When Humboldt State University journalism major, Ingrid Hart, created the Humboldt Honey in 1983, she had no idea the young woman pictured wearing the uniform we’ve all come to know as part of the culture of cannabis would cause such a stir, or continue to be relevant to this day.
In the early 80s, posters posing the questions “Are you a Nerd?” or “Are you a Valley Girl?” were doing the same thing, detailing the wardrobes of a nerd from the film Revenge of the Nerds, or Moon Unit Zappa’s one hit wonder, Valley Girl, inspiring Hart to bring the Humboldt Honey to life, posing the question, “Are you a Humboldt Honey?”
“I created the poster of the young woman for myself, and never planned on printing more than one for my own room,” she explained. “At that time I didn’t know about press runs and that one poster would cost as much to print as one thousand, so I had the minimum printed at a thousand copies.”
While most in the community understood the uniform, the conservative faction of Humboldt County, comprised of the lumber and fishing industries, were appalled. How could someone glorify a character from the drug community? Everything they fought against and hated about the cannabis community was represented in this one photo of a hippie girl, and they were not happy about it.
On April 17, 1983, Humboldt’s daily newspaper, the Times-Standard, put the poster on the front page above the fold, helping it to sell out in less than two months. Hart had distributed it to about 15 shops around the county at four dollars each, with the intention of making it affordable for students.
“Sam Blackwell did a story for the Times-Standard,” she continued. “When the story ran my vibration was so high …
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Author: Sharon Letts / High Times
