Edited by HighTimesfan@live.com
Steven Hager, a writer, journalist, filmmaker, and counterculture and cannabis activist, was born May 25, 1951, in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois.

In 1988, Hager was hired as editor of High Times magazine. He is most famous for removing hard drugs (e.g., cocaine and heroin) from the magazine, and concentrating on advocating personal cultivation of cannabis. Hager also created theCannabis Cup, a cannabis awards ceremony held every Thanksgiving in Amsterdam, and The Freedom Fighters, the first hemp legalization group. The High Times Freedom Fighters were famous for dressing up in Colonial outfits and organizing hemp rallies across America. One rally, The Boston Freedom Rally, quickly became the largest political event in the country, drawing an audience of over 100,000 to the Boston Common. Hager created a garage-rock revival band called the Soul Assassins. The band played many of the rallies.

In the 1990s, Hager turned the membership list of the Freedom Fighters over to NORML, and began concentrating on creating events that advocated the environmental benefits of hemp while also demonstrating the spiritual uses of cannabis. The World Hemp Expo Extravaganja, or Whee! Festivals, were held in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, New York, and Ohio. Unfortunately, most of the promoters who held Whee! festivals found themselves subject to intense law enforcement efforts to shut down their venues. The primary focus of Whee! was a silent, Sunday, sunset meditation for peace in the drug war.

In 1993, Hager learned to shoot and edit video. He started documenting all research on videotape. Over the past 15 years he has produced several feature documentaries and assembled one of the world's largest archives of cannabis-related video. Documentaries Hager has produced include: "Let Freedom Ring," "Secrets of the Dutch Grow Masters," "The Cannabis Cup," "Saint Stephen," and "The 20th Cannabis Cup." In 2002 he directed the video shoot that was later released as Live in Amsterdam (Fishbone album). In 2004, he wrote most of the narration for a/k/a Tommy Chong and also appears in the film.

In 1997, Hager created the Counterculture Hall of Fame as part of the ceremonies at the Cannabis Cup. The first inductee wasBob Marley. In 2009, Thomas King Forcade, founder of High Times will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Hager's most recent book, The Octopus Conspiracy and Other Vignettes of the Counterculture: From Hippies to High Times to Hip-Hop and Beyond, was published by Trine Day. The book is a collection of magazine articles and previous books by Hager, and the chapter "Nomenclature of an Octopus Cabal" theorizes that a network of secret societies manufactures war for profit and social control. In 2007, he produced a reality television show based around his job at High Times magazine.


Hager also regularly appears on college campuses, sometimes solo, but usually as part of a debate on the legalization of cannabis, alongside former New York City D.E.A. chief Robert Stutman. The event, known as "Heads versus Feds," began in 2001 and has visited more than 200 colleges in eight years, regularly drawing standing-room crowds. The debate is booked by Wolfman Productions in Connecticut.