by featuring pot recipes and themed events, but it soon expanded to include investigative coverage of the industry, such as a piece on dispensaries being clustered in low-income neighborhoods, said Joel Warner, a Denver-based reporter who’s covered the marijuana industry for more than seven years.
The pivot was necessary, said Warner, as the edginess of pot has faded away and forced outlets to offer more complex and in-depth reporting.
“You can only read so many dispatches from a marijuana wedding expo before readers are going to taper off,” he said.
As for High Times, Warner said, “That counterculture is becoming the general culture now.”
