Latest High Times Staffer Charged With Dealing Pot

A senior writer at the pro-pot publication High Times is the latest in a long line of staffers under legal fire. Matthew Woodstock Stang, known as "Magazine Guy" in New York's marijuana-friendly circles, is charged with wholesaling multiple tons of marijuana smuggled from Florida for one of New York's oldest and largest pot rings. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison; his alleged partner, Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Kareem “Biggs” Burke, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 200 pounds of marijuana last week. For nearly four decades, High Times has championed dope smokers' rights, carrying educational articles for growers and sellers and pushing “the word of marijuana … the word of legalization … the word of growing." But staffers have been known to push more than just words. Founder and “drug-culture mastermind" Gary Goodson killed himself six months after his implication in a failed Colombian drug trafficking attempt in 1978, which led to the death of a pilot. Back then, the magazine already had an estimated four million readers a month. It's been described by DEA agents as “the middle man in a dope deal.” In defense, managing editor Natasha Lewin said in 2010, "The message that the magazine is trying to get out to the world is that it's okay to smoke cannabis. It's okay to grow cannabis. It's okay because it shouldn't be illegal in the first place."