Ed Rosenthal spent close to two hours on episode 200 of the Good PizzZa podcast, which premiered Sept. 14, walking host JP through a run of cannabis history he happens to have lived through: the first grow books, the Yippies, his federal arrest, and where he thinks the plant is headed next.
From the Bronx to the first grow book
Rosenthal grew up near University and Reservoir avenues in the Bronx and said cannabis did not really land for him until he was 21. He described that first high as the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, then reached for an analogy about the ancient world never having tasted chocolate. “Imagine a life without cannabis,” he said.
He was building early grow tents and looking for free publicity for them when Rolling Stone’s New York edition put him in a room with a writer pitching a story on growing. The two decided to write a book instead. That became his first grow guide, which he dated to 1973 or 1974, and he moved to California shortly before it was Updated.
On High Times, Rosenthal said he had some involvement in the early days but that his real work with the magazine started after the drug war ramped up, when the title was floundering and he was brought in to help bring it back. The Ask Ed column began in August 1983. He is writing for High Times again in 2026, most recently on his own prostate cancer diagnosis and the biopsy that followed, and twice on the case for undoing cannabis prohibition in India, here and here.
The trial, and the jurors who came back
The longest stretch of the episode covers his federal case. Rosenthal said the city of Oakland deputized him to grow cannabis for medical users under a set of rules, and that federal agents arrested him in February 2002 anyway. The jury, he said, was never allowed to hear that the city had authorized the grow.
He was convicted. Then, at the next court appearance, nine of the jurors showed up as civilians and held a press conference. By his account, they said they had been duped and slimed, that they felt dirty, and that they were sorry. He told the podcast the judge went pale and dropped into his chair.
Rosenthal said he got one day of time served, and that he was the last person to speak at the hearing. “This judge did me no favors. He made me into a felon. No one should go to prison for marijuana,” he recalled telling the room.
The person he credits with the most influence over the case is his daughter, 11 at the time. Asked what she thought of her father, she said, by his telling: “My dad helped sick people. My dad’s a hero.”
India, and genetics worth saving
Rosenthal first photographed legal cannabis fields in India in 1979 and 1980, before the country’s obligations under the 1961 Single Convention closed them down. He and his wife Jane have gone back twice recently and are returning in September, this time for longer, pushing to preserve landrace genetics and to make the case for legalization.
He pointed to Arunachal Pradesh, the strip of India closest to where cannabis is believed to have originated, as the place to look for genetic variation, and cited Morocco and Jamaica as cautionary tales. He is not arguing that anyone should grow landraces instead of modern cultivars. He wants the material banked before it gets crossed out of existence. “It’s too valuable to compromise,” he said. He has made the legalization half of that argument in these pages, writing that India was pushed into prohibition by treaty and should undo it.
Skunk #1, lounges and what contests measure
Asked which cultivar changed the game, Rosenthal did not hesitate: Skunk #1. He also said the name oversold it. “It really wasn’t skunky at all. It was sweet,” he said, adding that the late David Watson called it skunk because skunk was what everyone wanted. What sold it was reliability and yield.
The genuinely skunky cultivars, the ones that could stink up a room through a closed bag, vanished, he said, because consumers wanted something that would not get them caught.
Looking forward, he said that if he were starting a brand today, he would breed for consumption lounges rather than for the general public. That means plants that keep people awake and talking, with less THC than the market is chasing. “It’s not going to be so heavy on THC that it makes people nervous,” he said, describing a cultivar built with other cannabinoids and terpenes meant to make people more outgoing.
He also thinks cannabis contests weigh the wrong things. Looks should not count, he argued; flavor and aroma should count for a little, and the rest should come down to the high. He put it at 90% of what matters. Judging 20 varieties in a day cannot get you there, he said, and suggested handing judges a pre-roll and giving them a day each.
The closing advice
Twice at the end of the episode, asked what he had learned and what he would tell his younger self, Rosenthal gave the same four words: get a firm contract.
He left the audience with one more warning, delivered deadpan. Cannabis may not be addictive, he said, but cultivation is. “Once you start growing it, you will be addicted to growing it. Even if you stop using it.”
