High Times at 50: How Cannabis Art and Activism Built a Culture Before Legalization

A 144-hour mural reminds us that the plant's lineage runs deeper than retail compliance.

By Cannible Editorial

2026-08-08

High Times just turned 50, and the milestone landed with the weight of a genuine cultural artifact: a 144-hour colored-pencil mural by artist Liam Wesley Goodman, portraying 36 figures who shaped how we see cannabis. The piece ran in the magazine's anniversary print issue, and it's worth sitting with—not because the art is technically stunning (though it is), but because the anniversary itself is a reckoning. Cannabis has a lineage that predates legalization, compliance software, and point-of-sale systems by decades. This mural is where that lineage becomes visible again.

The 50-Year Throughline: From Underground to Mainstream

High Times launched in 1974, when cannabis was still federally illegal and culturally radioactive. The magazine didn't invent cannabis counterculture—it documented it, gave it a platform, and legitimized the idea that the plant had a story worth telling. For five decades, it has been the primary print chronicle of that story: the activists fighting drug-war policy, the growers and breeders developing strains, the artists and musicians who made cannabis part of their creative language, and the journalists who refused to let the plant be a footnote.

The 50th-anniversary mural is a visual genealogy. Thirty-six faces—activists, artists, musicians, and cultural figures—rendered in colored pencil over 144 hours. That's six full days of unbroken drawing, the kind of commitment that signals reverence. Goodman's choice to use colored pencil, a medium that requires deliberate layering and precision, mirrors the patient work of building a culture: you don't rush it, and every stroke compounds.

Why This Matters Now: The Professionalization Trap

Here's the tension: as cannabis has moved into legal markets, the industry has professionalized at warp speed. Dispensaries now run inventory management software. Growers track compliance with apps. Marketers A/B-test landing pages. The plant has become a category—one with margin analysis and quarterly targets. That's not bad; legalization has brought safety testing, worker protections, and tax revenue. But it has also risked erasing the why: the decades of activism, the medical research suppressed by the DEA, the artists and musicians who kept the culture alive when it was dangerous to do so.

A 50-year-old magazine marking its anniversary with a mural of culture figures is a deliberate act of remembering. It says: this industry didn't spring from venture capital. It grew from people—activists who fought the drug war, growers who refined the plant, artists who made it part of the cultural conversation. The professionalization of cannabis is necessary and, in many ways, good. But without that lineage visible, the plant risks becoming just another commodity.

The Art as Archival Practice

Liam Wesley Goodman's work is archival in the best sense. A mural is not a disposable image—it's a public statement, rendered in a medium that demands time and skill. Colored pencil, in particular, is a choice: it's slow, it's precise, and it's intimate in a way that digital art or spray paint isn't. You're watching someone's hand move across paper for 144 hours, building up layers of pigment. That's not efficiency; that's witness.

The 36 figures Goodman drew are the keepers of that lineage. They're the people who said "cannabis has a story" when most of the world said it didn't. They're the researchers who studied the plant despite federal prohibition, the activists who challenged drug-war policy, the artists who integrated it into their work. By rendering them in colored pencil, Goodman is saying: these people matter. Their work was real. Their contribution was labor, not luck.

Cannabis Culture Before Legalization: The Underground That Built the Industry

The cannabis industry that exists today—with licensed dispensaries, regulated growers, and compliance frameworks—was built on the foundation of an underground culture that thrived for decades before legalization. That culture had its own media ecosystem. High Times was the flagship, but there were others: magazines, zines, underground newspapers, and eventually blogs and podcasts that covered cannabis with the seriousness and nuance that mainstream media refused to grant it.

That media ecosystem did three things: it documented the plant's effects and uses, it amplified activist voices fighting drug-war policy, and it created a sense of community among people who were otherwise isolated by criminalization. You couldn't talk about cannabis openly in most workplaces or social settings in the 1980s and 1990s. But if you subscribed to High Times or read cannabis-focused publications, you were part of a conversation—a lineage of people who believed the drug war was wrong and that cannabis deserved a fair hearing.

The 36 figures in Goodman's mural are the faces of that conversation. They're the people who kept it alive when it was genuinely risky to do so.

The Activist Core: Policy Change as Art Form

Cannabis legalization didn't happen by accident. It happened because activists—many of them documented in cannabis media over decades—fought for it. They challenged the Schedule I classification, they organized ballot initiatives, they testified before legislatures, and they wrote and spoke and organized when it was politically toxic to do so. Some of them are household names now (like advocates who pushed for medical cannabis access in California in the 1990s). Others remain known primarily within cannabis circles.

What unites them is a belief that the drug war was unjust and that cannabis deserved legal and cultural recognition. That belief, sustained across decades, is what changed policy. It's also what's at risk of being forgotten as the industry becomes mainstream. When cannabis is just a retail category, it's easy to forget that people fought for the right to grow, sell, and use it openly.

The Cultural Figures: Musicians, Artists, and Creative Voices

Cannabis has always had a deep relationship with music and visual art. From reggae to hip-hop, from visual artists to filmmakers, cannabis has been part of the creative conversation for generations. High Times documented that conversation—not as a scandal or a cautionary tale, but as a legitimate part of cultural expression.

The 36 figures in Goodman's mural likely include musicians, visual artists, and other creative voices who integrated cannabis into their work. That integration wasn't incidental; it was central to how they made meaning. And by rendering those figures in a mural, Goodman is saying: this is art. This is culture. This is worth 144 hours of deliberate, precise work to commemorate.

The Lineage as Resistance

There's a political dimension to a 50-year-old cannabis magazine commissioning a mural of culture figures. It's a statement that cannabis has a lineage—a history that predates legalization and will outlast any particular regulatory regime. It's a way of saying: we were here before this was legal, and we'll be here after, because this is who we are.

That's not nostalgia; it's resistance. It's a refusal to let cannabis become a purely commercial category, divorced from the activism and artistry that built it. It's a way of keeping the why visible: why people fought for legalization, why they cultivated the plant, why they made it part of their creative and political lives.

The Mural as Public Artifact

A 144-hour mural is not a private gesture. It's a public statement, rendered in a medium that demands time and skill and presence. It's a way of saying: this matters enough to spend six days drawing it. This lineage matters enough to make it visible. This culture matters enough to honor it with the best work we can do.

For a magazine that has spent 50 years documenting cannabis culture, that's fitting. High Times didn't just report on cannabis; it advocated for it. It treated the plant and the people who used, grew, and studied it with respect and seriousness. The 50th-anniversary mural is a continuation of that work—a way of honoring the lineage and keeping it visible.

Key Takeaways

• High Times' 50th anniversary is a cultural reckoning, marking five decades of documenting cannabis activism, art, and community.
• The 144-hour mural by Liam Wesley Goodman honors 36 culture figures—activists, artists, and musicians who shaped how we see cannabis.
• Cannabis has a deep lineage that predates legalization, rooted in underground media, activism, and creative work that spanned decades.
• As the industry professionalizes, the mural is a deliberate act of remembering—keeping the why visible alongside the compliance software and retail operations.
• Art and activism are not separate from cannabis history; they're foundational to how the plant became legal and culturally accepted.

The Cannible Newsroom's Take

Here's what strikes us about this anniversary: legalization has been good in concrete ways—safer products, regulated growers, tax revenue for public services. But it's also created a risk of amnesia. The cannabis industry today can feel like it emerged fully formed from venture capital and regulatory approval. It didn't. It grew from people—activists who fought the drug war, growers who refined the plant, artists who made it part of the cultural conversation. A 50-year-old magazine commissioning a 144-hour mural is a way of saying: we remember. We honor that lineage. We refuse to let cannabis become just another commodity.

That's not nostalgia. It's resistance. And in a world where cannabis is rapidly becoming corporate and mainstream, that resistance matters. This article will be updated as cannabis culture and policy continue to evolve.

Authoritative Sources for Further Reading

• High Times 50th Anniversary Print Issue — the original source documenting the mural and anniversary
• DEA Drug Scheduling Information — federal context on cannabis prohibition and policy
• NORML: History of Cannabis Prohibition — activist organization documenting the fight for cannabis legalization
• Smithsonian Magazine: Cannabis in American Culture — cultural and historical context on cannabis in art and society

Find Cannabis Culture Through Cannible

Whether you're exploring cannabis strains with a creative lens, looking for dispensaries that celebrate cannabis culture, or curious about how to choose a dispensary that honors that lineage, Cannible connects you to the plant and the community. Browse our strain library to discover cultivars with deep cultural histories, or explore our how-to guides to engage with cannabis thoughtfully and legally.