High Times Magazine, the prominent but struggling pot publication, is looking to shift away from its stoner reputation and focus on covering the broader culture as marijuana shifts to the mainstream, says CEO Stormy Simon, who just took the helm last week.
Simon takes over as the 45-year-old company looks to monetize its business, expand its digital footprint, create an online e-commerce marketplace, and make a mark in retail stores as it pivots toward a “physical and virtual” cannabis distribution business, the company said in an SEC filing.
“Cannabis, by nature, has been a subculture,” she said. “So High Times was a part of that, almost carrying that load alone, as far as spreading the word, and now it is a culture of society. Everyone is curious about cannabis, they’re trying it out.”
High Times’ iconic role in cannabis culture and history hasn’t saved it from problems plaguing the media industry. In December, Hightimes Holdings, the magazine’s parent company, disclosed in an SEC filing it may have to shut down operations due to “recurring operating losses, net operating cash flow deficits, and an accumulated deficit.” In the preceding months, a spate of negative headlines foreshadowed the news. The company lost a 3-month-old chief financial officer amid a challenging initial public offering and laid off a majority of employees at subsidiary Dope Magazine.
Such was the state of the company when Simon, formerly of e-commerce retailer Overstock, took the helm.
On Tuesday, she seemed undeterred: “We’re the oldest startup I’ve ever seen. Any startup has concerns.”
Though she said the company is “always concerned” with potential obstacles as federal legalization remains out of reach, “we’re a part of the industry, a big part of it, with a big brand and so we plan to push that even harder,” she said.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
