He was the founder of High Times magazine and for many years ran the Underground Press Syndicate (later called the Alternative Press Syndicate)[2] Forçade published several other publications, such as Stoned, National Weed, Dealer and others, that, veiled as counterculture entertainment magazines, were laced with humor and savvy coverage of politics and popular culture, and served as a forum for some of the industry's best writers and artists.
In 1970, Forçade was the first documented activist to use pieing as a form of protest, hitting Chairman Otto Larsen during the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.
It became a huge success, with a circulation of more than 500,000 copies a month and revenues approaching $10 million by 1977, and was embraced by the young adult market as the bible of the alternative life culture.
[16] Forçade committed suicide by gunshot to the head in November 1978 in his Greenwich Village apartment after the death of his best friend, Jack Coombs.
[citation needed] High Times' former associate publisher, Rick Cusick, claims that, at Forçade's memorial — held on the roof of the World Trade Center — mourners mixed a small amount of ashes from Forcade's cremation into a marijuana cigarette and they smoked it.