Travel to Denver Colorado and meet Steve Berke who helped found the first International Church of Cannabis in 2015.

Learn more about it here.

The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club was one of the first marijuana dispensaries in the country. Its members were people with AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses, and inside the club had stages, TV lounges, puzzles, and other things that would bring people together. Today, we meet the unexpected mix of gay rights organizers and cannabis advocates behind the club, and we hear about their unorthodox route to opening it – including why they tried to get busted by the police.

An ancient cemetery in western China may hold the answer to a question asked by many a stoner: where on Earth did humans first smoke weed to get high?

Learn more about the cemetery in this 2019 paper in Science Advances.

Keep up with Rob Spengler’s archaeobotany lab here.

In 1976, an airplane carrying 6,000 pounds of smuggled weed crashed into a remote lake in Yosemite. A group of climbers had a heyday. Read John Long’s account of the crash, and check out Greg Nichols’ reporting on the same subject.

Plus: Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever cast a vote? Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and tell us about your local unusual polling location. Or, record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com.

Cannabis is now legal in more than half of U.S. states, but it remains federally illegal – which makes doing research on the plant extremely difficult. Today, we meet a clever group of scientists who found their way around these laws… by literally driving around them.

Learn more about the CannaVan, and check out some of Rasha and Emma’s original reporting.

A South Carolina ghost story is a harbinger of hurricanes and a window into history. Read more in the Atlas: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/south-carolina-hurricane-ghost

In 1944, a strange spate of “gas attacks” in a small Midwestern town reveals what was really lurking in mid-century America. Read Colin Dickey’s article about the mad gasser, and check out his Monster of the Month series.

Listener stories about places that give off big creepy vibes – from an abandoned ice factory to a haunted university music building.

If you want to hear more about Luz Fleming’s ghost story, there’s a whole episode about it called Bennington Ghost Stories on a podcast called Yard Tales.