High Times is a New York-based magazine. The publication strongly advocates the legalization of cannabis. For a brief period, it moved toward a left-leaning lifestyle magazine under publisher Richard Stratton, who hired John Mailer, Norman Mailer's youngest son, as executive editor.

It has since returned to its earlier roots in the cannabis subculture. The current senior editors of the magazine are David Bienenstock, Bobby Black, Chris Simunek and Dan Skye. The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade of the Underground Press Syndicate.

High Times was originally modeled on Playboy magazine, except that rather than catering to consumers of recreational sex, it caters to consumers of recreational drugs. Each issue has a centerfold photo, not of a nude woman, but typically of a choice grade of cannabis plant. (Although for a brief period during the late 1970s and early '80s, they featured centerfolds dedicated to cocaine.) In 1988, Steven Hager was hired as editor-in-chief.

He removed hard drugs from the magazine and began a campaign to encourage personal use and cultivation of cannabis. Hager also founded the Cannabis Cup (the Academy Awards of Marijuana) and the High Times Freedom Fighters (one of the original hemp legalization groups). The Freedom Fighters began when Hager received an invitation to attend the annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor, MI, in 1987.

Once one of the country's largest annual legalization events, the Hash Bash, like all other counterculture rallies, was about to die out. Inspired by the art of the Merry Pranksters and Provo, and the historical information of Jack Herer's yet unpublished research, Hager created a band of activists that traveled the country in a psychedelic bus, creating major legalization events across the country, including the Boston Freedom Rally, which quickly became the largest political event in the country, drawing crowds of over 100,000 to Boston Common. In 1990, the magazine released a documentary, "Let Freedom Ring," detailing the activities of the group.

The film starred Willie Nelson and was directed by Bob Brandel.

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