A dozen years ago, Stone Slade was a hunky, reality TV father. Of the four archetypal stay-at-home papas on A&E’s Modern Dads, he got presented as a stylish, charming, “single dad” – though he now admits he was actually dating his future wife at the time. The show, which enjoyed high ratings as the lead-in to America’s most-watched program at the time, Duck Dynasty, only lasted one season, due to the alleged “close-knit” friend group it featured not actually getting along offscreen.
“Being on it made me hate watching reality TV,” Slade reflects, having had a close-up view of the format’s contrived inner workings. Still, the experience did spark an interest in working in front of the camera – an interest he’s now pairing with a lifelong area of expertise: weed.
Over a joint, I inquire if he was a cannabis smoker during his run as a TV dad.
“I’ve been a pot smoker since I was 13,” he laughs. “My only tolerance breaks were a couple six-month stints on probation.”
So I ask him a question I love posing to veteran stoners: What was the weed landscape like when you were growing up?
“A lot of compact, gross bud came through Austin back in those days,” Slade says of his seminal smokeouts in the Eighties. “Luckily for me, I would steal it from my dad. Cannabis was just something that was normal for me, and my dad had that true skunk weed, which doesn’t really exist anymore… but I can still smell it.”
His father, Ray Slade, had been a character in the Grateful Dead’s extended family. Known as a member of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, the senior Slade owned a reputation for leading expeditions from California into Mexico in the Sixties and Seventies to import the finest pot on the continent – sometimes with members of the Dead riding along. Ray Slade later moved his family to Texas to serve as general manager at Manor Downs, the horse racing track and concert venue that fellow Dead affiliate Frances Carr owned. In an archival interview, Steve Parish, Jerry Garcia’s roadie and the host of SiriusXM’s The Big Steve Hour, said there was no one in the world he’d rather hang out with than Ray Slade.
“Ray was a funny guy. He was older than most of us, but he knew a lot about life,” Parish said. “You’d sit down with him, he knew everything about gettin’ high and he knew everything about really amazing trips. He could tell you stories about his smuggling days when he’d go down into Mexico and bring all this incredible pot back up, deep, from the Indians in Mexico. He was a guy who was ready for anything.”
Ultimately, one thing Ray Slade wasn’t ready for was a sting operation. Like many people from the hippie generation who dabbled in cannabis distribution, the elder Slade eventually went down hard – getting set up out near Dripping Springs on the purchase of a pound of weed and serving five years in prison. Stone was a junior in high school when he lost having his father in his life over a product that is now legal in most of America.
Decades later, when Ray Slade was faced with terminal cancer, his son remembers how cannabis edibles allowed his father to live out his last days with dignity – the only other effective pain medicine, Dilaudid, made him a zombie. Slade eventually died, rather fittingly, at 4:20pm on November 2 – the Day of the Dead.
All that history informs the work that Stone Slade does now.
He’s rolled out the pilot to a new show titled Hittin’ the High Road, a cannabis docuseries in which Stone travels to legal marijuana markets to have in-depth conversations with prominent figures from business and government, plus folks who’ve been helped medically by the plant. It’s reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, with no less soulfulness or curiosity for one’s environment. And, unlike Modern Dads, Hittin’ the High Road gives Slade the opportunity to tell stories that are authentic.
“There’s so many depictions of cannabis users being the punchline, the funny stoner, and I love all that – I grew up on Cheech & Chong – but my goal is to normalize it,” he insists. “And I think the way to normalize it is to show that it’s everywhere. It’s moms, dads, doctors, lawyers. There are so many people with so many stories that I can’t wait to tell.”
Slade has several episodes shot and hopes to land a distribution deal for the project. In the meantime, episode one has been launched on the show’s website. In one scene, he’s interviewing Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, asking him about the benefits of regulated cannabis recreation, compared to states still enforcing prohibition.
“Well, you know, we benefit from cannabis being illegal in Texas because people from Texas come to Colorado and go skiing and enjoy our dispensaries,” Gov. Polis begins. “[Regulated cannabis] benefits the state by helping keep it out of the hands of minors, by making sure the product is safe for those who want to consume it – not being tainted with other products or dangerous chemicals – and by generating tax revenue to support public projects like a recreational facility in Aurora and the building of schools.”
Slade also works as an anchor for High at 9 News, a uniquely bipartisan daily cannabis news program, broadcasting online, where various correspondents break down and debate the top marijuana stories of the day. As High at 9’s Texas representative, Slade has spent a lot of time over the last six months covering the state’s legislative session – which means both recapping the action and dispelling misinformation about the dangers of cannabis that are put forth, either intentionally or with unfathomable ignorance – from politicians.
He’s also been among the cannabis activists who waited upward of 17 hours to testify at state hearings because his experiences are valuable for representatives to understand.
“In a way, speaking to politicians at a state hearing feels like it should be outside of my box, but I talk positively about the plant everywhere else and those guys need to hear it because many of them are clueless,” Slade says. “It’s so weird, doing the High Road show and talking to people in different markets where cannabis is helping people, while living in Texas, where we are slamming on the brakes and putting things in reverse.”
This article appears in June 13 • 2025.