The Joe Rogan Experience - #2163 - Freeway Rick Ross

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Freeway Rick Ross is a former eighties drug kingpin who is now an author, motivational speaker, and community advocate. www.freewayrickyross.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Good to see you again my friend. It's been a long time. It's been, yeah like nine years. Yeah, we were talking about it. Yeah, yeah. It's been a while.

Yeah, yeah. For people who don't know. I've been waiting. I was like You know I dial your number and it wasn't working no more I was like, okay I've had about eight different numbers. He'll call me I said he'll call me Yeah for people don't know the real Rick Ross is not a rapper just like your shirt says and you know

You know who inspired that shirt? I think I did you did And you don't even know the whole story. What's the story? Well, you know, after that day, you told me that I needed a shirt, right? Yeah. You know, I was really homeless then. Really?

You didn't know that part of the story. I didn't know. Well, I didn't go around like, hey man, I'm homeless. So I was technically homeless. I was standing in the vacant apartment, me and my old lady and my two kids. And when I told you that I was doing bad, you was like, man, you need a t-shirt.

You know, and I left the show, I was a little hot. I was like, damn, that motherfucker told me I needed a t-shirt and I'm fucked up, but he know I handle money. He know I'm a thinker. Why he didn't help me? And so I'm walking down the street downtown and this kid come up to me and he was like,

hey Rick, I heard you on Joe Rogan the other day. And I was like, yeah? He was like, yeah, and I got a t-shirt idea for you. I said, oh shit, another one of those motherfuckers And I said what's your idea and he said the real Rick Ross is not a rapper And I said corny is a motherfucker, but I kept open mind And I said okay, let's do it The kid did it I go to him a couple weeks later

and he give me 100 t-shirts. I sell a whole hundred the same day. Wow. And then something popped in my head and say, why don't you call Joe? That's when your number was still the same. And I called you, you called me to the show and you put my t-shirt on.

And the t-shirt went crazy. My PayPal, because you know I ain't saw you since then. So I never got to tell you thanks for telling me to do a t-shirt went crazy. My PayPal, because you know I ain't saw you since then, so I never got to tell you thanks for telling me to do a t-shirt, even though I was mad at you. Why were you mad at me? Because I was like, why the fuck nobody helped me? You know, I was looking for somebody to come and say,

hey man, here's $100,000, see what you can do with it, a million dollars, see what you can do with it. That's what I was looking for when I got out of prison. I was like, somebody's gonna come and say, man, I know you can handle money, let's do something. So I was looking for that. I was not looking for a t-shirt. But, you know, in one of my favorite books,

it might come through the back door. Don't look at the front door, look at the back door. So I did that. And when you put that t-shirt on, man, my PayPal went like this here. And I was like, my old lady, she was like, man, my PayPal went like this here. And I was like, my old lady, she was like, man, that PayPal is going crazy. I was like, that motherfucker broke. I said, go check the bank account.

And she went and checked the bank account, man. It's like $18,000, $20,000 in there. And I was like, oh my goodness, we finna get an apartment. So my whole life changed from there. From there, I took that money and I did this. I wrote a book. I already wrote the book. I wrote the book in prison when I had a life sentence.

You know I wrote this book, this was kind of like my message to the world about what it takes to become a drug dealer, how you become a drug dealer. I wrote it for kids so they would know if they started to be a drug dealer what they was gonna run into. Like a how-to manual. Like a how-to manual because I said nobody ever wrote a book about... I look at it like this Joe, you know we always talk to kids about why not to sell drugs, but why not give them all the information, and they make their own decision.

Okay, you sell drugs, yeah, you might get a big house, you might get the cars, but at the end of that rainbow is some cuff links and prison centers. So I felt that. You wanted to give them all the information. I wanted to give them all the information, so I wrote this, and I brought you one as a gift. Oh, beautiful, thank you very much.

Your story is incredible. And for people who don't know, just because we did a couple podcasts in the past, but just for people that don't know, you unknowingly were, during the whole Contras versus the Sandinistas war, the United States government, or some people inside the United States government,

were selling crack in the hood, and probably other places too, and they were using that to fund this war. They're using the money to fund this war. And you were the one who was moving the drugs. Correct. A lot of it. And you didn't know. You had no idea where... I was the dumb kid from South Central, man. I never read a book. You couldn't read. I couldn't read at that time. Which is so crazy. Let me keep going. So you get arrested, you

go to jail, you learn how to read in jail, learn how to become a lawyer in jail, figure out that they, the way they did you with three strikes was bullshit because it's supposed to be three different instances of you being arrested. They used the three instances of whatever they tried to pin on you from one case. And so you got out of jail so you got out of jail. I got out of jail. You would still be in jail right now. Right now. If I would have listened to my lawyer too.

Wow. Because he told me that that law didn't apply to me. I don't know. You know, it's funny because I said my judge and my lawyer and the prosecutor couldn't read. I mean, because it was really plain and simple in a lot of the way they explained it. The most important thing was an intervening arrest. Not that you get convicted three times, but was an intervening arrest because they're saying that, you know, if you get a kid and he does three different things and you whoop him one time,

that's for all three. You know, now if he does something and you whoop him one time and that whooping is over and then he goes and does it again and you whoop him for the same thing again, now you whoop him twice. So the third time that would be a three strike. And that's what the law meant. And they just couldn't understand that. Like, oh no, that don't apply to you

because you had a conviction in Texas and you had a conviction in Cincinnati and you had a conviction here. But they were all the same time you whooped me one time. And so I get two more whoopings before, you know, before it's the three strike. It's kind of a crazy story. I mean, it's a very crazy story because yeah, you were a young kid and it's getting more

crazy man. Yeah, I've been having so much fun Joe like, wow. What's been going on? And you know what? And I owe you a lot of the credit man because you really like, you kind of set me off, you know, you know, like, I don't know where I would have been had I not did that fucking t-shirt, you know what I'm saying? That fucking t-shirt paid our rent, man.

I mean, you know, and my fucking kids now playing tennis. My daughter's so fucking good at tennis. That's amazing. Man, she's like 12. Well, you were a great tennis player. I was good. I'm talking about like... Really good, they saying she like Serena good. Really?

Yeah. Wow. Like, and I try not to like, you know, because it's my daughter, so I gotta like, keep myself honest, you know what I'm saying? But I'm seeing her do things that I was doing at 16 and 17 and she's just turned 12 and she's doing those things right now.

Wow. And I'm like, wow, could she be this good? That's incredible. Yeah, so I mean, I'm just having so much fun, man. It's like my life has been good. If I died today, I wouldn't be mad. I just wanna see them two grow up to be 20, 30 years old. And I've had a great life, man.

I met some great people. And you know, I done had some things happen to me too. It ain't all been Rosie. You know, my documentary, I think, was we working on a documentary when I did you the last time? I don't know. Well, you know, they took the documentary from me. What do you mean?

What happened? Well you know we shot the documentary and when it was time to put it out we finished it. My two partners who put up most of the money got into an argument and I went with the one who I thought was right. So we go to court and the court ruled that Mark Levin and Mike Mongre won in court and they had all the say-so about the documentary I had no say-so no accountant so they sold the documentary to AltaZero, renting it to AltaZero, renting it to Netflix and I got zero dollars out of it. Oh my god. The judge said I had no accounting rights you, no right to

see how much money was being made. On a documentary in your life? Did I put money? I put, I took money, t-shirt money and put it into the documentary. I put about $15,000 of my own money into making it. We spent about, about $120,000 making the documentary and here I am on Netflix, on the front page too. I made the front page of Netflix for like a year. Wow. And I got zero dollars out of it and then John Singleton you know he was working with me on the movie he'd take all the stuff that we did from the movie and do this show called Snowfall which was one of the biggest TV shows on TV and I got zero dollars out of that. What? Yeah, yeah.

So, John Singleton? John Singleton did me like that, man. No way. Yes. He went with me to the premiere. Me and him went to the premiere of the documentary together. The day of the premiere, I got my first books from that book there, and I had my demo books.

He bought one for 100 bucks, which I thought was like, yeah, I'm gonna do good with this book a hundred bucks for one book. So He took that book and he did snowfall And he didn't count me as a Advisor he didn't come in at all. Nothing. Did you talk to him? I saw him one time he changed his number and I saw him one time about eight months before he died And he was like man. I owe you money But you know he was probably he was in South Central LA in the wrong area

So I totally understood. But other than that, you know, it's been alright. There's a lot of people that disappoint you in this life. They do. They do. It's very unfortunate. I do not understand why people do that because that, you think you're getting over, but you're not. That carries, that stays in your soul. It really does. It'll haunt you. It over, but you're not that carries that that stays in your soul It really does it'll haunt you it'll haunt you forever. Yes, somebody over. It's better to be good Yeah, it's better to be good. You know you you're a great story because a Lot of people write people off man You know and there's a lot of people out there in the world that want to think that because someone did something that's illegal Or someone did something that's illegal or someone did something that's bad, that makes them a bad person.

And I think that's ridiculous. And I think you... I totally agree. You can't imagine what it's like to be someone unless you've lived their life. You don't know the circumstances that they fell into. You don't know the life that they were born into. You don't know. You don't know.

And there's a lot of good people out there that just get fucked. Made a bad mistake. Made a bad mistake in a bad situation, bad neighborhood, bad life. A lot of things just- And people see things different. You know, what you think is bad because of the circumstances that he comes from, he doesn't think it's bad. Right, because it's normal. It's normal. It's normal. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that was kind of the case. I wanted to be a drug dealer, because all the pictures I saw drug dealing was, look who I was doing drugs in the 80s. Everybody, all the entertainers. So I wanted to be in entertainment.

Well, not only that, all the entertainers were talking about how they sold drugs. Jay-Z, Ice-T, Ice Cube, everybody. But they don't look at those guys as bad. But it's crazy. Those guys, they could be on CNN, those guys can be interviewed everywhere, the red carpet, everybody loves them now.

I used to be a drug dealer. So that's amazing, Ice-T. I don't know if Ice-T was a drug dealer. They rap about it. I mean, it was a big thing. But they don't know if Ice-T was a drug dealer, but you know they rap about it. You know I mean it was a big thing You know and but they don't believe they don't I guess they don't believe their stories They believe it is just okay because now they're popular artists now. They're famous so they broke through So when you break through and you're selling millions of records and people gonna see you know arenas and everybody's singing along to your shit millions of records and people gonna see you in arenas and everybody's singing along to your shit

Somehow or another it's okay Like you're absolved of all your crimes and all your sins and you're welcome in society because you're very popular Yeah, it's very weird. It's very weird. So people are so quick to write people off I think it's part of it is because people are afraid to be written off themselves. So they want to do it to other people I really do want want some coffee some water There you go it's a you know It's funny. We we've done a lot of work with this guy Josh Dupin who used to work with the innocence project and We just threw this podcast have gotten people out of jail that were wrongly convicted a bunch people

Yeah, and then then we had one dude on who wasn't wrongly convicted But he got convicted for 50 years for pistol whipping somebody a drug dealer who owed him money Someone who stole money from him pistol whipped his dude. Why don't go into jail for 50 years? Gets out they they reduced his sentence to 25 years You know Josh brought him in to show someone who can be rehabilitated. A month later he gets out and cuts some dude's head off and gets caught. Wow. Gets caught on security camera with a blonde wig on.

The whole thing was so crazy, but the dude was like, we were hanging out with that guy that day took him to the comedy club that night it's like it doesn't always work out and then also you know the system itself once you're inside once you're part of the system man that can fuck you up you do 25 I mean how many years did you do in there I did 20 years in three months yeah so so you know the system is and and you're absolutely correct, the system can either make you or break you. I was mad when I first went to jail, but then I started analyzing my life and I wanted to know how I got there.

What are you doing here? This wasn't part of the plan, right? Right and I just figured I made some bad terms, you know, I listened to some people that uh, For the most part loved me to death, you know would it would have died with me and they gave me what they had to give me You know and what they had to give me was the drug game. Yeah It's just so crazy that you were connected to this enormous story with Oliver North and Ronald Reagan. You know, Ronald Reagan had to testify about it. You know, I mean, the whole thing was really insane.

It was an insane cultural moment because I remember, I was young at the time, I remember watching it all play out on TV and seeing how this insane story was playing out that they were selling drugs? What? The government was involved in the drug game so that they could... When Gary Webb came and told us about this I could not believe it. You know, like, no, not Ricky Ross. You know, you're talking about Ricky Ross right the guy who couldn't read in school the guy who couldn't get out of high school who was pretty good at tennis but he couldn't make it in tennis you know I'm saying now you're telling me that he was working with the White House with

Oliver North and George Bush and Ronald Reagan and crazy. And then the CIA come to my cell and Maxine Waters come to my cell and what? All these people. It's just like, for me it was unbelievable. But even when I first went to jail before all of the stuff hit the fan, one of the guys that went to elementary school with me, he came up and he said, man, I heard the stories but I couldn't believe it was you you was the poorest kid in in the school

Like you and your brothers used to change pants And you had holes in your tennis shoes and you put tennis balls on you on your shoes So your feet wouldn't be on the ground and that was really you And I was like yeah, he's like man used to make millions of dollars And I was like, yeah. He was like, man, you used to make millions of dollars? So it was one of those stories that you really had to see it to believe it. We had Michael Rupert on the podcast back when he was alive.

Michael Rupert was the cop that- I knew Michael. Yeah. Michael testified on C-SPAN. He was at one of those C-SPAN hearings and testified that he witnessed the CIA selling drugs in South Central Los Angeles. It is one of the craziest videos,

and Michael was courageous. I read his book. Yeah, which one? I don't remember, it was so long ago. Crossing the Rubicon? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he wrote that, and then he did that book, that movie, rather, the documentary, Collapse, that scared the shit out and then he did that that book that movie rather a documentary collapse

That scared the shit out of people. Yeah, I see the movie the movie was just him sitting there chain-smoking sitting in a chair Explaining how the the whole system was going to fall apart wind up not being correct yeah, but it was it was mostly about oil and mostly about the way the economy is run and the way our government is, the way everything's structured. We are on the verge of collapse.

And he was telling people back then, you better get ready. You better get ready for everything to fall apart. Well, I mean, if you go on the streets right now and you see the homeless problem that we have around the country, because I travel the whole country now, I'm doing motivational speaking,

and so I'm working with different homeless organizations. One of the main ones I'm working with is out of Oakland, Lulu House. And they're helping homeless people get off the streets It is so bad out here man, I mean it's like worse than ever like some of these places that we go and I would be afraid to go there without a gun and It's like a third world country. It's like a jungle. They got cardboard boxes and crates and tents and makeshift shanty town plastic and and it's like a jungle. They got cardboard boxes and crates and tents and makeshift shanty town plastic and and it's like

Miles of these places and Oakland is is Oakland's crazy. Oakland is terrible. It's so crazy I watched a video about it the other day where these people were driving They were documenting it and driving down Oakland down the worst areas where these people have these Shanty towns set up these tent towns set up, and it's just open air drugs and violence and no police presence and no help and no nothing. And this isn't America. And this is why we have $175 billion to send overseas to help them, help people in Ukraine, help people in Israel.

We don't have anything to clean this problem up this massive problem and all those people all those people out there are wasted Potential all of them All of them who knows how many of those people if they had a little bit of help if they've got the right counseling They got the right this the right that they started to get a path towards a good life, they could turn it around. I mean, I was like that. Yes. I was one of those people eight, nine years ago, just out of prison. And Joe, you know, when I was in prison, I educated my, I read over 300 books while I

was in prison because I didn't want to come out and get into the same thing that put me in jail. So what I wanted to do, I never had a job. You know, I never had a job. Right now today, I've never had, I mean, you know, I get paid for doing speaking engagements and stuff, but I'm saying I've never had a job where I punch a clock or I had to fill out an application, none of that stuff,

because I couldn't fill out an application before I went to prison. And now, you know, I'm not gonna fill out an application. Now I'm not gonna fill out an application but I had all this potential but I had nobody to give me a boost, you know, to say, and that's one of the things that I was saying about Lulu House that they're doing is they got housing for you where people get out of jail, they can go stay there for a while, they give them clothes, they feed them. Because sometimes you need those type of things to,

you know, my break was you putting on that damn t-shirt. Had I not got that break, I don't know where I would be at right now. And you know, I wasn't gonna sit around and let my kids be hungry. You know, I had two new babies. You know I had two new babies when we did that show. I don't gonna sit around and let my kids be hungry. I had two new babies. You know I had two new babies when we did that show. I don't remember.

Yeah, I had two new babies. Wow. Cause my kids right now, they're 13 and 12. So at that time they probably was like three maybe. Right. Like three years old, two years old. So they was really new. So me getting that money coming in was like

heaven sent. Like, yes, I got a way to get me some traction now. But without that kind of traction, and most of those people, they don't have the opportunity to do a t-shirt for themselves. So we need to set up programs where these people can get a fresh start. Yeah. And that can be done. It could be done. You know, it's funny, we asked AI. We had an episode here where we were talking to chat GPT. Have you done any of that? You messed around with chat GPT or AI or anything like that? It's kind of scary. Yeah. Kind of scary. Yeah. I think we're real close to it being like a life form. We're real close to there being an artificial life form that's more intelligent than human beings that we've created. But

we asked it, like, how would you solve the crime problem? How would you solve the homelessness and all the situations? And it basically laid out this plan. And one of the things would be re-energizing communities and helping taking places like these shanty towns in Oakland, set up community centers, police presence, do something to stop the crime, do something to try to educate people, do something, community centers to give people a trade, a craft, something where they can move forward. There's, you know, there's a place out here, Loaves and Fishes, right? Is that what it's called? We actually went to the house yesterday. There's a community that they have here.

I think it's called Community First. Hold on a second, I'm gonna find out real quick. Yeah, this, we went there yesterday. I took my family there yesterday. And Community First Village is this thing that my friend Alan Graham has put together and he's got, right now there's, I think he's at like a thousand acres, and they build homes for these people. They have all these programs for these people. They have gardens. These people are making art and selling it. This one woman made a chess set. She sold it for $10,000.

People are incredible artists. There's a lot of creative, interesting people that just don't know what to do or where to turn, and they've been doing drugs their whole life. They're all fucked up. And they're homeless, and they've got records, and they don't know what to do. And he's helping them. And he's helping them in a really beautiful way. And it can be done. Well, I'd like to connect with him. I will connect you with him. Yeah, definitely. Because that's the kind of stuff that I want to do. I believe that we gotta give people a second chance

and third chance. I mean, I don't believe that we should be playing baseball with our lives, with other people. I mean- Right, three strikes are out. I mean, if it was your brother, right? If it was your brother, would he only get three strikes? Of course, right, exactly.

If your brother was on drugs, would you say throw him in jail for the rest of his life? If it was your kid? And everybody should be your brother. All these people are just us. It's just us living different lives. Yeah. It's just us with different circumstances and different things went wrong and

different, you know, different people around you giving you bad advice, different, bad influences, different everything. And for this whole, the one of the things that drives me crazy is the pull yourself up by your bootstrap shit You know like shut the fuck up people don't even have boots like what are you talking about? That's so crazy like you're supposed to do it yourself people can't read they don't know where to go they'll have no positive influences and We don't spend any money on that I've always said if you want to make America great again,

you really want to make America great? Have less losers. How do you have less losers? Give more people a chance. You're never gonna have equal outcomes because some people work harder, some people are smarter, some people are luckier. There's a lot of factors.

But what you can have is change the amount of opportunity that people have. Because some people have zero opportunity. They have nothing. And if you give more people opportunity and more people help, you'll have more winners. You'll have more people successfully living in society, contributing, and everything gets better. Everybody rises up.

When people see other people win, they can duplicate that. Yes. Yes. The rising tide. They can duplicate a win. Because I mean, I keep going back to me having the opportunity to do this t-shirt. I had no clue to do a t-shirt. I wasn't thinking about doing no t-shirt.

That was not in my plan to do no t-shirt. So sometimes they just need that little boost, the little vision from somebody else that's actually out here. Cause you know, when I came home, I had no idea what the world was. Everybody had cell phones. Right.

I mean, they're on computers and I'm like, I'm like a fish out of water. I don't understand this. I didn't even know my way around South Central for a while. It took me a while just to get back in the streets and the avenues, because so much stuff changed in 20 years. So we give people all this time in prison.

Like you say, someone was on drugs or whatever, and we gotta set up a system where they can readjust. Most people go back to prison within the first three or four months. Yeah, they don't know what to do. No, they don't know what to do. I know people that have went back to jail on purpose because the outside world was too confusing

and scary for them and they'd rather have the structure of being inside than like, at least I get food, at least I know where I'm sleeping. They make it real easy for you in jail. They wash your clothes, turn the lights on for you, shower comes on, they give you soap, toothpaste, might be cheap. Might be some cheap shit. What is it like finding out that you were a part of this enormous thing that was going on overseas? Shocking. I mean, amazing.

First, you have to come to, you know, for me, I had to come to realization that I was really a part of that. Let's tell people the scale. Let's talk about the money, the numbers that you were moving, because it was crazy. At my height, from 84 to 86, I was doing at least a million dollars every day. And then I had days I'd do as much as three million. Say for instance, like the first of the month, which was my busiest days, the first was like

crazy busy, I would do three million dollars that day. Jesus. The second, I might do two and a half million. The third, I might do a million and a half. And then after that, it'd be a million dollars every day. And then the 15, it would spike back up, maybe three million, maybe two and a half million. And then it would start decreasing again. And what did you do with the money?

Buy houses, businesses. You know, when I started selling drugs, I started selling drugs because I wanted to create businesses for me and my friends. We couldn't get jobs. Nobody would hire us. So what I figured, okay, start your own business. Why not open up your own business? So drugs, I couldn't go to the bank and borrow money.

South Central was redlined at that time. They wasn't loaning money on houses South Central was redlined at that time. They wasn't loaning money on houses and nothing in South Central at that time. We was totally redlined. Not like it is right now. South Central is one of the hottest properties in the country where if you got a house there, you can borrow money on it. They buying them. But at that time, it was redlined. So I didn't have any way to get money and drugs looked like a viable source of raising money. So it was totally baffling to me to find out, well I never thought that,

I didn't know what a million dollars was when I first started. When I started selling drugs, probably the most money I'd ever saw was probably like 200 bucks, 300 bucks at one time. How quick did it come? What took it took a little while to a few months, but that's crazy though, you know, you know went went see when I started selling drugs I

was a tennis player So I was very disciplined, you know ran I did my runs I would my backhand is off, I'm gonna hit three, four hundred backhands over and over and over and over again. I'm not gonna stop until I do my number. And I took that same mentality into the drug business. You know, I'm not gonna stop selling my drugs

and take my girlfriend to the movies. You know, I'm not going to the club. I'm not drinking, I'm not smoking to the club, I'm not drinking, I'm not smoking, you know, I'm gonna stay up under this tree and wait till the money come. It's funny because that discipline would have served you well in anything that you had an opportunity to do. I just didn't know that.

Yeah, well, nobody ever, nobody ever sent me down and told me I didn't have a coach. I didn't have my mentors mentors sold drugs, robbed people, stole cars. Those were my mentors. Those were the guys. You know, my mom and my dad broke up at four months, when I was four months old. So I didn't really know my dad.

Met him a few times. So the male figures that I saw was these street guys. Crips, you know, Bloods. And when I stopped playing tennis, I was 18 years old, and I was old enough to know like, I ain't shooting nobody because he wear red, I ain't shooting nobody because he wear no blue, you know, I ain't with that. I'm not sticking no gun in nobody's face to rob them. I'm not doing it. So I had to find what I felt was a valuable way of making a living.

And when I saw cocaine, shoot, they come over and they dancing, we going to the club. I need a 50. Me and my girl, we turning up tonight. So I was like, damn, they gonna get you $50 and you make them feel like that? I want a part of that. I wanna be with that.

I wanna be the one to make them happy like that, dear. And I'm gonna get paid to make them feel like that, dear. I'm all in. And I dove in, you know, and I was in love. You know, I was in love with the business. And it was, it wasn't. The first very successful thing that you'd been a part of. Yeah.

I mean, I was a little successful at tennis, you know, I made all conference, all city and, but that didn't put no money in my pocket. Right. Right. All the trophies was good and you know, the pats on the back, but you know now I'm putting money in my pocket You know I can go by my mom house and say hey go pay your light bill

Yeah, you know put gas in your car You know my little brother and sisters didn't have to go to school with holes in their tennis shoes no more You know what's really crazy Rick? Here we are in 2024 You know this is 40 years later, right? in 2024, you know, this is 40 years later, right? 40 years, 40 years later, and nothing's changed in terms of drug dealing. Nothing's changed in terms of drugs being legalized.

They're still giving money to criminals, and particularly criminals in Mexico. I mean, that's literally what funds the cartels, and the fact that there's a demand in America And the supply is all Brought over or for the most part a lot of is brought over by the Mexican cartels. We're just Empowering them. We're just giving them money and and you know, I thought about that a lot about what you saying and

Because in order to get rid of drugs the way they're trying to do it, they would have to get rid of all three elements. Right. You'd have to get rid of the manufacturers, you'd have to get rid of the distributors, and you'd have to get rid of the users. Because if you get rid of one,

the other two are gonna create that one again. And I would like to know, I mean, I don't necessarily think you should do cocaine. I've never done it. I got lucky, excuse me, when I was in high school, my friend's cousin got hooked on coke and I watched his life fall apart. And I was like, oh, I don't want nothing to do with that.

I was always terrified that I was gonna do something that was gonna turn me into a loser. So, you know, I grew up poor and we moved around a lot and I always felt out of place. I never felt like I had anything going on in my life until I started doing martial arts when I was a kid, when I was like 15. That's when I really got into it. And then from then on, I said, this is the key to life. The key to life is discipline and focus.

And I don't want nothing's gonna take away my focus. Nothing's gonna take away my drive. And I saw my friend's cousin, I was like, god damn, he was a good dude. And now he's like a vampire. And I was like hiding in his attic apartment, and they're all just like doing coke all the time, and selling coke.

It was horrible. So I never fucked with coke. But I know a lot of successful people that every now and then they do a little coke You know and I think it's like everything else. I think it's I mean, there's a lot of things alcohol is addictive I like a little alcohol every now and then I don't think it's that bad. You know I don't think weeds bad I don't I don't think any of these things are bad I think what's bad is bad behavior and bad thinking and not understanding the consequences of what you're doing. And the consequences

of what we're doing by making drugs illegal is so crazy because all we're doing, we're not reducing the demand, we're not reducing the supply, we're just empowering criminal elements in another country that now are immensely powerful. And it makes people want to get involved because of the money. Incredible amounts of money. And if you're living in Mexico, shit, you think South Central is poor. You know, try being born in these places where you live in these houses with no windows and dirt floors and you see some dude driving by in a fucking beautiful car, you know, with

a gold-plated gun and that's that's the fucking that's El Jefe and that's the dude that's who you look up to that's what you want to be and we're empowering that we're empowering all that in this country by our stupid fucking laws. I agree I totally agree what you're saying and I thought about that, that what would happen if Coke lost its value totally? You know if it had no value. I mean if it was worth what it's really worth. You know it's a plant so it grows well so it doesn't take anybody to grow it. So you're talking about it might be worth

pennies but it's the value that we create that attracts people to Coke. It's also making it illegal so it's difficult. that we create that attracts people to Coke. It's also making it illegal, so it's difficult to get. Yeah, making it illegal creates a value. Because if it wasn't illegal, people would just let it sit there, or they would traffic it, and it wouldn't be worth hauling because everybody would have it. And the way I see it, that if it loses its value Most people that I saw get started with coke

Start off selling and they get curious well, what does it do for you and they try it and They don't Are not capable of not doing anymore. I did it for about two weeks. You know, when I got up to like an ounce, my cousins talked me in, hey, go ahead and try it, go ahead and try it, because I had never tried it before. I had never smoked marijuana or nothing at that time. And they talked me into trying it,

and when I looked up, I had like $300. I had about $9,000 worth of coke, and when we finished, I had $300. So what I realized is that they had tricked me into getting started so that they could get high. Ah. Because they didn't have any money. So I vowed that day when I finally cleared my head up,

I said, you know what, I'm never doing it again. And I never done coke again. Yeah, it's not a good drug, but there's a lot of things that aren't good drugs. Do you know who Dr. Carl Hart is? No, I never heard of him. He's a professor at Columbia, and he was a clinical researcher,

and he was a very straight-laced guy, never did any drugs, know nothing nothing and when he started doing clinical research on different drugs and different things he realized that all the things that we're being told about drugs are incorrect a lot of it is overinflated a lot of it is exaggerated and you know he talks openly about responsible drug use. This guy's a professor, legitimate academic, and intellectual, and he talks openly about his own personal drug use. About how these things can be used responsibly,

but that thought is never out there, that nobody says that. Everybody tells you, if you do drugs, you're gonna be an addict, you do drugs, you're gonna be a loser. Well you know these people, so many people do drugs, you're gonna be a loser. Well, you know, these people, so many people are making money off of the illegal drug market.

I mean, if you just imagine how much money has been spent on incarceration, on probation, on policing. Just prisons themselves, privatized prisons. So these people don't want, they don't want drugs to not be valuable to the system. They want it to stay the way it is so they can keep making their money. So they do commercials and they market just like everybody else market their business to stay in business. So those are

the things that we're dealing with and we have to get people that are more sensible. When I got home and found out that marijuana was legal, it was like, wow, finally we waking up. That was just 2016 though in California, where it was made legal. Well, medically it was legal when I got home. Right, yeah, it was medically legal in the 90s. I mean, I got a card. I get headaches.

Hey, you were smoking when I was on the show, you know, remember? Yeah. And that leads me to... Uh-oh, you're in the business? I'm in the business. Well, you know what's interesting is there's certain... I brought you some gifts.

Oh, what do you got here? These are my new strings. All right, spread across the gut strings. You know I got a dispensary. You do? I got a dispensary. Where? I'm a legal marijuana dealer. The states. That's incredible. That's incredible. I told you you've been gone a long time, man. Wow. That's great to hear though, man. Look, I'm a big fan of that. And in Texas, it's illegal, but you can get this stuff called Delta 9 THC that's legal.

And apparently it's legal federally so you can just get that. It's very, the whole thing is very strange. It's like there's worse things in this world than marijuana. Oh my god, marijuana makes people calmer, makes people funnier. Makes you go to sleep. Makes you go to sleep. I can get some sleep. It makes people more sensitive to other people and it really makes you more compassionate It does a lot of things for you. Oh man when I went to my first Because it all goes back to I go to my first when I go for all this is crazy, right? They having a high time event in LA

The day I get off parole high times high time event the day I get off parole So my boy from Cincinnati he flying out to LA. So he flies High time event. The day I get off parole, so my boy from Cincinnati, he's flying out to LA. So he flies out to LA, he comes by the house, he's like, man, you're on parole, let's go celebrate. And I was like, cool, where we going? He's like, man, they're having a high time event coming. I was like, oh no, I don't want to get with that drug stuff, man. Because you know, I'm still, even though, even though I've been through all I've been through,

I'm still under this impression that they have been instilling in us, oh, well marijuana is a gateway drug. Right. You know, so I'm still tripping off of that. So I was like, oh man, I don't wanna go out there, you know, I start selling marijuana or get involved with the marijuana,

next thing you know, I'll be back doing coke. Because I understood that I'm an addict. I was an addict to selling cocaine. I mean, I love, if I had a problem, my old lady start arguing, I just go sell some coke. Well, it's a success, right? So that made me feel better. Yeah, you're selling a lot, you're making a lot of money.

And I felt better. Why wouldn't you be addicted to that? I forget about your friend in the hospital sick, well I'm selling cocaine. So now I forgot about him being sick. So Coke had become like a crutch to me, where anything that went wrong for me, Coke made it better.

I mean, you know, like the commercials, everything goes better with Coke. Which used to be better with Coke. Which used to be made with Coke, which is crazy. So it had become like a crutch to me. And when I was going to the high time event, I was scared of that happening. And he was like, man, I bet you sell a lot of books and t-shirts. I said, oh, let's go.

I bet you did. Man, I found myself out there, man, those people treated me so good. I was like, what the fuck? I wanna be in this community. And after that day, you know, I've been chasing the marijuana business. And in 2016, when the federal, when they changed the law, I went there and they,

you know, first they didn't want convicted felons to work in the industry. Right. I was like, what the fuck? How you guys gonna say that? And we the ones made it where the industry is legal now. Had the people not go to jail for selling marijuana, you never would have thought about legalizing it.

Right. And they had me to argue to city council. Wow. That issue. That's crazy. So I got to argue the issue and they broke down and now everybody around the country adopted that philosophy and they're putting convicted felons in the front of the line. That's incredible. You know the federal government is reducing it to a schedule three now. Yeah, they should just totally leave it.

A hundred percent, but at least it's a schedule three. Which is, what is schedule? What's also listed in schedule three? Do you know that Coca-Cola is one of the largest importers of coca leaves The coca leaves still flavor coca-cola. I didn't know that and that there's a plant that supplies Flavor Coca-Cola. I didn't know that and that there's a plant that supplies Coca-Cola though is a plant that takes the cocaine out of the coca leaves creates this Flavonoids these flavors that they that's why coke tastes better than Pepsi If you're a coke fan is like the flavor that coke has is

flavored partially at least by cocaine coke is scheduled to Interest three would be like it says ketamine testosterone anabolic steroids Coding oh My I'm sure yeah, well codeine ain't that mild that's interesting tylenol with codeine probably less than 90 milligrams, okay, so then Then that's where marijuana is gonna be which is still ridiculous. What schedules ambient that shit's fucking scary What schedules at all? What's at all? Well, just said it right there, Jim Yeah, if you click on what schedules are right right above what schedule drugs at all? Yeah to schedule two That stuff is fucking crazy. I know a lot of people hooked on that

schedule for less that's funny Xanax Xanax is for I know a lot of people been fucked up by Xanax Valium I know a lot of people that have been fucked up by value Fucked up by value. Yeah, and then that stuff is less illegal than marijuana. It's crazy, we're so silly. I mean, it's the little baby steps towards legalization. You know, that's one thing that California has above Texas for sure, is the legalization of marijuana. It should be legal federalized.

They taxed the shit out of us in California. I wish they did, and I wish they did something good with it. I wish they took out of us in in, California I wish they did and I wish they did something good with it I wish they took those taxes and cleaned up Oakland and they I wish they did they give it to the police department They don't even do that man. They're defunding the police department in California by 150 million dollars with a new budget proposal 150 million dollars all the fucking problems they have and they're defunding they what they should do if you want to attack look If you want to tax it like you're making plenty of money I'm sure a lot of people want to buy weed take that money and fix the fucking problems Use that money use that money to fix the problems stop with all the bureaucracy stop all these fucking useless people

That are getting paid for these pro like the homeless programs in Los Angeles. It's just a scam It's just a bunch of people making money some of them upwards of $250,000 a year to fix the homeless problem and they're not they're not doing jack shit Yeah, I could fix the homeless problem in a couple months. You think so? Absolutely, just go out and build some nice houses and let them stay there And tell them they don't have to fill out the application. Most of the people that's homeless, they can't, the applications, you know,

when you run their credit, their credit is fucked. You know, they didn't pay a light bill, or a phone bill, and taxes, whatever, you know? So their credit is fucked up, and I mean, the problem can be solved, you know, but it gotta be somebody who say, you know what, we're gonna throw a few, maybe 50 million, 100 million in the building,

some low income houses, that we also gonna have some treatments, where people get treated, where they get job training. It's just so many things. I mean, I don't know. Even when I look at, some are supposed to be millionaires, billionaires, the way they, I don't

know. I would look at this problem and I would solve it totally different. Because even though I like making money, I'm not like typical people. They get the money and they want to harness it and they just want it for themselves so that they can look down on everybody else. I don't think money is supposed to be used like that. I think money is supposed to be put back into the community where the community can

rejuvenate and the money circulates into the community. And that makes everything better for everybody. Absolutely. Yeah. You don't want to be the only one who's doing well. No. That's not a good place to be in life. Well, you know a lot of people are like that, you know. They're fools. Just a foolish way of thinking. When we look at the way, the situation with Puff Daddy, he had money so he treated everybody else like shit. Like, you know, lick a tampon. What the fuck?

What kind of crazy motherfucker would want somebody to lick a tampon? I mean, that's how you get your kicks. I would get my kick by seeing somebody do good. Like, look at that motherfucker, he's doing good. That my that's my motherfucker boy. Yeah, you know that's a good kick. I like that kick Yeah, me some people get a kick off of degrading people they get a kick off of being the most powerful person Yeah, you know and that's a that's an evil inclination that is built into humanity for some reason There's always been that impulse for some people to do that.

It's very unfortunate. I think power, you can hide your power. You don't even have to show it. You can be powerful and nobody even know you're powerful because you don't have to use it. Yeah. That's when you're really powerful when you don't have to use it.

You're like, I'm so powerful, don't nobody even make me use it. Yeah, and you're using your power for good. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people with some good ideas in this world, and I think we're, you know, there's a lot of people that are very down on the future.

I don't think that helps anybody. I think there's a real possibility that we come out of this better. It's just, we have to think right and act right. And then sometimes you gotta go to the bottom, you know? They say, one of the books I read, it said that We have to think right and act right and then sometimes you got to go to the bottom, you know, they say they say One of the books I read it said that the end of the storm starts at the worst You know when you get to the worst you can bear the worst. That's the beginning of the end

That's the beginning of the end. So, you know, we got to go through the worst, you know, everybody buckled up and You know think that has to happen too. I really do I think people have to see things fall apart before they realize like, oh, we had it good. And we didn't even realize we had it good. Yeah. And now we're fucked. And now we have to turn this shit around.

We've been going the wrong way. We've been going the wrong way for sure. But we've been led the wrong way. And we've been led the wrong way by people, like what we were just talking about before, that use their power to subjugate others to keep everybody else down. And then we got all these old motherfuckers who've been running things for too long you know like why do you stay in the Senate and Congress for 30 years you know like. Did you ever look at the founding fathers

how young they were? I haven't. It's crazy. One of them was 18. One of them was 21. These are the people that started the Declaration of Independence. They signed it. These are the people that were the founding fathers of this experiment in self-government that you and I both live in. They were young as fuck, man. Now you look at the people that are in Congress now, you look at people like, you know, like the president. He can't even form a sentence. He doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan when he's talking to foreign leaders.

He's out of it. He's too old. He's too old. And then, you know, Mitch McConnell, he just locks up when he's talking to people. It's like, he's too old. He shouldn't be doing that. He's not trying to make the world a better place

He's just trying to not let go of his position of power and that's well a lot of them and they get there through years and years and years of being deeply embedded into the system and they know how to work it and Next thing you know, they're the top dogs. I think they all should go spend a couple days in jail You know wouldn't be bad. Yeah, just go sit there for a couple weeks, you know, and then see what it's like Go in the ghetto go in the homeless camp Let them then I'm living a homeless camp for for a week, you know Eat the food that they eat and then you really you really become an American I think if you're not experiencing

real life Then you don't know what real life is. Right. You know, if you don't see it, you don't touch it. You know, some of these people never go out to the communities. Right, they go straight from universities, right into jobs, in the system.

They work their way up the ladder. Yeah, and then they have disdain for the common people. Which it could have been them. Different roll of the dice, different circumstances, different life. Different parents. Different parents, different place you live. Different brother.

Different everything, could have been them. Could have been them. And people don't wanna think that. They genuinely wanna believe they're special, which I think is a trap. Well, we all special. Yeah, but I mean special different than everybody else. Yeah when you start to look down on everybody else that's bad. Yeah. You know

when you feel privileged for no reason. You know. Right. If you go out and you do something special you know then maybe you special you know but if you're not doing anything that anybody else can't do then you know better than nobody else. Well there's definitely special people but special people are people. And they're just people that have put an extraordinary amount of effort and time, and maybe they have just a God-given talent, and they've achieved incredible things. And those people also, what they do

is they elevate everyone around them, because they make you realize like, wow, my watermark was here, now it's here. Those are the people that I consider special. Yes. If you can make other people, if you can lift up other people, then you're special.

Yeah, I mean there's so many people just by virtue of their success and the example that they set. They changed the course of so many people's lives because they look to those people for inspiration and it gives them the energy to go out and do things. Yes. It gives them the energy, the thoughts, just the idea, like thoughts, the idea.

Like that guy did it, I can do it. That's what I want to do. I want to succeed. And it could be a great thing or it could be what happened to you. It's like the wrong inspiration. Absolutely. You know, you say, that's what these guys are succeeding. We don't have shit, they have money, I can do that.

And then you do that. But you know, that could be in your case, it turned out to not be good, but in other people's cases, in different things with different examples of people that are succeeding, like you could have done what you did in the drug game. If you had better opportunities in fucking anything. And it's the general genuinely, it's the discipline of an athlete, which is an extraordinary discipline. The discipline to force yourself to do things you don't want to do. You develop that ability, and the ability to like really hone in and focus and have drive

and a work ethic, that translates to everything. Everything. You just gotta find a different thing to do. Yeah, yeah. And now with the internet, it makes it better, but we gotta get people to where they understand that they should try to do it. Right.

You know, because once you get beat down, once you get beat down, you feel like, why should I try? I'm gonna get beat down again. Right. You know, I don't have the support, you know, I don't have the crutch to hold me in position until I can build my strength up to be on my own. I think that we as a society have to

give this to our children because if we don't, our children are gonna be in trouble. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, our entire society and our society, we're all supposed to be one team. This is this especially, yeah. Yes. I mean, if we have countries at all, if there is a, I mean, if you believe in America, you believe in any country, that's supposed to be your team.

So everybody is supposed to be on that team together. And everybody. Supposed to be trying to make the team win. Yes, the whole team. And that can be done. And no man left behind. No man left behind, yeah. And if something is wrong, you know, we got to look out for the ones that are slow. That's the sign of bad leadership in our country, that that's not being addressed. That's bad leadership. That all they're doing is serving the interests of all the wealthy people They got him into power in the first place and the wealthy people, you know, once you get wealthy

You should want to be a philanthropist. I mean In my opinion one of the greatest things That a person could do is help somebody else, you know, I mean that that is so to me That's like so fulfilling, you know, you You know, people tell me, you know, when I do stuff for people they be like, oh man, thank you, thank you. And I be like, thank you, I should be thanking you because you just made my day, you know.

I got off by doing that. Yeah, that's what people don't realize, like doing something nice for people is selfish. Yeah, I'll be feeling selfish. Like they might ask me for a picture in the airport and I be like, sure. You wanna take a picture with me? Right, you make them feel good,

but you make you feel good too. You make them feel good, and then you give them some good advice. Yes, yes. And it's like, wow, what a feeling it is, you know? So, I don't know, I just come up different, you know? And I'm from the streets. I'm from where people kill you for colors. Some of my first heroes was Tookie Williams.

I used to look up to Tookie Williams. I wanted to be like Tookie. I wanted to be a crip. So to now see the world to where I should be trying to save lives You know is a total different mentality than when I was 12 years old 11 years old You know and yeah, and I'm saying guys fight over color and stuff. That was because I was ignorant I didn't know any better right, you know But once I was educated to the facts that hey, we

supposed to be helping save lives, not destroying our life. What was it like once you got into jail and learned how to read and then started reading and recognizing that the world was just a much different place than you thought it was? Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. I hate that nobody ever sit me down and explain to me how exciting book reading was. And you know, the books I started to read was about making money. I gotta tell you that too. It was about either making money or how the mind works. You know, how to. How to think, how to think successfully, how to have faith in yourself, how to believe in you.

Because when you don't believe in yourself, it's hard to believe in anything. If you believe you're a loser, then you think everybody else is losers as well. So having these experiences in these books, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill just blew my mind. Fuck, people actually think like this here? You can think and grow rich, you can use your mind to create

and you only really need one idea that could make you a fortune. You know, that you shouldn't be allowing other people to feed your mind their ideas, you know, what they think you should be, you know, because when I was coming up, other people affected the way I thought, you know, like, man, you play tennis? That's a girl sport. You know, you, you, you write, you reading a book? Why you reading a book? You need a gun. You know, so these things start to shape your mind and, you know, when I find out from James Allen that I am the gardener of my mind and I have to keep

my mind weed free. I have to pluck the weeds out as soon as a negative thought pop in. Because even since I've been home, they didn't offer me coke. I had a few guys come, oh, I was just playing. Nudge you on the shoulder, I was just playing, just see where you was at with it. So as soon as those things happen, you got to get rid of them. Because when Blandon approached me about selling drugs again,

I wasn't planning on selling drugs no more. But when he kept offering it, and when I listened to the tape in court, man, you know I'm in court. We going to trial, and they playing the tapes of our recorded phone calls. And he says, Rick, I got 700 kilos. The first thing popped out of my mind, my mouth.

And I don't even know I said this, how much. First thing, and I done told myself, I have promised myself, Joe. I promised myself and my kids. I'm never selling coke again. But when he asked me that question on that tape, which is probably what convicted me, I said, how much? Wow.

Unconsciously. I think I had fallen asleep behind the wheel. So you had already decided to get out? I was out. I hadn't sold drugs in five and a half, six years. Really? Yeah. And the conversations on the phone, or what got you convicted?

Yeah. Was he wearing a wire? He was wearing a wire. Oh my God. Yeah, he was recording the conversation. he had already become a government informant And I asked him how much oh my god They played that over and over in the courtroom How much how much I just kept hearing myself say how much?

And I just put my head down because I knew that That was a crucial mistake because I knew that that was a crucial mistake. Pfft. Wow. Even though I didn't bite that time. I didn't bite. But you did say how much. I did say how much. That's all it took.

That's all it took. So that showed an interest. Oh my God. See if I would have said, oh, I don't fuck with drugs no more. But I'm talking to my partner. I'm talking to the homie. We chopping it up.

Right. Old times. Just out of curiosity how much. Good times, you know, sound like good times. I don't sell drugs anymore, but out of curiosity. What kind of figures are we talking about here? Yeah. It's exciting too, right?

Yeah. That's also a part of the problem. Regular life gets mundane. Selling drugs is exciting. I bet. The girls? Oh, I bet. Girls like drug dealers. I bet.

Drug dealers have a lot of money. Nice cars. Yeah. Pay for nice hotels. Yeah, girls like nice things. Buy you nice gifts. Nice shoes. Nice bag. Nice this. Nice clothes. So it nice gifts, nice shoes, nice bag,

nice this, nice clothes. So it's easy, you know, when I go out and I talk to these young guys, I don't criticize them because I understand what they're going through. And I understand that if we don't replace the drug with something else, don't even ask them to quit. Right. Why?

Why would you ask somebody not to feed their kids, not to be able to buy their girlfriends the shoes she wants, and we have to come up with things. Because most of the manufacturing jobs are overseas. Right. We don't make anything in America anymore. Very little, very little. Yeah, how crazy is that? Who the fuck didn't see that coming?

That was gonna ruin everything. Huh. Have people in other countries that are extremely poor work for almost nothing. It's weird, man. We're a goofy, goofy culture. And we have so much information. It's not like the solution is impossible to solve. Oh no, we can fix it. We can fix it. But we got to start right where we at. We got to put our hands down, our feet down and say, you know what, we're going to make a stance. You know, that's what I believe. You start with what you got, where you at. You know, that's what I believe. You start with what you got, where you at. You know, so many people want things to be perfect. No, it ain't gonna be perfect.

You know, you might have to go through a little something. You might have to miss a couple meals, you know, but this is what it's gonna take. Yeah, it's just hard if someone's already making a lot of money doing something illegal. It's very hard to tell them you're gonna make way less money and you're gonna work way harder and you're not gonna enjoy it,

but it's gonna be legal. That's a very hard sell, very hard sell. It is, it is, but we gotta put people first. We gotta learn. I mean, we gotta stop being stupid. Yeah. And I believe when we don't put people first, we gotta learn. I mean we gotta stop being stupid. Yeah. And I believe when we don't put people first, we're being stupid. Yes. Because without people there's no drugs. Right. There's no business. There's no nothing.

We are people. We are. It's us. It's us. It's just one team. Team human. That's a win baby. Yeah. The crazy thing is there's enough resources for everybody. There's enough for everybody. There really is. It's just our system is just manipulated and all fucked up and poorly organized and badly planned. I agree. Yeah.

I agree. You know, I'm deep, deep in the marijuana industry now and I'm watching these guys and these guys are making millions of dollars, but I'm watching them cut their own throat. I'm sitting here and I'm literally watching them, like, take razor blades to their necks. How so? Well, some of it I can't talk on the air about it

because it ain't proper on the air about it because It ain't proper right But I would just tell you that that that I'm being privileged to see this business destroy itself I'm watching them just Destroy their business, you know, no organization. No watching them just destroy their business. No organization, no camaraderie. I'm gonna beat this guy out, I'm gonna beat that guy out. I'm gonna put him out of business,

and they really gonna put themselves out of business at the same time. It's like, I saw a thing in National Geographic when I was in jail, and it was an alligator and one of those big water moccasins was fighting and The water moccasins wind up swallowing the alligator really yeah But in the process he swallowed the alligator so an alligator go inside. He's still alive He takes his claws and go like this here

He takes his claws and go like this here. Probably his last. It was probably a python. Might have been a python. Yeah, that's in the Everglades. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the largest population of pythons in the world is in the Everglades? I didn't know that.

They're not even from the Everglades? I didn't know that. Just assholes releasing them. And then maybe a research center that got hit with a hurricane. There's a lot of speculation about how the population got so large but there's over half a million pythons well but yeah they swallow the alligator and the alligator cuts its way out of their body and then they both die they both die

there's a photo of one of a 12-foot alligator bursting out of the body of a python look at this so this python swallowed this alligator and then the alligator's tail is poking out of it as it clawed its way out. That's its tail. Yeah. So they're both dead. They both died. Yeah. And especially when you're talking about the weed business. How much weed can you sell? You really want to put everybody out of business? Are you fucking retarded? Why don't you just like make as much money as you can and then encourage all these other people to make as much money as they can and hang out together? Go have a barbecue together. Go fucking go to dinner together. Let everybody do good. Everybody set limits.

Everybody set limits. Okay we're gonna make this amount of money. Yeah. The competition is within yourself. The competition is to do better. And if you see other people doing better than you, you say, what are they doing different than me? You should be inspired instead of trying to like squash their business. They can't think. It's stupid. It's a stupid. These people can't think. They like gangbangers almost to me. It's very similar

There's the same patterns those patterns exist in politics in business in everything drug dealing gangbanging Everything used to exist like that in comedy used to be the comedians were all out for themselves You know just take someone to kind of explain to everybody like this is stupid. There's not that many of us. We're all in this together. There's no, it doesn't benefit you at all if someone fails. Let's make society better. Yes, let's make everything better.

Let's make the community better. Let's make everything better. That's what it's supposed to be about. That's what it should be about. When it's all said and done, you know, I read a book and the guy says, when you're at the end, how do you want wanna be remembered?

And me, I want people to say, maybe they might say I sold drugs, I don't care about that part. I only sold drugs eight years. But at the end, I wanted to say he made the world a better place, because he lived. When I go out like that there, I'll be a happy man. Well, sometimes you have to do the wrong thing

in order to be an example of someone who can do the wrong thing and course correct and then become a better person. Like, if you're just a good person from the beginning, that's kind of boring. I like a guy who fucks up a few times and then figures it out, and then that can inspire people who have already fucked up Their life because people want to think that once they fucked up to life. Oh my god

I'm a fuck-up, but that's not really the case You just this life is like treat it like a game like if you lose one hand of cards You're not a card loser for the rest of your life. You got to figure out. What did I do wrong? Well, I hit at 17. I should have just stuck and I would've been all right. You gotta learn and the only way to learn is to fuck up. And this idea that once someone fucks up, they are a fuck up. No, they're a human being.

They're a human being with either bad information or bad counseling or bad examples and they went down the wrong way. Get off the carpet. They knock you down, get carpet. Yeah, they knock you down get up Yep, get up because they say they say you still the champ as long as you get up Well, a lot of people will disagree with that. I mean, it's just

It's unfortunate this mentality that people have it's a famine mentality and there's enough for everybody There really is and it's also what you were saying that you like, it's selfish to be generous, it's selfish to be nice, it's selfish to help people, because it makes you feel better, it really does. It's really beneficial to you, and you feel good about yourself. You're like, at the end of the night,

when you lay your head down, you're like, I'm not a piece of shit, I'm a good guy, I'm helping people, people like me, and I like them, and everybody, we all benefit, and everybody grows. And that's nice. That's a good way. I'm helping people people like me and I like them and everybody we all benefit and everybody grows That's nice. That's a good way to live your life And that's a good example to set and that can be done and there's this idea that there's you know That's just you against the world. That's That's crazy. Yeah, that's getting that's gonna fuck you over

And I think that's a big problem that we have and you know hopefully we can start working on that. Have you met this rapper that has been running around with your name? He dodges me. He dodges me. You've never seen him? No I call him Bad Legs Slipwrap. You see what happened the other night he walked Adrian Broner into the ring. Oh and Adrian Broner got knocked out? Oh he didn't get knocked out he got beat up. The worst the worst beating he ever got before in his life. Adrian Broner is a cautionary tale because he was an incredibly talented young man very very talented when he was young but he fucked off too much and he didn't stay the path and didn't stay disciplined and you know he had some losses and

Madonna hurt him that was like the first one. Yeah, there's a few different fights He just you know, and now what is he 35 36? broke and if you're if you're Normal men healthy men when they hit 36 their body starts to decline Absolutely, and he's not that healthy I mean he was fat just a little while ago Gervonta Davis took him in and he started training with Gervonta and he documented it so he showed photos of like he had this big belly he looked

fat and out of shape and then leaned himself down to where he had a six-pack again but you're just getting back in shape these motherfuckers that you're fighting has been in shape for a decade. They stay in shape for a decade. Their reflexes and timing and technique is finally honed to a razor's edge. You can't just jump back in and compete with some dude who's been on the game for 10 fucking straight years. And is focusing on the path.

It takes a long time to get back to where you were. Forget about to where they are. You might look the part, you may be able to hit pads and everybody's like, oh, he's back. The difference between success and failure in the boxing game is fractions of a second. Fractions of a second. The ability to maintain a pace

for as many rounds as the fight is. The understanding of how to pace yourself, the ability to handle the pressure, the pressure of knowing that you've fucked up for so long and this is a big opportunity, the nerves, the anxiety, the sleepless nights before the fight, all that's gonna weigh on you. All those different things. When you look at the elite of the elite boxers, to a man, to every one of them, they're disciplined and they stay focused.

And like, okay, you know who's the same age as Adrian Broner? Terrence Crawford, best boxer in the world. I agree. Best boxer. I agree. He, I am so excited to see this fight with Canelo Alvarez because I think the Saudi Arabians have so much money.

They are throwing so much money at boxing and the guy who's the head of boxing over there wants to make that fight happen. I think Terrence Crawford, forget about the three-way classes. I think he could beat Canelo. I think he can too. He's the best switch hitter in boxing since Marvin Hagler. And he's so...

And his hands are like rocks. I held his hand in Dallas. You know, I found Kit Austin, the boxer. Oh, did you? Yeah, when he was 2-0. his hand in Dallas, you know I found kid Austin, the boxer. Oh did you? Yeah, he was 2-0, so I helped him get to where he's at now even though I don't get any credit for it. A lot of people fucking you over man.

So I went to that fight and Terrence was there and I was with Anthony Peterson, I manage Anthony Peterson. Anthony's 39, he wants to come back, so we're gonna see. But Anthony deals with it a little different. Anthony stays in shape, sparring. But anyway, I held Terrence's hand, and they so damn big, and they like a sack of rocks. I was like, damn, this dude's hands are like rocks.

So I'm taking Terrence in that fight as well. I took him in the Earl Spence fight too. Yeah, I thought Earl spent first of all Earl Spence that car accident is crazy If you watch that car accident, nobody comes out of a car accident like that not damaged He had to get brain damage from that car accident that that car flipped he got thrown out of the car Luckily wasn't wearing a seat belt, which is so crazy It's one of the few times where someone not wearing a seatbelt saved their life. Benefited.

Yeah, crazy. But that had to fuck him up. I mean, he was undefeated before that. Yeah. But you know what, Crawford's just so good anyway. And he's a different guy. He's a different guy. You know, no parties, no drinking.

No, he's clever. He's clever. He sets traps. You know, he's not just a power striker I mean not that aero spent is not a great boxer. He's a great boxer, but I think Terrence is one of the all-time greats He's just so slick Like you know like he talked about how he knew that he was gonna eat a punch in order to counter So he had to like put himself in range so the new Earl could hit him so that he could crack him

He's like I knew I had a gamble on this And you know, this is like levels to the way that guy fight the game he plays. Yeah when he gets you hurt you're fucked Oh, yeah, you're fucked. Oh, yeah, you don't want to be hurting there with him He's not gonna miss on opportunities He's on that all-time greatness track. But again, he's like the same age as Adrian Broner. It's like Adrian Broner, when he was young, was crazy talented. He was so fast and so good.

But you can't fake that game. You are either all in or you are faking it. Yeah. And if you are faking it, you're gonna run into some dude who's all in. You're gonna run into some David Benavides character that's just not skipping days. No.

Not skipping days. Who really want it. Really wants it. It's everything all day long. But you know it's hard when they get the money to stay on that track. Yes. When they get rich, you know. Yep. You wanna enjoy? Mm-hmm. I guess you want to enjoy your money, of course, you know, of course, but

You know that comes out of price and some people the only person that I know that has really been able to avoid that temptation is Floyd Floyd Mayweather was still elite the elite of the, while he had hundreds of millions of dollars. Just still, he would go to a club, drink water, and then run home, was jeans on. Run home for miles. He'd have his driver's drive and he would run behind him. We picked him up in Memphis, he got off the plane,

looked like he was on the plane working out. He probably was. Yeah, he had on his shorts and was sweaty, and he ran straight in, went in the shower, showered up and put his suit on and went to the club. So what you're saying is what I believe is to be correct. Yeah, he shows you all the watches and shows you all the cars and shows you the big house and what you don't see is the discipline. The just a straightforward eyes on the prize discipline and focus that's how you get to be a Floyd Mayweather

you don't get to be a Floyd Mayweather any other way yeah there's a lot of talented people out there there's a lot of people that are gifted athletically gifted they're faster than other folks they hit harder than other folks but it's the discipline the focus that leads you to the end. That's how you become a great. There's no other way. No one becomes like a Sugary Leonard or a Floyd Mayweather or a Tommy Hearns without discipline. It doesn't happen.

You have to stay focused, always. And if you don't, then worse. Then you're left with a life of regret. Well, that's what we were saying about the drug business. I mean it applies to really anything. Anything. And that's why I believe that I can play major roles in so many different businesses because,

you know, and I'm at the point in my life that I know that all I gotta do is sacrifice for a couple months and you're in the game, you know? I've been in boxing now for like six years, you know? Really? Yeah, I manage about six or seven fighters. Who do you manage? I got a guy, Bashan Champ right now, Alvin Vermeer.

I just signed the kid. I just signed my first national champs. I got like four national champs. Ashland out of North Carolina. Damn, I can't even think everybody's name. I shouldn't have named nobody. Everybody be like, why you didn't mention me? Why you didn't give me a shout out?

But I got about four national champs and I'm signing this year. And I'm not a big fan of boxing. You're not? No, I'm not, I'm not. Really? I mean, I think when you're trying to knock the most valuable thing that a human being has,

which is their brain, you're trying to knock their brain out, I think it's kind of, it's almost like dealing coke almost. So why are you involved in it? Because I hate to see these guys wind up broke at the end of their careers. And they're going to do it anyway. So you're going to try to help them. I'm going to try to stop that.

And then they have so much influence over our people, man. They can say a word, and our people just follow them. That is the thing. When you see someone succeed and someone who lives a disciplined life, especially if you're like a fan of a boxer, it'll make you want to live like that. Yeah, so I just felt that I could step in and really help these guys with their money as well as help them become the mentors that they should be.

And that's why I got into boxing. And I started, you know, Floyd picked me up from the halfway house. He did? Yeah. Really? He picked me up from the halfway house. Yeah.

That's crazy. And I was trying to, you know, show him what I know, but he didn't really want to use me for that. You know. Have you ever seen anybody confront Rick Ross about you? Not in person, no. Anytime I'm around, he disappears.

But is there any video of anybody, like hey, why are you running around with this dude's name when this dude's out of jail now? Well, you know, these guys, they're kind of like, like we talked about, when you got some money, they don't care if you beating women or making them lick tampons, you know, everybody fuck with you. So he was on top of the world at one time.

He was a corrections officer. Yeah, but he was, but when he got some money, they forgot about he was a correction officer. You got gangsters doing records with him and people who say, oh, I hate snitches and all this, but they're doing records with a police people who say, oh, I hate snitches and all this, but they're doing records with a police officer who put handcuffs. I got letters from guys that was in jail with him when he was a correctional officer and they told me what a shitty guy he was,

that they would be shooting dice, he would take the dice and all the money and they got extra soup, he'd take the soups. Wow. And just stuff that normal officers just don't, officers, I mean, everybody in jail got the soups and stuff that normal officers just don't. I mean, everybody in jail got extra soups. You say your soups, cause it might come a time and you ain't got them, so you stack your stuff up.

But most officers don't even care. Who cares about extra soup? We trying to get the dope dealers and the guys with the knives, but then you got those ones and they're like, oh, well you got extra pair of underwear You're going to the hole And that's how he was that's how he was

They say that's the kind of comp he was like and then when I hear that he's the biggest gangster rapper on the planet It's like it's just so crazy What is it like having a dude running around out there with your name? Like if there was a rapper out there named jo Rogan, I'd be like, what the fuck? I mean, it's crazy, you know, like, how would you take my name and not have the decency to ask me first of all, you should have asked, but then never pay homage you know he won't even admit that he stole the name he tells people that he invented the name like how the fuck do you invent this name well it's so

crazy because the name was famous your name was famous everybody knew who you were when the the case came out and when the connection to the Iran Contra affair came out When when everybody found out what was going on that like you were a legend. Yeah, you throw a few million dollars you know toward Instagram and Facebook and You know the radio station and everybody forget about that, you know, and you put a little gold chain on And it's just a rose voice and a couple pretty girls. It's one thing if his name was Rick Ross it's possible there could be another Rick Ross out there this other I've met other Joe Rogan's that's real. Me too I met other Rick Ross's. But what the fuck

man the guy knows who you are everybody knows who you are, everybody knows who you are, takes your name. I mean it's like, it doesn't even make sense that it's like, didn't you have a case? You had like a legal case about it. Yeah, I lost the case. How the fuck did you lose? They say I should have filed a lawsuit. The judge, the judge got to make a technical decision. She had to make a decision when did the public first become known of him using my name. So what she did is she picked a little radio station outside of Miami that played his record for the first time.

So that was the date that the public first became known that he was using the name. So there was a statute of limitations when you were supposed to address it? Yes. How much time? Two years. What? Yeah, you get two years. So if we went by her time frame, I

should have filed my lawsuit five days before I got out of jail. Oh my god. I was five days late. That's so crazy. But I think she would have found another reason to come up with a date. Well, the record company probably would have helped. I mean mean think about how much money they're making off of him Oh, yeah, they would owe me they have 15 lawyers

Oh, you know how much money they say they spend on the lawsuit how much one and a half million dollars? Wow, you know how much they offer me how much zero zero. They never come and say hey man What would you have accepted just to like? Zero, they never come and say hey man. What would you have accepted just to like? Well, you know Joe my mom we was getting evicted at my mom's house during the time of the lawsuit So I imagine if she was losing a house for 220,000 so if somebody would have came up and say hey, I'll say your mom's house Because you know I was worried about my mom. My mom was, at that time she was 83, 84,

and one of my biggest concerns was her being homeless. So I probably would have took 220,000. If he would have came and said, hey, I'm gonna say your mom's house, let me have Rick Ross, change your name to Mitch, or whatever. Well, you wouldn't have to change your name. That's crazy. It's licensed. I wouldn't have to change your name. That's crazy.

It's licensed. I didn't even care about the name. I didn't care about the name like that. I just felt that it was so disrespectful that he didn't come and ask me or he didn't show any consideration or pay any homage to the fact that he actually took my name. So, but yeah, I probably would have took 250,000. If they'd have said 300,000, I would have been tickled pink. Because I felt that I didn't need much money to get started.

Meanwhile, they spent 1.5? 1.5 million. I owe them right now. I owe them a million dollars. What? I got a million dollar judgment against me. Because you have to pay their legal fees. I have to pay their legal fees.

Oh my God. And then the judge was like, oh, well I don't believe you guys actually spend 1.5 million, but maybe a million dollars. Oh my God. She gave me a million dollar judgment. Isn't that insane for your name, your fucking name, and you can't appeal this?

Well, we appealed it, but you know, once you lose to the appeals court, you're not going to the Supreme Court or anything like that. So, yeah, that's how he wound up being able to continue to use the name. You know, he changed to Rosado because they thought they might lose. If this judge picks a different date, you know, we go to trial. And they, you know We go to trial Right and and they didn't want to go to trial I didn't think I think if they didn't want to trial everybody in LA would have like they would have hammered him

Like, you know, you stole that name if you'd have heard if you'd have heard the thing that he did, you know Cuz we did his deposition We took his depot. That was the first time I ever met him in person, you know, he wouldn't shake my hand either No, when he walked in, all the attorneys, it was a big table, it was about 12 people in the room, and he walks in, and he walks around the table, he shakes everybody, including my lawyer, he shakes my lawyer's hands and everybody,

and I stood up to shake his hand, because I don't have no hard feelings, you know, just give me my money. Right? So he bros his eyes at me and walks away, turn his little shoulder like... Wow. You know, like, I ain't, you know. And then he comes up with this, this...

Oh, my goodness, I don't know where he got the story from. He said he played football in high school, and the whole team was called the Big East and some guy was trying to call him Big East and accidentally called him the Big Boss and then somebody else called him Rick Ross. It went from Big Boss to Rick Ross. That's his story. That's the how he came up with the name Rick Ross. That's the dumbest fucking story I've ever heard in my life. If I'd have been the judge, I would have hammered him just for saying, you know, come in my courtroom lying like that.

I would have been like- That's the dumbest story. But that's impossible. If he's rapping about drug dealing and money, it's impossible that he doesn't know who you are. Impossible. Impossible. Not possible. I agree. Everybody knew. I knew

who you were. I had heard the story. I don't even remember when I read about it. When Gary Webb published the story in 96 with the San Jose Mercury News, my name that year was one of the biggest names in the country. Yeah. Because the story was insane. It was the first time any story had ever been published on the internet by a major newspaper. Remember? Remember! The internet was brand new. So when they published that article on the internet, no story had ever... Because remember the CIA tried to recall that article, but you know once it hit the internet it can't be recalled. They tried to recall the article? You don't remember?

I don't. They, the printed copies, they stopped doing it. They took the CIA emblems off and everything. Really? Yeah, they made them take all that stuff off. But the internet couldn't be, you know, you couldn't take it back at the time. Once it hit the internet, it's like, boom,

it's all over the world. You know, when you hit that button, there ain't no recall. If you all over the world. When you hit that button, ain't no recall. If you put something on that thing and you hit that button, what you said is what you said. You're gonna have to live with that. So when it went viral, it was nothing they could do. And it just went crazy. So everybody picked it up.

CNN, Nightline, Dayline, 20-20, you know, I'm doing, I'm doing like six interviews for my jail cell every day. Every day people coming out and talking to me. And I told you that's when the CIA came down. The CIA came to my jail cell and interviewed me. The CIA, the OIG, Congress, Maxine Waters. I mean, it was like, fuck, Maxine Waters.

I mean, it was like, fuck, I become a celebrity in jail. Like, they start treating me differently. What did the CIA say to you in jail? What did I know about cocaine, being trafficked by the Contras? Which, you know, I didn't really know about the Contras. You know, I knew Danello. I don't know about no damn Contras. And, you know, I knew- You knew the guy who was supplying you. Yeah, that's all I know. I don't know about no damn Contras. You knew the guy who was supplying you.

Yeah, that's all I know. I don't know if he was a Contra or CIA informant. I don't know none of that shit. I never cared. I'm a little bit 28, 30 year old guy from South Central, never watched the news. I'd heard about the Iran-Contra stuff, but that shit didn't mean nothing to me. Had no effect on South Central LA. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that my prices and my drug quality, depending on what happened over there,

I'm not paying no attention to that. I'm just worried about, man, my drugs gonna get here on time, is it gonna be cheap, Is it gonna be good? So when all that stuff was coming about, they wanted to know how much money I was making, you know, who I bought drugs from, what years I bought drugs. You know, just a whole, basically like an interview. So how do you think it worked?

Do you think there's like a rogue element that was inside of the government? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But, but, I'm not mean to cut you off. No, go ahead. Because it was a rogue element to it. But the rogue element come from the top as well.

Not that they necessarily sanctioned it, but they knew about it. They turned a blind eye. They turned a blind eye. It was a saying Nancy Reagan said, say no, and Ronald Reagan said, act like you don't know. So they admit it, they admit it. They admit it.

See, I admit it. Yes, we knew they were selling drugs. And we did nothing to stop them. So right there is a crime. Because if you're an agent of the government and you know somebody's committing a crime, you're supposed to stop it. But they understood that if they stop that, they lose the war.

Right. Phew. It just makes you wonder how much of that shit was going on during the Vietnam War. Because a lot of people think that the Vietnam War was, a lot of it was about moving heroin. Yeah, I heard that as well. And that makes sense. It makes sense. Like, if you are in a bit, especially the Vietnam War, right?

Because the Vietnam War was started with a false flag. So the Gulf of Tonkin incident starts the Vietnam War. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never took place. It was a fake incident. They said, we were attacked by North Korea, or excuse me, North Vietnam. We have to go in there and fight the Viet Cong. Never happened. It was fake. They made it up just to we have to go in there and fight the Viet Cong. Never happened. It was fake.

They made it up just to get us to go to war. So if you're willing to kill, who knows how many Americans died in that war? Hundreds of thousands, probably. How many people died during the Vietnam War? How many American soldiers? I think it's close to 100,000, maybe more. And then how many Vietnamese got killed? The overall cost of lives is catastrophic.

And they did it knowing. Well, you know that sometime they feel that... 58,220 US fatal casualties. And that doesn't include how many people were wounded and fucked up for the rest of their life how many people died totally How many people died to all deaths Vietnam War? What's the total deaths? That's just American deaths in any count H and orange right right 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war. Casualties means death.

Right, I understand. Including 415,000 deaths and estimated by the Defense Department gave the figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, 195,000. So it's all controversial what the actual number was. 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during that period. Fuck, man. So if they're willing to do that, you don't think they're willing to make money off drugs. I mean, if they're willing to let people die so they can achieve their objectives, they're. Well, they felt that, you know, to sacrifice a few people, to stop what they felt was the greatest threat to America. Was with Russia being on our southern hemisphere, you know, being in Nicaragua.

They felt that that was the greatest threat at that time to our democracy. And they felt that they would do anything to stop that. What a crazy thing to do though. To think about the sacrifices, what it's gonna do to American citizens, including the people that like you, went to jail for helping them. The whole thing is crazy.

And they probably did it during Afghanistan too. And we still suffering now, that's the homeless problem. Most of the people that's homeless was on crack. Right, right. Or something else, or opiates or meth Yeah, what's going on right now? Yeah crazy It's just so much so much wrong and

You know we were just saying I think that's a lot of the Afghanistan war too There was a one of the best videos out of the Afghanistan war that's so ridiculous is watching Geraldo Rivera interview soldiers that are guarding poppy fields because they have to guard the poppy fields because if they don't then these poppy farmers won't side with them and then they'll side with the Taliban. So they're they're interviewing American soldiers who are guarding heroin being grown and then during the United States occupation of Afghanistan heroin production went up I think at the peak like 96% yeah, I heard that as well and it's a giant it was a giant percentage of the world supply of heroin and

We are guarding it What and it didn't become that until after we went over there. And you don't think someone had a piece of that? That's crazy talk. If they did it with the Contras and the Sandinistas, you don't think they would do it with Afghanistan? I think there's rogue elements that look at drug dealing and look at it as an opportunity to make money to fund black ops projects To fund things that are you know that don't get put on the ledger Nobody has to know about well, I mean and Just think that if we didn't have

Situations like what you got here with your podcast the people wouldn't even know about this stuff. Where would the normal person find out? They're not gonna talk about that on CNN, Nightline, Dayline, NBC, none of those people gonna talk about these topics. I mean, I'll be totally baffled, Joe, with some of the stuff that takes place in this country. I've been on every major news channel in this country.

Since I've been home, I feel I have done some amazing things. I spoke at UCLA, USC, Stanford, St. John's, nobody covered it. Nobody came and heard me talk to young people about how they're gonna get started selling drugs, how you're gonna get introduced to drugs, who's gonna introduce you to drugs. Like most people don't even know how people get introduced to drugs.

They thinking that it's some boogie man that comes with a dark jacket on, and he's hiding in the dark. Hey little kid, you want some drugs? And I'm like, no, that's not how it's gonna happen. It's gonna be your best friend. It's gonna be your uncle, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister.

Those are the ones that you trust. Those are the ones that can get your confidence to make you accept something that, you know, some strange guy come around, you know, most girls gonna take off, you know. But your friends, the people that you care about, that you trust, you gonna believe in them. And they cover none of this.

Nobody covers this. Nobody talks about this. Nobody talks about good things that are going in the community, you know, feeding the homeless, people who are trying to do housing, like your guy who you just showed me. I never heard of this guy. Right.

You know, why is he not being talked about? Why is he not on the news? You know, why they're not trying to get funding for him? You know, why they're not saying, man man if this guy had a couple hundred million dollars or or You know, I mean in California taxpayers agreed To give up extra taxes. I think they raised like a billion and some change for the homeless problem Where'd the money go? Where's that money bureaucracy?

That's where it went to went to a bunch of people's salaries. It didn't fix shit. And that's the problem that I have with our major news people. It's biased. They're not going to keep it 100. They're not going That's what's really crazy. The news probably shouldn't be allowed to be advertised. They shouldn't be allowed to have advertisers because as soon as you have advertisers, especially like pharmaceutical drug companies and big corporations, then you can't criticize those people. Those people are the people that pay your bills. And even if it's not written down anywhere, you're not gonna go do an investigative journalism on Pfizer. If brought to you by Pfizer, you're not gonna do any of that shit. There you go, right there.

You're not gonna do that shit. So you're not the news anymore. And that answers your question about the rapper. Yeah. Why wouldn't they question him? Because he's backed by big corporations. Exactly. Exactly. And he's worth a lot of money. He's going to keep generating money for all those people.

And he still is. How many years ago was this case? Ooh, wee. Yeah. Think about how much money he's made with that name since that case. I can't remember. 10 years, 12 years. I was still on parole when we were doing that case. He bought a Vander Holley fields house in Atlanta Yeah, you know that house at a vendor Holly feel yeah Vander when he was a champ was going crazy, and I guess he just built the craziest fucking house I mean, it's just this enormous enormous house on this giant piece of land with 50 50 some bedrooms I heard something crazy like I don't know what he was doing.

I guess he just wanted the biggest crazy, I'm the fucking champ. I want the biggest craziest fucking house that's ever existed. And he had to wind up selling it. And then Rick Ross lives in it now. Just like nuts. Guys running around with your name.

But that's our system. And those are the people that are leading our people. They're the ones that's dictating what's going to go on in society. Man. I mean, so much of our kids are being educated by music, by TV. Yeah. I mean, I've actually went to a school,

and the kids accused me of stealing his name. Ha ha ha! How old were the kids? 14, 15. Did you have to tell them? Yeah, I told them. They didn't believe me. They didn't believe you? No.

Wow. Because they've been brainwashed. You know what they call it? Programming. Yeah. Over and over and over and over again. And that's why I started my own record label You know the two guys that's outside those are two artists that I'm working with right now. Go ready and and juice the Mac

I Said you know what? I'm gonna start my own label. I'm gonna get somebody to go against you You have fight fire with fire so, you know, into it. I'm doing so many things right now, man. But I'm having fun, Joe. That's good. It's good to hear. I'm helping people.

It's good to see you having. I'm helping them with their career, and I enjoy helping people with their career. That's beautiful. So the marijuana business, did you get nervous about being in, because it is still federally illegal even though is it is it officially? Scheduled three now or is it scheduled to be scheduled three like what is the current status of I? Always stayed away from it. I got a bunch of offers to do it like as a trap Still schedule one yeah, you know

Like there's like I said that Delta 9 stuff. That's legal. Yeah. You know? Like, there's, like I said, that Delta 9 stuff, that's legal, I think, in every state. Totally. Totally. Well, no, some states abandon it. I think I know. Weed states abandon it. Oh, really?

Because it's taking away tax dollars. Oh, no. So weed states are banning Delta 9 THC? That is hilarious. It goes against marijuana. Oh my god. That's taking away marijuana sales. Spy versus spy, dog eat dog. Because they can't tax, you know they can't tax CBD.

Well CBD is different. We're talking about Delta 9 THC, but CBD should be the same. It's a derivative, you know, It's all part of the same. They fall under the same category. Really? Yeah. Interesting. They're just a little different. Well, isn't Brittany Greiner, she

got arrested in Russia for CBD vape pen, right? Which a lot of people ask. I think that was marijuana. Was it marijuana? They said it was marijuana. OK, so she was saying it was CBD. Oh, just a little CBD. Because they do have CBD vape pens. They do. I know people like. Okay, so she was saying it was CBD? Because they do have CBD vape pens. They don't know people like what

CBD is phenomenal for inflammation. It's so good just for just general well-being and just health and alleviating anxiety alleviating inflammation CBD is phenomenal and this place is that where that's illegal, which is just bananas. Yeah. And California's trying to make it illegal right now, because it's taking away their tax dollars. That is so stupid. That's so stupid. It hurts my feelings.

Because they sell it in every smoke shop. They got CBD. They're trying to make it illegal? Yeah. Oh my God. That's so dumb. That's so dumb. That is so dumb. But a lot of states

that actually sell marijuana. What happens next? The process of reclassifying a substance is lengthy. There's still more hurdles to clear. The plan has been approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland and heads next to the DEA which will take public comment on the proposal after a 60-day comment period. There will be a review by an administrative judge. The move started with a recommendation from the Federal Health and Human Services Department, which wants to review the drug's status and the urging of President Biden in 2022. This is a long-ass process.

But the DEA has not yet formed its own determination as to where marijuana should be scheduled, and it expects to learn more during the rulemaking process That's funny learn more. Come on guys Come on guys. Yeah, you know what it is with DEA. They don't want to be of course. They can keep locking people up Oh, we need more money. That's what's really crazy. It's the prison guard unions Yeah, prison guard unions lobby to make sure that marijuana stays illegal in certain places Absolutely need that is something that's got big budgets lobby to make sure that marijuana stays illegal in certain places. Absolutely. That is something that-

They got big budgets. Yeah, they do. And that is something that is just wrong. That is wrong in this world that we have private prisons and that we have people that are benefiting and profiting off of people being in jail. Because as soon as you make a profit off of something, you're going to want to keep making that profit. Yes, and they want to keep you there longer. if imagine if there was just no more lawbreakers imagine if though

Genie cast a magic spell on the world and everybody just stopped committing crimes No more crimes, and then you can't Put anybody in prison What the fuck they'd be like what about our business? Let's make other things crimes. How about thought crimes? What the fuck they'd be like what about our business? Let's make other things crimes. How about thought crimes? You know I don't like the way you looked at me. They got a crime. We got these big facilities. We built yeah worth Unbelievable amounts of money that generate money They treat human beings like a battery like you're a battery that generates money, and that's what it's like in these things It's bizarre that we allow that it It's bizarre that people didn't see

where that was going. They allowed private prisons. Well, they sold fear. Yeah, well, and this country sells it better than anybody. If you don't lock them up, they're going to come into your house and rob you and kill you. Here's a big thing that's a hang up for Schedule III drugs. Okay, for example, the proposal does not specify whether state licensed dispensaries would need to be licensed pharmacies because only a pharmacy can dispense schedule three

drugs. Other questions surrounded the coordination of federal regulations related to drug approval, manufacturing, supply chain, monitoring, storage, and prescribing. So prescribing, we'd go back to prescribing it. Yeah it needs to be legal. What happens if it gets legal in all the states? Here's the thing, it's legal right now for recreational use in how many states? I think it's 19. Is it 19 states?

So what happens if it's all 50? And the federal government is not with us. Here the federal government, we believe, is a schedule one and they still allow it allowed to be taxed Yes, when it becomes a schedule three the taxes are changed to right there probably make less kids Yeah, they make less taxes as a schedule 24 now that allow 24 24 38 of the country. Yes. So 38 states have medical Is Texas have medical 38 they do but it's very low. You have AIDS

Door you gotta be on death's door. Look give them one joint and Regulate it, but you can believe a lot of money coming out of Texas going other places. Yeah, it's stupid It's stupid because they're not exactly it should be legal 38 medical and recreational So 19 just say 24 so half the country Three states have no access. It's Idaho Nebraska and Kansas so Texas has a CBD low THC program and then adult and medical use regulated program is all over the place now. New Mexico, Nevada,

California, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, even fucking New York, which is like, New York used to be a bad place to get weed. If you got weed in New York, if you smoke weed outside, they'd arrest you, you'd get caught outside, try to buy weed, I mean, New York was sketchy. And now I go there, and there's stores everywhere, I'm like, this is this is great Vegas Vegas was dangerous

Man during the 70s when Hunter s Thompson's day You would get fucking thrown in jail for your life for your whole life for having weed on you and now they have stores Every stores in the country. Yeah huge stores It should be that way everywhere and they should make money from taxes. Let's not be stupid So what does the federal government do if now it's 24, so it's literally half the country has legal marijuana. What happens if it's all of the country? The federal government is like, we're the country. Now the fucking, it's supposed to be the states you assholes. Like this is set up this way on purpose. If

you, you, you have to have the states give the states rights to regulate things. If the people have decided and all those other states look man if you ask the average person if we had a vote just a popular opinion vote in this country whether marijuana should be legal it'd be legal tomorrow. I agree. 100% I mean what is the amount of people that approve and the amount of people that don't approve it, they're probably ignorant. Or they're people that are like hardcore,

anti-everything people. Yeah, yeah. But the... I think the country would be safer. I mean, have you ever known anybody smoking marijuana to go out and commit a robbery, hit somebody over the head? No, they're gonna sit on the couch and they're gonna get something to eat.

Yeah. They're gonna be watching TV. It's not the kind of drug that encourages people to do horrible things. If I had my way, I would give it to gang bangers for free. Nearly seven in 10 registered voters favor legalizing the recreational use of marijuana on a national level. Seven out of 10. Wow.

It's still illegal. I mean, how, is that we the people? No mean how is that we the people what is that? No What is that is that to serve and protect what the fuck is going on? What are you doing? It's just weed kids We know what it is. You know many people died from weed zero ever zero ever zero ever The only way you die from weed is if a CIA drug plane throws a bail out the window of a plane and it hits you in the head. That's how you die from it. Are they raiding your house and shoot you?

Yeah, or you, yeah. Because you were selling weed. Get a no-knock raid, yeah. And they, no-knock raids are crazy. That is crazy. Just bust into someone's house, and if someone breaks into your house, what do you do?

You shoot them. That's what most people do, and then the cops shoot you. It's like, the whole thing is crazy Yeah, why would you eat? Why would you be writing somebody house for weed for weed for weed? I mean we're gonna look back in the future on this The white like they look at the Inquisition we're gonna what the fuck was wrong with people back then Yeah, they're gonna look at us like now how many people went to jail and people's lives got ruined over marijuana How much money kidding how much money did they blow exactly? How many people went to jail? How many people's lives got ruined over marijuana? Are we kidding?

How much money did they blow? Exactly. Talking about they have a homeless population that don't have a place to stay, and people not having anything to eat. It's going to be crazy. Yeah, you can tax it, folks. Legalize it and tax it. Even if you don't want to do it yourself, you don't have to do it yourself. I know a lot of people that hate weed. Good. Don't use it. You don't have to. I get it. And don't sell it. Don't sell it.

But you know what's so funny? The people who used to lock everybody up, now they're selling it. A lot of them do. Yeah. I know cops that sell weed now. Well, the biggest cop, the biggest weed dealer probably in America was an ex-cop. He's the biggest guy. He just bought five million dollars, I mean five million eight, no five million square feet of grow area. That's so bananas. He's the biggest, he's the biggest guy probably in the country. Well good for him, but that should be. Did you lock people up? So nuts, so nuts. I mean those should be the guys that be... That used to lock people up. So nuts. So nuts. I mean, those should be the guys that say, oh, you still lock people up for marijuana, you cannot get into business.

If I had my way, that's what I would do. Hey, did you lock somebody up? Yeah. Okay, you can't get in. Or we take the amount of time that you locked all those people up for and then you have to wait that amount of time Before you get so So you can sell weed in three more lives Probably wouldn't be that probably like hundred lives. Yeah, this is this country's crazy man. Well people are crazy People are crazy everywhere, you know, it's like it's hard to keep your shit together

You know and the and we give people power over other people people that don't have their shit together a power over other people And then things get just get worse. Yeah It's weird. It's weird. We don't learn, you know, a friend of mine sent me the lyrics to Song I'd love to change the world which is like 70, 71 or something like that. And he's like, isn't it crazy if there's like a cycle? Like because the same shit they're talking about then is going on now. And then I sent him this Assyrian tablet from 2800 BC that talked about the same thing.

We talked about it the other day on the podcast, this Assyrian tablet that talked about the end of the world, that children are not listening to their parents, and people are lying, and the world's falling apart. In 2800 BC. So it's like this cycle of people being stupid and just not getting their shit together has been going on forever. But there's never been more information than ever before

Like the access to information that people have right now is unprecedented. Oh, yeah, the fact that we continue to make the same stupid mistakes Regardless of that is just really insane. That's what's really disheartening, but you know what? The way I said it doesn't matter if you're smart is who got the loudest horn If your horn toots loudest, right everybody hears you and if the message gets out first If the toot the loud toot horn message gets out first it takes forever for the truth to like overcome that to get in Yeah, forever. There's also people don't once they have once they accept something in their head, it takes forever. Yeah, it becomes theirs. They own it.

Yeah, they own it. This is mine. They don't wanna change it. Something has to happen to them, but they change it. Yeah. You know? No, I agree, I agree. I say that all the time, you know,

you talk to people and you be like, man, that didn't work. Oh, oh no, it worked, it worked, I just did it wrong that time, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's keep trying to lock people up. We're gonna fix it. We're gonna fix it worked. It worked. I just did it wrong that time Let's keep trying to lock people up we're gonna fix it we're gonna fix it through locking people up Yeah, we're gonna get it right. We just got to lock up more people build more jails

Yeah, hire more police. Yeah, it's just It's just disheartening when you see the same patterns repeated over and over again regardless of how much people know But I think there's also a problem with you know We think people know but I think a lot of people don't know what the fuck is going on A lot of people don't really have an understanding. Where they gonna get the information. Right exactly. Who'd they get it from? Right? We already we already went through CNN Fox The local radio station,

especially if you're talking about hip hop. I mean, if you turn on hip hop radio stations, I would not let my kids listen to a hip hop radio station. Because they're gonna be talking about killing, pimping, selling drugs, killing. I mean, you'd be like, what the fuck? They let this stuff play on the air? I mean, it's crazy. It is crazy.

And then they wonder why the kids bring guns to school. But did you also see there's been these articles written about the CIA's involvement in the creation of gangster rap? That they helped promote and push Gangsta Rap. I didn't see that. Yeah, all of it's controversial, but I wouldn't be surprised. Apparently, they had some sort of an involvement in the rock and roll movement of the 1960s in Laurel Canyon. And there's been books written about this.

That they have some sort of involvement in promoting these kind of activities both with rock and roll in the 60s and then gangster rap in the 80s and they do it to try I think the ideas they do it to try to make sure that society is always at a in a state of unrest and that they wanted to keep me that yeah they wanted to keep people in make sure that society is always in a state of unrest. And that they wanted to keep. They need that. Yeah, they wanted to keep people in a state of unrest and promote criminal behavior and criminal activity

and gang activity and to do it in popular music. And that that would make more crime and make more things happen and that they can get away with more levers of control because of that. Makes sense, makes sense. You've seen that before, right, Jamie? Yeah, it comes from this.

Is it bullshit? Well, it's not that it's bullshit, it's like a nominous letter that went around the internet. The secret meeting that changed rap music and destroyed a generation. So it got printed on like a hip hop blog and then it kinda went viral from there. Oh yeah, I remember that letter.

It talked about the big meeting where all the record labels got together because they knew they weren't selling music anymore so hmm they invested in in in prisons yeah but that doesn't say no one knows who wrote it you know right ever claimed like that was right that's it that's the only source of it there wasn't other sources and then it went viral and everyone some people that liked it repeated it and Others, you know, I don't know. Mmm seems to be the source of it. I thought there was some other things I thought there was other discussions about different meetings that took place Nothing official I wouldn't be surprised though. I mean it makes sense, you know, yeah, if you listen to what they're promoting now

You know that they don't they don't they don't promote no no positive music, you know, no love songs You know we was coming up. It was it was it was by love song. Right Marvin Gaye. Yes. Yes Luther Randross Yeah, it's it's weird that That would be a strategy that would work if you wanted civil unrest. If you wanted people to stay fucked up, you wanted people to not organize, not rise up. What's the best strategy? Promote illegal activity. Promote it.

Promote drug dealings. Make it look good. Make it look good. Dress them up. Give them a ban to Holderfield's house. Even if you used to be a correctional officer. And now you're a gangster. Tell them you sold 300 kilos.

How'd you get this house? Oh, I sold 300 kilos. How many people do you think actually know the story, the whole story, the real story, your story, of you and this guy who calls himself Rick Ross? I think older people know, but younger people don't. They don't get it. Wow. They're not educated on facts. You know, they don't go with facts. They go with what they hear on the radio, what their local DJ talks about. Those are the things that they go with and we already know that the local DJ

is getting paid by the record companies. So that's what they believe. I believe that they really believe that Jay-Z got rich selling drugs. They believe that. I don't believe Jay-Z got rich selling drugs. He doesn't act like a drug dealer in my personal opinion. What's the difference the way he acts? Well, drug dealers are kind of like, we're looking for somebody to help come up. Because when you help him come up, you come up. Say for instance, if I find a guy, he's down on his luck, and I give him a kilo, he starts to sell this kilo. I benefit every time he sells that kilo, because I get a percentage of what he does. But the way the record business works

is they don't help anybody. When they get on top, they just stay there and it's almost like they're gatekeepers. They don't want other people to get in. Me, I would have been looking for somebody like me getting out of jail. Oh, Rick Ross is getting out of jail? Oh my goodness, I'm going to be at the gate when he get out. I'm going to show him everything he's supposed to do, get him right because I know he has

the discipline, he has the focus that he's going to make it. Yeah, but don't you think that that's just you? I think you have a unique perspective But that's a drug dealers perspective. Is it really a successful drug dealers perspective a successful drug dealers perspective Let me correct that and most of the drug dealers I was around was successful Because I used to try to teach him I taught him what what I did, you know, when he was young I was, hey, this what you do, this how you do it, this who you look for. And so you're probably right,

a successful drug dealer's perspective. And most successful drug dealers go to prison. And so we know Jay-Z didn't go to prison, even though he was in a car with, I think Calvin Klein, when he got arrested, DA let Jay-z go mmm That's that's the story that I heard I'm not I'm not totally sure how he was in a car with Calvin Klein

They talked about jeans. What are they doing? There's a guy named Calvin Klein. It was different guy from New York. Oh And now it's Calvin Klein a drug. It was a drug. Oh, okay. I didn't know that He was a drug they from I thought you mean like knowing the G's Yeah, no, no, this was a drug deal out of New York That's hilarious. He got a Calvin Klein's name Like Rick Ross took your name Name was really Calvin Klein. That's possible. No, I think the guy name real name was Calvin Klein really

Oh, that's it. No I think the guy real name was Calvin McLean. Really? Oh that's his real name. You know because he was a real street guy. Mmm. Went to prison in the whole nine yards but it's a story that talks about that how Jay-Z was in the car with him when he got arrested and you know he didn't get arrested so more than likely that meant that in my experience if you in a car with a drug dealer and the cops raid, they take everybody that was involved. So that tells me that Jay-Z wasn't involved with that activity.

Got it. At least at that time. That they knew. Right. And usually the DA, they watch you and some of them when they're not lazy. But what is it like in the world, like if you rap about selling drugs and about how

you were selling drugs, but you weren't selling drugs, that can't be looked upon well. If you're lying and you're making up a fake persona. It shouldn't be. Right. It shouldn't be. Back in the 90s when rap was supposed to have been authentic, people wrote their own lyrics and that stuff, it was a little different than the way it is right now.

Now, people can write your lyrics, you can steal people's names, you can steal their verses. It's just totally different than the way it used to be. You can buy your way to the top now. You don't have to have talent necessarily. The most talented guys are not the guys who are running the industry. A lot of the talented guys are producers too, right?

They can kind of make anybody famous. Yeah. If you have some talent and a look. And you go pay the right producer. Yeah, there's a lot of examples of that. Because music is programming. You hear the sound and you like that sound. And that's why we hear the same sounds over and over

on the radio because it's the same producers that are producing the music. Like, I'm just waiting to get my money right so I can go to the producers and be like, hey, I know you've been putting all these guys on. I got a guy for you, Put him on we ready how much you need a hundred thousand do it That's really what it is. You know, it's only a few guys who music you hear on the radio over and over again Wow

But then you have people who just stand out just because of talent still you still have that once once in a while You know, I want to a while, you know, want a breakthrough, you know, you get somebody that's like super, super good and, you know, their music just break through. But that's rare. They still got to have some money. You got to pay Facebook and TikTok. Gatekeepers. Yeah, there's just a lot, it's an industry, right? There's a lot of money involved. As soon as there's a lot of money involved, there's just a lot, it's an industry, right? There's a lot of money involved. As soon as there's a lot of money involved, there's control. People wanna maintain control of that.

They don't want someone coming along. Yeah, I mean, I look at my case, right? If you go on the internet, I got millions and millions of views where I've done interviews with different people and talked to different people. But then you go on my Instagram, I got 300,000 followers. Instagram is weird, man.

I walk through the airport, right? I can hardly walk through the airport. People go, Rick, can I get a picture? And then my friends be like, man, all the people looking at you, they want to talk to you. So when I experience that, I understand that they haven't let me grow to where I should be. Yeah, but I think there's, I think social media companies

other than Twitter, X, now, I think they all have different ways of limiting growth. There's different things. Like my friend, Coleon Noir, he has a an Instagram page that's dedicated to Second Amendment he was a lawyer and he does a lot of Second Amendment stuff a lot of like talking about guns and gun laws and in different things he's been stuck at 1 million followers forever

he's been on this podcast like how many times? How many times has Coleon been on? Five, six? Five or six times? Great guy. Interesting. Really fun to talk to. Smart as fuck. Like you would think his shit would grow. Stuck. Stuck at one million. Just stuck. Like locked up. Yeah. Like what's going on there? How is that? How is that even possible? It's only possible if someone's limiting the growth Absolutely, there's no other way if you come on this podcast in 11 million people or 15 million people whatever the fuck it is See you what is the odds that you stay at 1 million? It's almost zero. Yeah, I agree It's almost zero, especially if it's an interesting episode. He's always interesting. He's a smart dude Why would why would people not follow him? Of course they would they'd have to find him

It's hard to find people they make it difficult on some social media platforms to find people They make their posts limited so only the followers can see it other people can't see it. Yeah It's just this weird thing that they do and if you're a guy That at least at one point in your life was involved in illegal activities They'd probably just shove you into a box. They could shove you into a category. They have you in some sort of an algorithm but just like Like every now and then someone finds you But it's not easy. It's not we'll see we'll see what happens. We'll see what Instagram does after if you're at

What are you at now? Okay, let's let's check right now. I'm gonna check your page right now 300 and something let's check right now. So you are right now You are at Do do do do do let's get down to you here What is it Jamie? Yeah, something like that here. You are you just we just went back and forth with each other so I'll check right now profile Yeah

392 so you're at 392,000 let's see what happens. Yeah, let's see what happens Instagram stop fucking around I think they fuck around with me too, but it would sounds crazy because I have 19 million But I'm like how come I like yeah, but you everybody in America knows you. What the fuck's going on? Everybody in America knows you. I mean, I mean we did that show what? Almost ten years ago. Yeah People still coming to me in the airport. Man, I know you're Joe Rogan. Huh? Did you tell Joe? I said don't tell me tell Joe I said, don't tell me, tell Joe. I'm talking about still to this day, people walk up to me and tell me that they loved

our episode. And that's a long time ago. So there's probably been 1600 different episodes since then or more, probably more than that. And I remember we was like 60 or 80 or something like that. Something crazy like that, the early days. You were in the early days when I was just starting to interview people Yeah, I was just starting to have interesting people on the I never heard of a podcast a lot of people came on back Then didn't I I didn't know what a podcast was. You know what? I told my guys today. We've sitting out there. I said had I

Recognized what a podcast was and started a podcast. I would have been the first black guy probably with a podcast Back then you might have been So what year so this is like? 2000 May 4th 2013 2013 11 years of 208 11 years episode 208 2000 was that the first one or the second one that's the first one second was two sixty two wow that's crazy

that's crazy and they still remember that well you should do your own now i'll be so busy joe listen to me stop right there i told you to t-shirt-shirt, do a podcast. It's easy. It's not hard to do, man. It's easy. It'll promote your business. Now you just called me on now. Listen, it's an easy thing. It doesn't cost much money, man. It's real economical.

You know, you upload to YouTube, it's free. YouTube's free. You know, you get one of those platforms that supports podcasting, and they do things and they help you get ads and not that hard man and I bet right away you would get especially after this episode you'll get a big audience it's an easy way and then I'm working on I'm working on some stuff then before you know it you have 20 episodes 30 episodes you get better at it people like it yeah and you could

talk about all kinds of things you could interview different people you could have conversations with friends and then you develop a following and the next thing you know it helps your business it helps the other things you Do it helps speaking engagements all these other different things. Yeah They've been telling me to do it. Yeah, and I've been like, oh no, you late you waited too late You could have a podcast that's called the real Rick Ross is not a rapper That's a great name for a podcast that's a great name for that was an awful name for a t-shirt I Think that's a great name for a podcast It'll peak people's interest right away. They're like what the real Rick Ross is not a rapper

What kind of fucking podcast is this? Yeah, and then people hear your story and they're like, oh my god I didn't even know this is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I might take your advice on that one It's a great idea took your advisor last time and I benefited. I'm telling you it's a great idea. Hey crazily, you know like right now this t-shirt still still brings in revenue. That's beautiful. Well we'll bring in a lot more after this one. It's just it just makes sense. I mean it's only just another method to get your word out there. And we need we need platforms. Yes. You know because the people with you know some of the people with the platforms don't use them to to benefit the people.. And we need platforms. Yes. Because some of the people with the platforms don't use them to benefit the people. Well also we need platforms from a person like

yourself that has gone through this arc of life. This interesting arc of life. That finds yourself a completely different person now than who you were when you were 28 years old selling drugs. It's just a different... When I was 19 when I started, when I was 28 I was an addict. I was stuck when I was 28. It's a different... When you go 7-8 years selling drugs, you don't even know anymore. You're like out your mind. You're crazy.

You're just in the business. Well especially if your business is making 3 million dollars a day. That is just so crazy. So crazy. How much money do you think you earned over the entire course of selling drugs? Well, you figure just my two best years,

so you say 360 days in a year, just those two years it was like, what, 600 million, something like that. Not're not profit though. Not profit, right? That's not profit. Of course, but just the amount of money you profit I make every million I probably make 200 to 300 thousand profit off of every million. I was able to take that much out. So That is insane and then that's not counting the other six years because I sold like eight years I did like eight maybe nine years in the drug business. And so, before I was making a million dollars a day,

I was making 500,000 a day. And before I was making 500,000, I was making 400, 300, 200, one time 10,000 a day. So it just, yeah, but all those numbers add up. You're talking about 100,000 a day, you know, so it just, yeah, but all those numbers add up, you know, you're talking about 100,000 a day ain't bad numbers, you know, yeah a couple million dollars a month, so I made quite a bit of money. I mean, it went through my hands. Yeah, not that I made but money that went through my hands, right, that I touched. It's crazy. With some crazy numbers. It'll probably be, probably be in the billions.

It's crazy. With some crazy numbers. We'll probably be in the billions. Billions. Yeah, probably we'll be in the billions. That life and that experience that you've had is very unique. There's not a whole lot of human beings that are out there wandering around that can say that. So that perspective that you have would be very valuable for people just to hear what

you did and what you went through in your life. It's a very unique story, man, and it's an American story. It really is. It is an American story, and I thought that America should know about it. That's why I wrote the book. And you know, when I wrote that book, I didn't know if I was ever getting out of prison. That was like my letter to the world.

This is how it happened. So that you don't form your own personal opinion without getting to know the person. Because so many people, we form opinions about, I didn't really like the way the government characterized us drug dealers. You know, like we was raiding maniacs. When I got arrested, I was a danger to the community. That's how they denied me bond.

Oh, he's a danger to the community. Like, I'm gonna take a gun and go to McDonald's and just go to killing people. No, it don't work like that. That's not who I was, you know. I had absolutely no violence in my case, you know. Which is pretty incredible for someone to move. I could have been violent, you know. I could have been violent. I had guns, but I never used them. So why am I considered a danger to the community? So they consider drugs a danger.

And even when we went to jail, I was black box. They put a black box on you, they put handcuffs on you, and then they got this little black box that they slide over the handcuffs so that your hands are stiff and then they cuff you to your waist.

And you can't even use the bathroom. It's crazy. And then when you go to prison, you go to the worst part of the prison because they classify you with the guys who do murders and the bombers. So now they got drug dealers who, I consider myself almost like a white collar crime.

You know. A businessman. A businessman, you know. I wasn't looking to hurt nobody, but we were still classified like that. So I wanted to show people the mentality that I had, that no, yeah, I did get crazy with drugs. You know, I wanted to sell all the drugs I could sell.

I mean, my mission in life became sell as much drugs as you can. You know, it wasn't about making money anymore. It was like, become the biggest drug dealer that you can become, you know, be great. That's how I felt. Be great at it. You know, fuck how much money you make.

And you already, you're not gonna spend all the money you got. You don't even spend the money you make now But just be great at what you do Mmm, so it wasn't about money anymore. It just became you know, I'm gonna be great at it Isn't that crazy that that mentality you can apply to almost any industry just unfortunately you applied it to the wrong one Yeah, yeah, and Unfortunately, you applied it to the wrong one. Yeah, yeah.

And somebody asked me before, do I have any regret? That would probably, if I had a regret, that would be the regret that I didn't take those skills. But I learned so much from selling drugs. Those fucking guys taught me, man. They taught me what the teachers couldn't teach me. Because they had a different passion to teach me. They wanted me to, motherfucker, get smart

so you can get my drugs cheap and good. We need you to be smart. We don't want no dummy. We don't wanna be getting our drugs from no dummy. So you get smart. So you can make sure that when we come get our drugs, we're gonna be safe. We're gonna get the best drugs.

The price is gonna be right. We like what you do. So we teaching you. And they taught me. I mean, if somebody would have told me about a gram, a gram, what the hell is a gram? What is a 10th of a gram? What is eighth of a, you know, what is a gram? What is a tenth of a gram? What is an eighth of a gram? What is an eighth? What is a quarter ounce? What is an ounce? I know none of that

shit. I failed science in school because I couldn't read. I never went to science. They put me in special ed. Wow. I sit in the classroom and make paper airplanes. You know what I'm saying? I'm throwing paper airplanes around the classroom. You know nothing about no science, but when I started getting into drug business,

they taught me. They showed me what a gram was, and they showed me how to work a triple beam. I didn't know none of that shit. They showed me what a money counter was. They taught me how to work a money counter. I didn't know none of that shit, Joe. I was

green. Man, we missed one of the greatest fucking interviews, man. The guy I bought my first ounce from, he was paralyzed when I got out of prison. And we were shooting a documentary. And I go to his house. You know, when I found him. I found him, I went and found him, because, you know, he was like my partner, you know. I loved him, I knew he was paralyzed too. When I went to prison, he was already paralyzed. But when I got out, he was like on his last leg. And I almost got him to talk, man, on camera. He talked off camera, and he told,

he told us, and what I I should have did I should have promised him in do the interview when you die I'll put it out but I won't put it out until after you did and I didn't I wasn't thinking in my right mind you know you never want to tell a friend that he's gonna die right that was the first thing I didn't want to say that but man he told he told us about me when I started. And it was just like so fascinating to hear him talk about me, to me, you know, and he's laughing about how green I was, how he used to take dope

out of the bag and I didn't know we had took it out the bag. He said, man, I wouldn't sell him a kilo because I could get four extra ounces out of the kilo and I could sell him a pound. It was just so much stuff and it was like amazing for me to understand that at one time I knew absolutely nothing about cocaine. I'd never seen cocaine before and they taught me. They took me and molded me.

What's really crazy is that even though that sounds like, oh my god, that's illegal activity, that's drug dealing, but it's really a system, and you figured out how to excel inside this system. You figured out a business. And you really could have done that with anything. Yeah, to me, it wasn't illegal. I mean, I understood it was illegal,

but I understand now, like you're saying, that it was the mentality of being able to be taught, to be able to listen, to be able to follow instructions was the part that I feel was the most valuable lessons in this whole thing. That I learned to follow instructions, I learned to listen. I'm doing the same thing with the weed business.

When I first got into the weed business, when I was out of jail and we were smoking weed and stuff, it was like two kinds of weed. Thai bud and indica. That was it. Now, fuck, it's thousands of different strains. Botanists got involved. Scientists got involved. So they tell me, smell the weed.

Shit, I can't smell shit. I don't know the smell. I don't know nothing. So I had to learn the smell. You know, I had to learn what smell you're looking for. So I basically... What smell are you looking for? Well now, one time it was the gas, the OG smell. And it was really like gassy, smelled like gasoline, really stanky. Now it's a candy smell.

Like a sativa. Like a sativa, sweet, you know, they want that good taste. That's what everybody's into right now. So you smell it. Yes. But now the stuff I just gave you is the brand new stuff that the guy just created. You got what he calls it candy gas. Oh boy. This guy. It's a hybrid. He has the highest testing weed in California. My partner from Green Dragon is the's the name of his company,

and he just invented this strictly for me. He said, Rick, this is the first time that anybody gonna get candy gas. He said, will you please get your Rogan, your jars, and tell him to let us know how he like it. But it's candy gas, so it's gonna have the OG high, you know, OG knock them out. On They're on the couch, stretched out, give me something to eat, now I ain't moving.

But it's gonna have that sweet candy taste that everybody's looking for. So he's saying that this here is gonna like shake the market up. It's funny. So I know how to do all that, I know the smells now. That's interesting. It's funny how much it varies.

You know, it really does. And he's a scientist, like you said, he's a botanist, you know, went to school for it and the whole nine yards. Once they got involved. Yeah, total different game. Yeah, total different game. It got scary. Like they started making some just insane high THC content weeds. Yeah, that's what everybody wants. That was one of the arguments about it being illegal. It's like, well, the marijuana of today is different than the marijuana back in the day. It's so strong and people are going crazy. Like, listen, people are going crazy no matter what you do.

Yeah, well, they're still not using fentanyl. That's true. And that's also the problem with things being illegal, is that they're cutting it. They're cutting it, when you're buying it from the cartel, there's a lot of stuff that people are buying from the cartel that's cut with fentanyl. A lot. Including like street pills, like pills like fake fake Xanax and fake Valium's and

it's all cut with fentanyl. Fake Molly. And like you said, that's what happens when you put that illegal market together. Exactly. And meanwhile, it costs us a hundred thousand lives every year just in this country from opiate overdoses. And what are they doing to stop that? Nothing. It's just a...it's so perplexing. It's so perplexing the problems of our world today. It really is because it's such a complicated series of issues and it doesn't seem like any progress is being made. Like even the minimal progress that's

being made with marijuana, like the good progress is states making it illegal for recreational use, making it legal. But if the federal government still doesn't have it legal, like what the fuck are they doing? Like why, how is that still a thing? Yeah the federal government should just get out of it. Yeah. Just wash their hands with it. Leave it to the states. We're done with it. Whatever the states do let it do. That's what they should have done a long time ago. Let's be done with it. Well they should have rescheduled it. They should have made it legal. Just schedule it make it legal. It should be legal. It's stupid. The whole

thing's stupid. It's stupid. There's plenty of things. If alcohol is legal, marijuana should be legal. That simple. Alcohol destroys lives, destroys liver. I had a guy in here last week. He lost his liver and his kidney, a liver replacement and a kidney replacement just from drinking himself to death. And cigarettes. Oh yeah. All that stuff. Legal. Totally legal totally legal it's crazy we live in a strange time but you know it's interesting. Well we're starting to talk about it so yeah I mean the first thing you know nobody used to talk about drug dealing right you know that was a taboo you know to have somebody to come on and

say I sold drugs right you never would have heard that before. No not like this. So now now we're talking about it. People were starting to understand how to get started selling drugs, what to look for. And that's really all I can do. If I can educate somebody on what to look for when it's coming your way, hey, I did my job. Yeah. And explain the pitfalls and also don't ask how much when someone

calls you up. When someone gets suspicious. Yeah don't get addicted because if you get addicted you're gonna ask how much. Right. How much. Right especially if you're addicted to the thrill of the game. If it's you know an exciting thing and then you're not doing that exciting thing anymore and you miss it. Because everything that you're not supposed to be doing is exciting, at least in some way, especially something that's massively profitable.

But at least you documented it. Right here. Freeway Rick Ross, the Untold Autobiography, second edition. Well, I took out all the misspellings and the typos. Because you know I self-publish. Oh, okay. You self-publish this.

I self-publish it, yeah. So if anybody wanna get it, tell them to go to my website for rickieross.com. Don't go to Amazon, because they keep all the money. Amazon keeps all the money? They keep a lot of it, yeah. Really? We don't get much money. Oh, okay. I? They keep a lot of it. Yeah, we don't get much money. Okay. I bought you my other one too. I did that one since I've

been 21 keys of success. Those are 21 keys that I used when I got out of prison. All right, beautiful. And this is available on my site as well. FreewayRicky.com? FreewayRickyRoss.com. Okay, All right. Yeah, I bought you a few gifts. Thank you, sir. I said I'm going to go and give you something. That's my other one. Oh, three books? Look at you, man.

And I also bought you one of my sweatshirts. All right. And I just want to tell you, man, thanks for... The world famous Freeway Rick. Thanks for all you did for me. My pleasure. And... Your story is crazy.

And you know what? I'm going to take your advice on the podcast. You should. You know? I hope you do. I really do. Everybody else has been telling me, and I've been like, ah, I'm going to go and give you something. I'm going to give you something. I'm going to give you something what I'm gonna take your advice on the podcast you should you know I hope you do everybody else been telling me and I've been like

yeah, but I did so well the last time you told me to do something and I would be going against my own principle You definitely should listen you're an interesting man, and you've've had a fascinating life and we need more interesting people and interesting voices. We need more people. You know, we grow and learn from other people's perspectives of the world. When you get to hear a person who's gone through the life that you've gone through, which is very unusual. When you hear that person talks, it educates you and informs you and it changes your perspective. You get to add to your perspective of the world from another person's life experiences.

And that benefits everybody. Oh, no question. I agree. All right. Let's do it again sometime, man. When next time we do it, when we talking about your podcast. When the movie come out.

Okay. When the movie come out, I'll come back. When is that? Well, we just hired the director three weeks ago. When is that? I'll come back. Well we just hired the director three weeks ago. So hopefully this summer we go in production. Okay. Well when it comes back, you come back.

Alright. Thank you sir. Thanks Joe. Bye everybody.