Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, ‘High Times,’ and the Paranoid End of the 1970s

Proving that truth can be stranger than fiction, this rollicking history from journalist Howe (Marvel Comics) details the exploits of Thomas King Forçade, who ran the Underground Press Syndicate (“a consortium of the largest and most influential independent” counterculture newspapers) in the 1970s and founded High Times magazine in 1974. Forçade’s coverage, Howe notes, often focused on marijuana, exploring how the use of herbicides on Mexican marijuana fields posed health risks to smokers and stirring up outrage over the 1971 arrest of legalization activist Dana Beal. Forçade and his cohort endured FBI surveillance, police raids, and legal troubles, including Forçade’s arrest for protesting Richard Nixon’s 1972 renomination in Miami, which only hardened Forçade’s antiestablishment convictions. Howe offers a nuanced portrait of his subject, finding amusement in Forçade’s zany escapades (he once evaded a police raid at the High Times office by escaping to the roof and jumping to a neighboring building) while pointing out his sometimes muddled logic (“We don’t break any laws or confront the establishment,” Forçade once said while heading the United Press Syndicate, despite having moonlighted as a drug runner). This captures the freewheeling spirit of the counterculture’s troubled march through the 1970s. (Aug.)