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From Reviewing Cannabis to Writing a Marijuana Novel

INTRODUCING HIGHS IN THE SEVENTIES – A NOVEL
What begins as a search for a good night’s sleep becomes an unexpected journey of self-discovery, marijuana, and rock ‘n’ roll music in 1970s California…

If you’ve watched my videos on Red Bench Reviews, you already know I’m passionate about cannabis—its effects, its culture, and the role it plays in people’s lives.

Over the years, reviewing cannabis products has given me a unique perspective on how much attitudes toward marijuana have changed. Today, legal cannabis dispensaries, premium flower, concentrates, and thousands of product choices are part of everyday life for millions of people. But it wasn’t always that way.

That fascination with cannabis history was one of the reasons that inspired me to write Highs In The Seventies.

Set in Southern California during the mid-1970s, the novel follows Ray Hayward, a successful Safeway manager, devoted husband, and lifelong conservative. Due to a health scare, at fifty-five years old, Ray is having anxieties that are keeping him up at night and giving him insomnia — so a friend suggests he try marijuana to help with the situation.

What begins as a desire for a good night’s sleep turns into a journey of self-discovery as Ray explores cannabis, discovers the music of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and more. During this awakening Ray finds his ideas about drugs, relationships, and politics challenged in the midst of the changing 70s social landscape.

Unlike many cannabis stories, Highs In The Seventies isn’t about outlaws, smugglers, or counterculture rebels. It’s about ordinary people. It’s about the generation that quietly discovered marijuana later in life and found their perspectives changing in unexpected ways.

For cannabis enthusiasts, the novel offers a glimpse into a time when cannabis was still illegal, mysterious, and often misunderstood. For readers who lived through the era, it may bring back memories. For younger readers, it provides a window into the world that helped shape modern cannabis culture.

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like before dispensaries, before legalization, before online reviews and strain menus, Highs In The Seventies is a journey back to the beginning.

I hope you’ll join Ray on the ride.

— Jon Christopher