Henry Stanford Diltz was born on September 6, 1938, in Kansas City, Missouri.

He has probably shot over 300 rock n’ roll album covers (he’s lost count) in his lifetime. He’s been a daily cannabis user since 1966. Back in the day, not only did Diltz carry the lushest cannabis in town, but with his mellow rapport and fly-on-the-wall style he captured some of the most iconic and intimate photos of the biggest rock stars. Long before cell phones, Diltz was always armed with his faithful Nikon. “Actually, two, one for color and one for black and white,” he said. His big break was being the official photographer for the Monterey International Pop Festival, Miami Pop, and all three Woodstocks.

Diltz smoked his first J in 1959, when he was attending the University of Hawaii. He began to giggle uncontrollably. “Back then, it was a super secret thing because you could get really busted,” he remembered. It wasn’t until he arrived in California in 1962 that he saw cannabis being smoked by famous artists and musicians. Diltz remembers those days well. “I was at Tropicana Motor Hotel in West Hollywood with a group of rockers and I brought a kilo of Mexican weed that was wrapped in a newspaper,” he said. “We spread the newspapers out on the bed and we opened this thing up and crushed up a mountain a foot high. It had sugar in it which made it a little heavier. Eighty bucks! Stems and seeds and all. I got an album cover, put the pot up on one end, and scooped the grass up so the seeds would run to the bottom.”

When Diltz was in NYC, he would smoke with the jazz artists of Greenwich Village and they would try not to smile when walking the city ‘cause “they didn’t want to get busted for being too happy.” Back in Hollywood, things were a bit more carefree. Diltz remembers that David Crosby, who was in The Byrds, would walk through clubs, wearing his Borsalino hat, with a whole box of Bambu rolling papers and hand them out to the crowd. “He was the Prince of Pot handing out dollar bills,” Diltz laughed.

In the late 60s, Diltz, Crosby, and Stephen Stills made an 8mm movie about rolling joints. While they were doing a photo shoot in the desert east of Los Angeles, there was a cowboy who showed them how to roll with one hand as he rode a horse. Diltz filmed it. Then he filmed a female friend in the nude rolling with strawberry papers, and Mark Volman from The Turtles rolling a joint on red-white-and-blue flag paper. (No one knows what happened to that film.)

But it was Laurel Canyon where the real cannabis scene was at. According to Diltz, in 1966 there was a strain called Ice Bag that most rockers smoked. “A wonderful, light, pure high. Everyone at Monterey Pop festival was smoking it.” In fact, there was one guy there who was rolling what they called a “burrito J” ‘cause it was so gargantuan.

“Huge! And it lasted everyone a month,” he said.

According to Diltz, new strains like Acapulco Gold and Hawaiian Grass then began to arrive. “Real pungent, potent stuff.”

Although Diltz had been around The Doors at parties in the canyon before they became big, it wasn’t until the 1969 cover shoot for Morrison Hotel that he realized what connoisseurs of cannabis they were. On an overcast day in November, Diltz was shooting the band on Venice Beach. Someone had spray painted the word POT on a wall. “Pretty cool, pretty neat,” someone said, and he began shooting the band in front of it. Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist, first smoked cannabis in 1963, when he was stationed at a military base in Thailand. One Saturday night he smoked a J he got from a shoe-shine boy on the street and had a profound awakening...in a complete state of absolute joy.

Jim Morrison, like the cowboy in the desert, could roll a joint in a single sheet of paper like a thin cigarette with one hand. During the shoot, the band wandered around the boardwalk stopping for beers and a few puffs. Manzarek knew the most about cannabis. The Chicago native would go on diatribes about the plant: “Marijuana makes you aware that you are on a planet.... It’s God’s good green earth and you’ve got to take care of God’s good clean earth.... The potheads were the first mass ecological movement.”

The Monkees also liked cannabis. The producers of their hit TV show even built them a “smoking facility” called Frodo’s Room. It was like something from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It had red carpets and cushions, and a red light would go on when the band needed to be on set. It was around this time that Diltz realized just how powerful this plant was when it came to creativity and spirituality.

“This herb fortifies the immersion of the artistic journey,” he said. “It stops the jabbering that is going on. Cannabis makes you a better human being.”

However, Diltz never foresaw the explosion of dispensaries, vapes, pipes, and dab rigs. “Wheat straw Zig-Zags is all you needed in my day,” he chuckled. Today, the cannabis is so potent that he only needs one toke—but prefers taking 5mg mints. He feels that everyday having a little bit of cannabis gives him an eye-opening appreciation of life: “It makes you appreciate the fact that you are alive. It makes you more alive. And you see it in other people. We are souls in a body, and we are down here and a soul in this meaty robot, which is our body for this lifetime. We all have a meaning to each other because we’re all here doing the same thing. Life is a great adventure, it’s a wonderful privilege and an honor to be alive.”

And what an adventure Diltz has had.

His iconic prints hang in the lobby of the Sunset Marquis, in photo galleries around L.A., and dorm rooms across the country. He’s effusive, buoyant, and full of good cheer with a long, grey ponytail and tie-dye shirt. He makes it clear that cannabis has not only been a part of his stellar career but also his love of life.

“I lived a life where you get up and have one toke and the day takes its course,” he said. “Let the universe unfold. See what happens. It puts you in a great mood. Before I was worried about some phone calls I had to make, bills I have to pay...but all of a sudden boom.... ‘Isn’t it great to be alive?’”

I ask him if he still loves taking pictures.

“Here’s the thing,” he says, popping a Breeze mint. “Cannabis makes me want to take pictures. It makes me start seeing things. I’ll notice some ladybug on a fence post. I’ll see a flower and get really close and another angle. Maybe fill the frame with the red. Here’s a bee on it. That’s even better. I get hung up in the beauty of the moment.”

Harvey Kubernik is a music historian and the author of dozens of books, including Canyon of Dreams, A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival, It Was 50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood, Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, and 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.