For almost 5 a long time, Prime Instances stood because the unapologetic voice of hashish counterculture. Greater than only a mag, it used to be a platform that increased song, politics, psychedelics, activism, and the plant itself. It used to be an emblem of riot, freedom, and neighborhood. Then got here the impressive fall, the sort that made it really feel like Prime Instances may well be long past for just right. Till now.
Lately, Prime Instances returns below new possession, new management, and a renewed objective. RAW Rolling Papers founder Josh Kesselman, a lifelong reader and supporter of the logo, has taken the lead in obtaining the core property of Prime Instances, together with the mag, the Hashish Cup, and its affiliated media houses. Along him is Matt Stang, a former Prime Instances government and co-owner and longtime cultural operator who helped construct the Hashish Cup into an international establishment. Their plan: repair the soul of a logo that formed generations, and set a brand new path rooted within the values that first constructed it.
“I am getting to carry again a work of historical past that has performed such crucial section in tradition and impacted such a lot of lives, together with my very own,” Kesselman stated. “This looks like a dream.”
However the dream comes with actual paintings. And an advanced inheritance.
Prime Instances’ fresh historical past has been anything else however solid. After its 2017 acquisition via an investor workforce led via Adam Levin, the logo shifted its center of attention to competitive enlargement, launching an investor crowdfund, pursuing a public providing, and obtaining retail hashish companies around the U.S.
The pitch used to be seductive: personal a work of the sector’s maximum iconic hashish logo. Over 20,000 traders purchased in. Many by no means were given stocks. Few were given solutions. And when Prime Instances overlooked SEC submitting closing dates and persevered to just accept investments, it brought about investigations. In 2023, Levin used to be charged with securities fraud. By way of early 2025, he had pleaded responsible to conspiracy.
All the way through the ones years, the mag published intermittently, money owed fastened, and a string of failed trade offers tired the corporate’s momentum. The logo used to be out of money, out of management, and out of time.
“It used to be heartbreaking,” stated a former editor who requested to not be named. “We noticed one thing we liked was a marketing strategy. A foul one.”
By way of mid-2024, a court-appointed receiver used to be actively buying groceries the Prime Instances logos, occasions, and licenses to the best possible bidder. Some of the bidders: personal fairness companies, dispensary teams, or even a psychedelics corporate hoping to rebrand the mag totally.
As an alternative, it landed within the palms of anyone on the very core of Hashish tradition.
Josh Kesselman didn’t input the hashish house thru Silicon Valley or Wall Boulevard. His trail began in Gainesville, Florida, with a head store, a van, and a deep love for rolling papers. What started as a storefront known as Knuckleheads turned into the launchpad for a decades-long venture: to make higher papers and deal with people who smoke with appreciate.
RAW Rolling Papers formally introduced in 2005 and briefly received a devoted following amongst individuals who cared about purity, craft, and tradition. The product used to be other; unbleached, vegan, and made with a herbal connection to what people who smoke in point of fact sought after but had by no means skilled. However what set RAW aside used to be the person at the back of it. Kesselman hooked up without delay with the neighborhood thru movies, meetups, giveaways, and fortify for reasons that mattered. He didn’t simply construct a logo. He earned a following.
Kesselman’s manner made him one of the vital revered figures within the house: a founder with mass achieve and underground credibility. And as RAW expanded international, his loyalty to the roots of hashish tradition by no means wavered. He didn’t go out. He reinvested. In merchandise. In other folks. Within the tradition itself.
Josh is a personality. Charismatic, outspoken, and unapologetic. A throwback to the wild inventors and idealists who as soon as ran underground empires. Other folks like Thomas Forçade, the outlaw founding father of Prime Instances, who introduced the mag in 1974 whilst smuggling hashish and investment radical newspapers. There’s a poetic symmetry to it: two long-haired misfits, a long time aside, each pushed via obsession and a refusal to promote out.
Kesselman had watched from the out of doors because the mag he grew up on misplaced its method. The voice used to be long past. The mag, when it used to be printed in any respect, felt like a large paid advert. Hashish Cups had stopped.
So when the chance arose to procure the property after the logo fell into receivership, the chance to rebuild it felt non-public. “It wasn’t about flipping one thing,” he stated. “It used to be about saving one thing. Prime Instances at all times stood for greater than the plant,” Kesselman instructed us. “It stood for fact. For freedom. For no longer apologizing about who we’re.” To assist save Prime Instances he introduced again a part of the legacy to assist.
Matt Stang isn’t any stranger to the Prime Instances tale. Beginning as an intern within the overdue Nineties, he spent just about twenty years within the logo, in the end emerging to Leader Earnings Officer and serving to enlarge the mag’s achieve all through the early days of legalization.
However his greatest contribution used to be the Hashish Cup. When he first joined, the development used to be nonetheless a small amassing in Amsterdam. Beneath Stang, it developed right into a multi-city, world birthday party of hashish tradition. “It used to be by no means with regards to the trophies,” Stang instructed us. “It used to be about reputation. Group. Party.”
In 2017 the corporate used to be bought via personal fairness homeowners. Matt vehemently disagreed with the best way Prime Instances used to be being was a personal fairness run trade and departed quickly thereafter. All the way through his time away he watched from the sidelines because the Cup and the mag misplaced their footing. “After we noticed what used to be going down, it wasn’t simply disappointing,” he stated. “It used to be painful.”
Now, a few years later Stang returns as a spouse to assist repair Prime Instances to its cultural and ancient significance including, “It’s time to carry again and revive the neighborhood we constructed in combination.”
From the sound of it, new possession plans to carry again what made Prime Instances particular within the first position. The print mag will go back in small, collectible runs with deeper tales, and a focal point on high quality.
The archives: together with covers, articles and artwork might be introduced again to lifestyles, too.
The Hashish Cup may be being rebuilt with third-party judging, actual transparency, and new tactics for the general public to take part.
“One of the most biggest occasions of my lifestyles took place at the ones Cups. And I will be able to carry them again. They’ll be simply as a lot amusing, as a result of that’s the purpose,” Kessleman stated. “While you take away personal fairness and traders, when it’s simply a few other folks seeking to do one thing for the tradition, the probabilities turn out to be infinite.”
The brand new Prime Instances web site will roll out podcasts, video options, and longform storytelling once more, blending veteran members with new voices who reside and breathe the tradition.
Kesselman (who has hundreds of thousands of fans of his personal) additionally needs the platform to function a house base for crucial hashish voices on social media, rerouting customers to hidden or new accounts to stay the neighborhood hooked up amid shadow bans and deletions. He thinks this may assist save and rebuild our fractured neighborhood as a result of in his phrases, “no one can forestall the reality.”
And sure, there might be merch. Attire. Rolling papers. All achieved proper. All achieved within the spirit of maintaining the platform alive with out promoting it out.
The street again received’t be fast. However that’s the purpose. “I don’t care if it takes 5 years,” Kesselman stated. “I’d reasonably cross sluggish and construct one thing actual.”
“Most significantly?” Kesselman added. “Have amusing whilst doing it.”
We will be able to’t assist however assume that if Thomas Forçade may just see Prime Instances now—handed from the fits again to the actual believers—he’d be lights a joint and announcing, in any case.
For almost 5 a long time, Prime Instances stood because the unapologetic voice of hashish counterculture. Greater than only a mag, it used to be a platform that increased song, politics, psychedelics, activism, and the plant itself. It used to be an emblem of riot, freedom, and neighborhood. Then got here the impressive fall, the sort that made it really feel like Prime Instances may well be long past for just right. Till now.
Lately, Prime Instances returns below new possession, new management, and a renewed objective. RAW Rolling Papers founder Josh Kesselman, a lifelong reader and supporter of the logo, has taken the lead in obtaining the core property of Prime Instances, together with the mag, the Hashish Cup, and its affiliated media houses. Along him is Matt Stang, a former Prime Instances government and co-owner and longtime cultural operator who helped construct the Hashish Cup into an international establishment. Their plan: repair the soul of a logo that formed generations, and set a brand new path rooted within the values that first constructed it.
“I am getting to carry again a work of historical past that has performed such crucial section in tradition and impacted such a lot of lives, together with my very own,” Kesselman stated. “This looks like a dream.”
However the dream comes with actual paintings. And an advanced inheritance.
Prime Instances’ fresh historical past has been anything else however solid. After its 2017 acquisition via an investor workforce led via Adam Levin, the logo shifted its center of attention to competitive enlargement, launching an investor crowdfund, pursuing a public providing, and obtaining retail hashish companies around the U.S.
The pitch used to be seductive: personal a work of the sector’s maximum iconic hashish logo. Over 20,000 traders purchased in. Many by no means were given stocks. Few were given solutions. And when Prime Instances overlooked SEC submitting closing dates and persevered to just accept investments, it brought about investigations. In 2023, Levin used to be charged with securities fraud. By way of early 2025, he had pleaded responsible to conspiracy.
All the way through the ones years, the mag published intermittently, money owed fastened, and a string of failed trade offers tired the corporate’s momentum. The logo used to be out of money, out of management, and out of time.
“It used to be heartbreaking,” stated a former editor who requested to not be named. “We noticed one thing we liked was a marketing strategy. A foul one.”
By way of mid-2024, a court-appointed receiver used to be actively buying groceries the Prime Instances logos, occasions, and licenses to the best possible bidder. Some of the bidders: personal fairness companies, dispensary teams, or even a psychedelics corporate hoping to rebrand the mag totally.
As an alternative, it landed within the palms of anyone on the very core of Hashish tradition.
Josh Kesselman didn’t input the hashish house thru Silicon Valley or Wall Boulevard. His trail began in Gainesville, Florida, with a head store, a van, and a deep love for rolling papers. What started as a storefront known as Knuckleheads turned into the launchpad for a decades-long venture: to make higher papers and deal with people who smoke with appreciate.
RAW Rolling Papers formally introduced in 2005 and briefly received a devoted following amongst individuals who cared about purity, craft, and tradition. The product used to be other; unbleached, vegan, and made with a herbal connection to what people who smoke in point of fact sought after but had by no means skilled. However what set RAW aside used to be the person at the back of it. Kesselman hooked up without delay with the neighborhood thru movies, meetups, giveaways, and fortify for reasons that mattered. He didn’t simply construct a logo. He earned a following.
Kesselman’s manner made him one of the vital revered figures within the house: a founder with mass achieve and underground credibility. And as RAW expanded international, his loyalty to the roots of hashish tradition by no means wavered. He didn’t go out. He reinvested. In merchandise. In other folks. Within the tradition itself.
Josh is a personality. Charismatic, outspoken, and unapologetic. A throwback to the wild inventors and idealists who as soon as ran underground empires. Other folks like Thomas Forçade, the outlaw founding father of Prime Instances, who introduced the mag in 1974 whilst smuggling hashish and investment radical newspapers. There’s a poetic symmetry to it: two long-haired misfits, a long time aside, each pushed via obsession and a refusal to promote out.
Kesselman had watched from the out of doors because the mag he grew up on misplaced its method. The voice used to be long past. The mag, when it used to be printed in any respect, felt like a large paid advert. Hashish Cups had stopped.
So when the chance arose to procure the property after the logo fell into receivership, the chance to rebuild it felt non-public. “It wasn’t about flipping one thing,” he stated. “It used to be about saving one thing. Prime Instances at all times stood for greater than the plant,” Kesselman instructed us. “It stood for fact. For freedom. For no longer apologizing about who we’re.” To assist save Prime Instances he introduced again a part of the legacy to assist.
Matt Stang isn’t any stranger to the Prime Instances tale. Beginning as an intern within the overdue Nineties, he spent just about twenty years within the logo, in the end emerging to Leader Earnings Officer and serving to enlarge the mag’s achieve all through the early days of legalization.
However his greatest contribution used to be the Hashish Cup. When he first joined, the development used to be nonetheless a small amassing in Amsterdam. Beneath Stang, it developed right into a multi-city, world birthday party of hashish tradition. “It used to be by no means with regards to the trophies,” Stang instructed us. “It used to be about reputation. Group. Party.”
In 2017 the corporate used to be bought via personal fairness homeowners. Matt vehemently disagreed with the best way Prime Instances used to be being was a personal fairness run trade and departed quickly thereafter. All the way through his time away he watched from the sidelines because the Cup and the mag misplaced their footing. “After we noticed what used to be going down, it wasn’t simply disappointing,” he stated. “It used to be painful.”
Now, a few years later Stang returns as a spouse to assist repair Prime Instances to its cultural and ancient significance including, “It’s time to carry again and revive the neighborhood we constructed in combination.”
From the sound of it, new possession plans to carry again what made Prime Instances particular within the first position. The print mag will go back in small, collectible runs with deeper tales, and a focal point on high quality.
The archives: together with covers, articles and artwork might be introduced again to lifestyles, too.
The Hashish Cup may be being rebuilt with third-party judging, actual transparency, and new tactics for the general public to take part.
“One of the most biggest occasions of my lifestyles took place at the ones Cups. And I will be able to carry them again. They’ll be simply as a lot amusing, as a result of that’s the purpose,” Kessleman stated. “While you take away personal fairness and traders, when it’s simply a few other folks seeking to do one thing for the tradition, the probabilities turn out to be infinite.”
The brand new Prime Instances web site will roll out podcasts, video options, and longform storytelling once more, blending veteran members with new voices who reside and breathe the tradition.
Kesselman (who has hundreds of thousands of fans of his personal) additionally needs the platform to function a house base for crucial hashish voices on social media, rerouting customers to hidden or new accounts to stay the neighborhood hooked up amid shadow bans and deletions. He thinks this may assist save and rebuild our fractured neighborhood as a result of in his phrases, “no one can forestall the reality.”
And sure, there might be merch. Attire. Rolling papers. All achieved proper. All achieved within the spirit of maintaining the platform alive with out promoting it out.
The street again received’t be fast. However that’s the purpose. “I don’t care if it takes 5 years,” Kesselman stated. “I’d reasonably cross sluggish and construct one thing actual.”
“Most significantly?” Kesselman added. “Have amusing whilst doing it.”
We will be able to’t assist however assume that if Thomas Forçade may just see Prime Instances now—handed from the fits again to the actual believers—he’d be lights a joint and announcing, in any case.
