Stephen Jackson on Drugs, Sports, and George Floyd

any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners, Well, today's episode is gonna take me a bit more out of my comfort zone than is normally the case. Uh. My guest

is Steven Jackson. He was a highly respected basketball player in the NBA for many years and he's now the co host of video podcast called All the Smoke with one of his friends and another former NBA player named Matt Barnes, which has been really sort of getting a tremendous amount attention, having incredible array of guests, really some of the most famous basketball players and other athletes in

the world, and arrange of celebrities and others. So it's a real honor for me to have him on the reason I wanted to have Steven Jackson, and he goes by Stack. That's what I'm be calling him is because he's been one of the people who's been more outspoken about the issues around drug testing and cannabis in the NBA and in professional sports for quite a number of

years now. And he's also been somebody who's been one of the people most out there among professional athletes and addressing issues around the drug war and racial justice and has a particular connection to all this that we'll get into um as we proceed. So Stack, thanks so much for joining in me un psychoactive eightan, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me. Let's just start off

with this. I mean, the sense I have is that, you know, in professional sports, I mean NBA, football, baseball, hockey, whatever, and even the Olympics, right, we're seeing a real movement around testing for marijuana and punishing people from marijuana. Why do you think that's happening. Is it just because it's

getting legalized everywhere or or what? Well, I think at one point, you know, it was a certain it was a certain demographic and and a certain culture that was glorifying marijuana, and and and and that marijuana was basically put on the pedestal in and when that demographic, you know as being young black athletes who are having a lot of money, and who's who's reaching a lot of success at a young age, when it became a problem in sports, for for for teams and for businesses, I

think that's when they really tried to step on it and make it bad, you know, to to to the masses. But at the end of the day, you know, I remember when I was a kid. You know, my mom used to have house parties. My mama stepdads to have house parties and they're smoking weed and I was like a cigarette. So it's a conversation that you got to have. But you have to know what you're doing. You have

to know why you're doing it. And everybody's not in health in cannabis and and then consuming cannabis to be seen to be in the hip crowd. A lot of people are doing them for the right reasons, for medical reasons, to be saying. And so I mean when you talked about it's a kind of quale, I mean, there's you say, it's a kind of a social aspect to the marijuana use.

It's very popular among young athletes, especially black athletes, bit more generally, but also a medical thing, right, And I say you talked about how it would help you relax or feel better after games, right, I mean, I mean, is that what it is for most people? What for what? What? For me? I can I can definitely speak for me and guys like Matt Barnes because we were very similar.

And I went the long road to get to the NBA, you know, trying out for eighteen team, breaking both of my feet, dealing with death to my older brother, and a lot of different things coming up that that can have you mentally disturbed, you know. And as as a kid dealing with so much, especially as a teenager, within one to help my mom and want to do the right things, but it's so easy to do the wrong things around me. The cannabis and basketball helped me escape.

That was my two escapes. So when I played basketball, I was able to escape from back from the world that what's going on. As soon as I leave the court, I'm back to the real world. Where the only way I could escape and keep myself sane was cannabis. So um, I know, the injuries that I that I played. I played three years with a broken toe. I couldn't have done that without cannabis. Being able to to play eight

or two games. Deal with the ups and downs, deal with UH being UH labeled as a thug or something that I'm not while I'm playing basketball. All those things can be frustrated and people don't want to stand. You can make all the money in the world, but mental health is undefeated. I don't care what you have. Mental health can still deal with you. And you have all the money world, but you still deal with mental things. You still have insecurity, you still deal with ups and downs.

And you think there's generally true of guys in the NBA and maybe other leaks as well. It's definitely true an all sports. And that's why they're not drug testing now because they see that cannabis one. You're not going to stop the players from from doing Canada because this is the safest drug. It's safer than alcohol. It's definitely

safer than alcohol. So so, and that's why all professionals are not testing now because Okay, I would rather my player go home and smoke and join it too, then go to a club and get drunk and possibly getting the d U. I. So it's making sense now, and I think it's been made since a long time ago. But like they say, they're starting to make money off

of us, so now they're starting to listen. Yeah, I mean it's also the fact of course here Now you've got illegal for medical uses in thirty eight states and

for all adults in eighteen states. So you've got the craziness right of people playing for teams and states whards legal and still having a policy that says you can't use cannabis or you can't test positive for I mean, that also makes no sense, right, So it's not just the money, it's the broader political legalization of the whole thing, right, And you got and that and that the thing make it makes sense. You can't tell me that I can't use cannabis when I'm living in the state where it's legal.

I don't care what sport I'm playing. We're going by this is we're going but we're going by the rules of the state. There's a law. The state makes the laws, not the team you're playing for. They don't make the rules. So that's why all these sports teams now we're saying Okay, we're not tested for cannabis no more. And I remember when I first retired, soon as I worked out on ESPN, the first chance I got to speak on cannabis, I said, I smoked. I know, I was the first one that

I smoked. My whole career. I played more games than anybody. I played hurt. I didn't want to miss a game. But if I couldn't go home after playing forty two minutes guarding a guy a hundred pounds heavier than me, if I can go home and smoke a joint just to come down, uh and relax, there's no way I would have made it fourteen years. Yeah, and by the way, I should told the audience, I mean, yes, Stacks is

not just bragging here. I saw a quote where Larry Bird, the very famous player for the Boston Celtics, you know, back when, back when I was younger, he described Stack is basically the toughest player in the league when it came to playing through paint and injury. So I very much respect what you're saying. I assume the same thing

has been true in football as well. Now, when I wonder is though you're using marijuana all during your career while it's against the policy, right, so and you never want you got suspended for some other ship, but you never got suspended for weed, and so how did you manage that? I think for me one, I didn't do it for the wrong reasons. A lot of people do it for the wrong ways. They do it to be cool,

they do it to be seen. It was always for me to be able to relax my mind, to be able to sleep, to cope with a lot of things. For me, you know, I always knew the drug rules, right. So at one point, if you have a positive test, then you're go into a drug program. And and for five or six years until they caught onto what we was doing that you can smoke as long as you you was in the drug proc program. You just couldn't get out unless you pass three consecutive tests. So I

felt so I figured it out. So I'm like, before you'll even test me, I'm gonna let you all know my pistons uh is gonna be positive. So just put me in the drug program for the next six years. I don't care about getting out. I'm not getting suspended. I'm not I'm not losing any money, but I'm still in the drug program. So that's when the things wasn't

so hard. So I figured that out. So I was able to smoke for six years until they're like, okay, they just in the program smoking, They're not even trying to get out. They figured it out. They came up with another with the random test, and it's definitely ways around. I had different relationships with different people. Sometimes we drunk certain things to to mask to mask our yearine we did. We did a lot of things that that we probably could have got caught and got in trouble for, but

we didn't. But um, cannabis was just that important to us being sane enough to do our jobs. And what about the guys who were getting caught. Were they just being dumb or unlucky or with somebody get trying to get them or what was going on there? A little bit of both. See I wasn't riding around with cannabis in my car and smoking with the car smoked out and something like like. That's stuff like that. They just that's just dumb. You you you you tell them on

this stuff. You want to go to jail. You have no reason to be doing that anyway. You you want to get pulled over with guys doing stuff like that, just they're doing it. That's that's that's called doing it for the wrong reasons. I never rode with it. I never put myself in a position outside of my home to be caught with it. So I did everything in the comfort on my own home and all with people are all my teammates and people around who who would

like minded, And that's what I did. I think a lot of people get caught because they get sloppy, uh, Like I said, they want people to see them doing it, and they do it for the wrong reasons, and that's when you get caught. It never fails, you know. I saw when the guy who ran the NBA, David Stern for like thirty years, right, kind of an almost an authoritarian but very foul power effective leader, right, and he

was the one suspending people left, right and center. And then I see this thing where a former NBA player, somebody you had in your show, Al Harrington, is now in the marijuana industry, you know, interviews Stern after educating about the issue, and Stern goes, well, I think we should change the policy now, I mean, why do you think? And I see his successor Adam Silver. You know, it's kind of you know, he won't boldly say let's just stop to damn marijuana testing, although I think they're just

about there. But why does it take so long for these guys to do it? They know that of all the players are using cannabis in one way or another. What what took so long? Well, I mean a lot of things with just a conversation, you know what I mean. Like I said, I'd rather somebody sit back and wait till they have a conversation with somebody from that demographic or somebody who understands it, and before they just come out and say no, I'm against it. Right So, and

that's what David Stern did. Als my as my closest friend in the world. I was right there on the side of him when he started Viola in he is he's a marijuana business, right, yeah? Is this brand vowel is called Viola is named after his grandmother. And I saw his vision. I was right there, invested from the jump and with al doing Now he's a trend settor, you know, he he saw something that a lot of people didn't see by by playing in for the Nuggets.

You know, when when cannabis first came legal in um In Colorado, Devil, Colorado, so he was ahead of the game. He studied, he took his time to learn everything, and he has had so many athletes benefit from being in the cannabis business. So far from him teaching him the business and helping them start there on different brands and on growth houses and dispensaries such. But David Stern sat down with the right person. Al knew everything about it.

He knew the business, he knew the positive side of it. Any negative idea question that David Stern had, I was able to answer it with a positive answer, and David Stern, you know, respected it and understood the hours coming from facts. So by David started going to the right person, I can see why he instantly changed his mind. Because is the spokesperson for the NBA and for athletes all around

the world, because he is the leader. He's so he has the biggest we have the biggest black owned cannabis brand called Viola, and he is the biggest athlete involved in it. So that conversation was had by the two

right people, and their conversation was long overdue. A lot of these owners, a lot of these people who run these leagues, like the commissioners toff like that they're the ones that need to sit down with someone that's from that different graphic that understands cannabia, that that knows the benefits of cannabis, and they can sit down with him and get an understanding. But a lot of these people

have never sat down with anyone. They just judging from the outside looking in the automatic naking okay, drug drug, Cannabis is a drug, is a drug. What's a lot of drugs? I hit the child making money off of that's killing people, you know. And also it seemed like in football, you got a little more of this, you know. I remember back, it must have been seven years ago. I was doing a TV interview at CNN with Fred Zakaria, and in the green room with me is Marvin Washington.

You know, football player had been in the Super Bowl, Super Bowl has the Super Bowl ring, and he was out there talking about CBD, right and and and he's now become kind of one of the leaders in there. And one of the things they seem to notice is that in football, the guys seemed to be a little more focused on the CBD side of marijuana. Whereas maybe in the basketball thing it's more combined th hc cb D, and maybe the football thing is about you know, the

traumatic brain injuries and and all that stuff. But I mean, do you notice this difference among different leagues about how they come at this issue. See with me, I look at things different, Like it wasn't a secret with me, Like before I even got into the NBA, Before I got to the Spurs, Greg Popch came to me after summer league and told me this is this is Greg Papers. I'm gonna tell you two of the best coaches to

have a coach in the in the NBA. These are the conversations I had with them before I play with Greg Paptch comes to me and says, Stephen Jackson, I want you on the team. You had a great summer league, but I hear you like to smoke cannabis. You cannot smoke cannabis while you played with the Spurs. This is when I'm this is my introduction to the NBA, so they already know what you like to do a lot of things about you. I get to go to State don Nelson, he applauds the fact that I get my

last drug test. We were smoking all year anyway, but he did not have a problem with us smoking. When we beat Dallas in the first round, the first A t to be the number one seed in the playoffs, we go to don Nelson's house. Soon as we walk in, he, like Jack Hey Woody horrises in the back rolling Dubies. So some coaches understood the dynamic of what it did for the players, and guys like me, I didn't abuse it.

And and Nether and these coaches, I'm pretty sure, like don Nelson, he played, so they heard they did worst things when they were playing. You know, the locker room was drinking beers and smoking cigarettes at halftime. So I was blessed to be a positions where coaches let me be me, you know, at all times, and even when we're called our coaches let me be me. So let me just back up for a second. Tell her audience.

So some of the names that status mentioned. Gregg Popovich is the famous coach of the San Antonio Spurs, I think the President team too, who's won tons of champion one of the one of the leaders in basketball history for winning championships and major games. And Don Nelson is in the Hall of Fame, I think because he's probably

the second most winning coaching history. Popovitch is interesting right because Popovich, among all the coaches, has been among those speaking out the most about racism and racial injustice and jumping on with Black Lives Matter with George Floyd gets killed. But I haven't heard much on the stuff about about drug testing and about marijuana, and I mean, let's have missed something there, and I'm so I'm curious both if

you heard different. Has he been on that issue too, and also that I mean when he told you that, did you actually stop smoking marijuana or you just got more careful? Absolutely not. I never stopped, and I knew I wasn't gonna stop. And uh, I think he knew that too, but I think he still had to say it. I don't think he'll ever come out and publicly to stand behind cannabis or anything like that. That's just not

who pop is. But at the same time, if he knows it's helping people, if you know it's saving lives, if he knows it's it's medication for a lot of people and help a lot of people stay safe, he won't. He won't. He won't go against it. He might not stand behind it, but he won't go against it. And and and that's one thing I respect about him. Pop knew, Pop knew me. He knew I was smoking the whole time,

but I was performing. I was doing my job. If it ever became a problem where it embarrassed the team or embarrassed the organization, I would have to stand behind that and and and deal with my punishment. But that never happened. And that's why I always have Pops respect in a way. Right, It's basically what he was telling you was don't get caught, right, And what what the whole policy was doing was taking an activities almost like

alcohol prohibition and half the country's drinking. You're in the NBA or NFL whatever, and half the players are using this stuff and where another if not more. But they're all being expected to lie or to cheat in some respect. I mean, that's part of the thing that So I think that was so kind of pathetic about the whole drug testing policy. It's a kind of wink wink, not not everybody knows it's bullshit, right, But meanwhile you're expected

to basically be dishonest and to scam um. I mean, is that do you just learn to live with that or do you disagree with I just put out there I thought that, Yeah, I mean you're right, I mean we we I know I did. I mean I had to finesse the system, you know, in order to keep smoking and keep myself saying. I mean I can't imagine, you know, I had I had a number of years,

five or six years. Why I average twenty points? You know? Um, I know if I was able to walk in the arena knowing that when I leave the game, I can smoke in piece, don't have to worry about being drug tests like hiding it, how better my performance would have bun off? Oh? Man, I just I think about that all the time. How these guys can just go home and smoking piece, you know, and stuff like that. So, um, it would have been a different league for a lot

of people. A lot of people wouldn't have got caught, a lot of people would have got suspended. A lot of stuff that happened in the league wouldn't happen if guy didn't have to hide the fact that they were smoking cannabis. Stackle tasm history. It must have been the late nineties or something, and something had popped up for early two thousands, can't remember exactly. And I actually called Billy Hunter, who was then the head of the Players Association the NBA, and I said, you know, we gotta

do something. You know, this is ridiculous, and he was very engaged. He said, you're right, You're right, we gotta do something. And this is over twenty years ago. And then I never heard back from him, and I don't know whether it was just he felt too early to premature. Now you jumped forward and his successor as head of the Players Association, Michelle Roberts. I think she's on the board of a cannabis company, right, So, I mean, I guess there has been a significant evolution in what's going

on here. You know, Michelle Robbins is the one who initially reached out Harrington to start that conversation, so she understood. Yeah, she was. She was a trailblazer for you know, people can't actually say the truth until after they retire, you know. I mean, I tell you, in football, remember there was

that guy, was his name, Ricky Williams. I mean, Ricky Williams is an incredibly talented football player and he actually he made an issue of it while he was playing, right, I think he even he even quit for a while because he said, I don't want to right, but nobody else. Yeah, but he was a rare and unusual case in all of this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it never and it never got to that point with us, I think, especially with me, because like I said, I was from nesting the system.

I had made so many connects to do what I needed to do that I wasn't even worrying about, you know, taking it to to that point. But um, you know, I don't think at that time either guys like me had the power to even speak on it, you know what I mean. Like I wasn't. I wasn't one of the top players in the league. I was considered the thug because I was a lawyer teammate, because I went the stands with my with my my teammate ron Or Testing, because I defended jamal Ten's lead the Strip Club, I

was considered the thug, which I wasn't. I was just a lawyer teammate. So with me, I don't think I was even the person to speak up and to bring that to the attention at the time. It had to be a bigger name player. They would have just laughed at me. Yeah, what about I saw you know that Steve Kerr, you know who played for the Bulls and then as you know, won all these championships with the Warriors.

At a coach recently, he came right out um recently talking about his own use of medical neural Wanda, I think for you know, back surgeries or back pains. I mean, is that's the kind of thing that's having a significant influence on other coaches. Yeah, I mean Steve was on the two thousand three championship team with me in San Antonio,

and all those guys knew what I was doing. Um. I think with Steve, I think, you know what you put your body through as a professional athlete with Steve put his body through and still and now he's having back problems. Uh. A lot of people don't want to take pills. A lot of people want to take um pills. That's gonna have them having withdrawals like they like they did a hard like they're doing cocaine or something where they having shakes because they don't want to take that medicine.

No more like it's it's amazing how how uh they'll forced that on you. But taking a piece of candy with some with some TA with just say fift percent t C and that a relaxtion whole body and does no damage to you. Won't won't won't make you have have a major withdrawals. That's a big problem. But I love the fact that you know, people are caring about their lives and not being afraid to speak up on how simple things can be. You know, it's not a secret.

It's been holistic doctor saying with benefits of cannabis for years, but they never want to listen. So I'm glad guys with the statue of Steve Kerr are standing up behind it because there's there's so many benefits of it and they just want to push those pills and those pharmaceutical stuff because that's big business. But they know cannabis is way better for you. We'll be talking more after we hear this ad. Let me branch out here a little

bit stack. You know, when it comes to marijuana, you know we talked about is having these benefits right, and obviously we're talking about you know, very few people we're using marijuana, you know, before a game. So what's your view about drug testing for these other drugs in sports? You're seeing more and more people getting suspended in the NBA,

not just other leagues, for performance and dancing drugs. Does that all sound right and fair to you or do you think these policies are I think they're getting caught for performance enhancement drugs, but I don't think they're taking

it to in hand. I think they're taking like dick hardener peals like to make the dick harder a little longer, those type of pills, and they have certain things in them that when they do take drug tests, that that that drug tests that they end up positive and and and some I guess some of the ingreedy it's in them, so the same positive test as it was it would if they took performance enhancement drugs. Yeah, but you know, I saw it was one of the former m v

P Derrick Roads some years ago. You know, he said, oh, there's a lot of performance dancing drug use in basketball, and then he kind of walked it back and then there was a yeah, I disagree with that. I disagree. But then it was a coach George Carl who won like over a thousand games, and he wrote a book saying, oh,

there's a lot more of it than people realize. And when you think about some of these performance dancing drugs, they're not like bulking you up the way Barry Bonds did it, put on fifteen pounds and you know, break Babe Ruth's home run record. Some of this is just enabling people to kind of heal better, you know, get their muscles better. I mean, not all that removed from the way you described the benefits of marijuana. Yeah, but I kind of disagree with that and agree with that

you write something at some at some stages. Yeah, but when you're taking stuff like a performance and drugs, you're you're you're you're taking it to get an edge? Are you taking it to help give yourself had a chance after injury or something like that? We stayed injury, we we We was hurt a lot. I mean last I played three years with a broken toe. I never thought about taking something that would give me a boost. Are taking? Uh even even thought about something that wasn't natural to take,

you know, I never. I I didn't even like taking you know, pills that gave me for pain. You know the word the fathers I went with was it leave? And that's all I take today besides cannabis. But um, I think I think a lot of guys in the in the NBA, especially around my time, wasn't nobody taking you know, uh, performance enhancement drugs. And I know guys that being the playoffs and you know they're dealing with the two broken fingers and broken toy or something like that.

They might take a shot to get through that game. You know, they might take a shot to get through that game, you know what, just to play that game. But that wasn't helping his performance. It was helping him get through to to be able to get through the four quarters. So it's a big difference. Yeah, I remember, you know, when I was a kid, the famous Bookball for like the picture Jim bounding, right, and if you you know that, you know you were just say this

probably before you were born. But he kind of revealed kind of out at all of the drug use and other sorts of stuff going on professional baseball. But one of the points being made was, you know, in professional baseball, you're playing a hundred sixty two games a year, You're traveling across time zones all the time, you're playing night games. I was playing day games, right, And that basically he was in the amphetamine. You know, it was just absolutely

pivotal to helping people, you know, live this way. I mean, it should almost have been a prescribed drug. And yet that's band And I wonder you know what your thoughts are about that millions of people are being prescribed riddle and which is basically amphetamine. Um should that be a band? Uh drug? Especially we talked about you guys being on the road all the time and the exhausting nature of that stuff. Yeah, I mean I could speak on that Riddlings for sure. I I had my third older's daughter.

She used to have Caesars a lot, and uh, that's what they prescribed tour and it was making no worse. She couldn't think she was having more siezes, and um I could. I couldn't wait till we was able to get off. She just graduated high school, she was in home school. She graduated with honors, and she's been vaping for three years now. You know, she's still dealing with lupus, but she's doing a lot better. And uh, I couldn't see it no other way, you know what I mean.

So I think all all all those things that they're pushing's big business has proven too many times that it is not healthy and a lot of that stuff they give it to you to to get dependent on it, to keep buying it. I mean, there's no secret what what what what those medications done, But it doesn't But it doesn't help those kids at all. Well, I'll tell you something. I mean, I'm sorry to hear about you

about your daughter dealing with lupus. But you know the fact that matter is, even with that riddling all the kids, for some of them it helps them, and some of them it's really the wrong thing. And you're right to pushing it too much. But when it comes to the

issue around you know, the use of amphetamine, I mean healthy. U. S Military has been allowing its long distance pilots to use low those amphetamine for decades because they found it reduced the number of crashes, reduced fatigue, and so you know, I keep thinking that when it comes to to professional sports, competitive stuff like that, it's a matter of I mean, drugs are so often a matter of different strokes for different folks, right. We know that we it affects people differently.

We know that stimulants affect people differently. We know all the sort of stuff. And I keeping the point that if it's not giving you a really an unfair competitive advantage, the kind of bulking up your muscles the way say Barry Bonds did or Ali Stretch Brigus did or whatever that.

You know, essentially, you should leave people alone and let them use what's gonna work for them to get through a season, right, which is incredibly you know, I don't know anyway think think about but you write, but you write about that. But I think the reason what what makes it all, what made it bad, is when you have those athletes getting caught in the hotel with two women with cocaine, missing the games, when you have them getting pulled over with drunk you know what I'm saying,

Like all those situations is what made it bad. You know, I say, guys doing it for the wrong reasons, not not and and and and and letting it the drugs was doing them instead of them doing the drugs. Yeah, but you also hear about you know, why was the NBA management so resistant to opening up on this stuff, and you know about the fear of you know, you know, ball players walking through a hotel lobby with the girls and smelling of weed and not presenting the wrong image.

I mean, wasn't that part of it as well. Well, I can tell you about me, and I think Matt barn said it don't on our shows. I used to get on the plane with a little a timeback, with at least about uh three four ounces on it every trip, and everybody smelled it, everybody's but everybody knows it was me, and nobody said nothing. But so you know, it's it's just, it's just it's just, you know, some people do it the right way, some people don't, you know what I mean.

But like I said, like I said, I never I never was caught with it, So it was never a problem for me to to finesse it and get away with it. But if you're you're in a position where one at one time where you embarrassing team or embarrassing organization, getting caught, getting pulled over something like that, that is forever as forever on you, and it's gonna be hard for you to kind of shake that, you know what I'm saying, And that that's gonna be like a little

cloud out over wherever you go. Yeah, okay, so so stack, let's just shift gears here a bit. So a year and a half ago, right, a guy named George Floyd gets murdered by a cop named Derek Chauvin in in Minneapolis, and it unleash is a kind of second wave of Black Lives Matter and demonstrations all around the country and around the world, and more white people speaking up on behalf, you know, on the issue of racial justice and ever before, and all of a sudden you pop up in Minneapolis

and maybe just explained to our listeners how that came about. Well, I've been knowing George for five years. We grew up an hour away from each other. The He's a couple years older than me, and we had a friend that was from my hometown named Telly Joyce and till he's tell he told me one day on the basketball called that me and me and he has a friend that that that looks just like me and we might have the same father. I'm like, yeah, right, He said, IM

gonna bring him down here. He brought him down there. I look at him as soon we see each other. The first thing we say is who your daddy? Who your daddy? We looked alike that much where we really could have been brothers, and uh, we just hit it off. We became good friends, and we we started calling each other twin from that day forward. And Uh, he was

an athlete. He played, He was one of the best football players in Texas and when he was in high school at Yates and also one of the best basketball players. But twisting turns and and and in the areas we lived in, you know, can can change our lives in the heartbeat, and uh we put out. So we both put ourselves in certain situations growing up. You know, I think UM with me, I was able to escape some

things that he wasn't able to escape. And uh, our neighborhoods end up taking them under a little bit and getting them in trouble where I ended up continuing to play and getting to the NBA, and he ended up, you know, trying to figure it out being home in Houston and trying to figure his life out, stay out

of trouble. And we became good friends. Every summer when the season is over, especially around the time when I was in San Antonio, I used to go to Houston, and I spent my whole time in third Ward and counting home projects with him and the rest of the family in Third War Texas and Um time passed, you know, he we both got our families. We both got kids. We both got daughters the same age, and you know, you become men, you separate, but you still love each other.

You know, you might not see each other every day, you know, because like I said, we wasn't real family. He was. He wasn't my real brother, but we stayed in contact. So he was going to Minnesota because he had got the CDL license and he was going out there to drive trucks, and uh, we had spoken before he went because he wanted me to see him. Boxes are closed for job interviews, which we we both posted

on our social media's around that time. And I was so happy for him because one thing about him he was he was one of my friends that never abused our friendship. You have a lot of guys, especially when you're an NBA player and you have money and your rea success, a lot of people around you for the wrong reasons, and they want to be with you for the wrong reason try to benefit off you. He wasn't

that guy. He he genuinely cared about me, and uh, he kept me out, He kept me out of harms way, he kept me around, came me away from the wrong thing. So that's why our relationship, why I valued our relationship. So he was down there trying to change his life, and you know, sometimes regardless where you go, certain things are hard to escape. He got caught up a little bit while he was down there trying to change his life,

and uh, I got it. I was on the couch sleep one day um that morning with my daughter, and my mother in law called me, you know, she's something. She actually text me a video of it, and I didn't really look at it because me and her speak on the injustice that police do all the time. So when she sent me the video, I'm thinking it's just another video that she's sent in me. So I go

back to sleep. I get like sixty more messages and I just opened one and it's my close friend Mike Deep from my hometown and and it's and it's zac text that he's something. Me says, did you see what they did your twin in Minnesota? And when he said twin, it instantly clicked that I got the video from my mother in law and she's from Minnesota. She lives in Minnesota, so everything just clicked. I'm like, no, you know what I mean. I end up screaming. I started crying. I

jumped up and scared my daughter. It was tough to see because you know, I saw myself down there, and a lot of times as a man, especially with with your loved ones, you feel it's it's not too much you can't control. Besides unfortunate sickness are unfortunate depth everything else as a man, you feel you control. So I

felt helpless. Man. I know his daughter Gianna, I can't imagine how she felt at the time, and and and her mother Rock saying, you know, that's the that's the two that I kept a relationship with over the years, and I instantly just thought about them. But one thing I did know and that I could clearly keeping my mind at the time was out of all the people over the years that's been brutally murdered by police, I've been wronged by police, I killed by police and never

got justice. They never had a professional athlete who's an NBA champion, who has one of the biggest podcasts in the world to speak up for them. And a lot of times when they do that, the first thing they do is bring up a person's past and try to demean them as much as they can to make the murder look valid to the world. And I wasn't gonna let that happen to my to my twin. I went to Minnesota. I had no idea what I was doing. It was all off emotion and real pain and hurt.

You know. Jamie Fox came with me. H Kar Anthony Towns pulled up with me. Bundby pulled up with me. A lot of friends put up with me. My sign to Mika Mallory, and they stood with me because this wasn't a situation where there's people showing up for somebody that they didn't know, because they felt that that this is the right thing to do. This is my real twin. This is the only person I can set on my twin, my real friends. So this is my real pain that

I that I was displaying to the world. And you know from from uh bon Jovi making that song saying that you know my hearing me speak, you know, touched him and and and and to say that I am faced all part to be the biggest civil rights movement ever, eighteen countries, all fifty states at one time. I'm honored to say that I was able to to be a part of that for my brother and and we was

able to get justice. But and a lot has changed, but the world still hasn't changed because it's been a thousand murders by police and students by police since George Floyd. So it was just something that I felt I needed to do. I didn't ask to be in a position, but you know, like I said, it was my real pain. I think I would have done that for any one of my brothers, and you know, I'm glad I did it. I don't regret anything. I put a lot of stuff

on the line. You know, a lot of people didn't agree with what I was doing and what I was saying, but I was comfortable with it because I'm one person that know. You know, I I stand on something that says love for all who have love for all. I've told every race in this world, somebody from every race in this world, and I love them, and they told me the same, So I can stand on that. So I know it's not rocket science. I know it's just

treat people how you want to be treated. But a lot of people make it seem like it's harder than that. And for me, if I have a chance to stand up for somebody I love, or put myself on harms with for somebody I love when I know I'm doing the right thing and my heart is in the right place and I'm being righteous. I do it any time, I never regret it. Let's take a break here and

go to an ad. One of the things that really stood out for mealso with the George Floyd thing was here you have this cop with his you know, knee on his neck and George Floyd going, I can't breathe, and you got one of the other cops, the younger cops, you know, saying to the bystanders and young people there. Oh, it just goes to show don't do drugs. Don't do drugs,

you know. And then the defense when they were trying to defend those cops in court, they were making the case, oh, it's because George Floyd was on drugs, right, which is just what they did with Trayvon Martin, right. And that's what they did with Michael Brown and Ferguson, what they did with Acon McDonald in Chicago, and then what they did with Filandel Casteele also in Minneapolis, right, or you know,

Terrence Scrutcher and Tulsa. I mean, it's just the repeated thing where you try to say that because you're on drug ugs. Somehow that justified the cops doing to you what they did. And the video shows one thing. Georgie was a gentle giant as as you see. As soon as they was getting ready to come from he submitted and sat down. He he he wasn't fighting back. He

would never fight back. But at the same time, no man wants to be wrong or hand or wrong when when when when they're when they're complying, and he was complying, you know. But it was easy to see that it was something happened before that, and that officer definitely had been dead with my brother. And for that, for the for the e m s to pull up and it's actual sheriffs and sheriff uniforms with guns get out the ms all that was kind of spooky to me. M

M yeah, I've never I've never seen it. I've never seen the e m s pull up and it's actually sharfs get out, pull out through the stretcher and actually put the body on the street. I've never seen sheriffs do that. Everyone. Wow. Well, the fact that it was on video, though, I mean, that obviously transformed things, transformed the country in a huge way. But you know, when I think about, you know, the drug connection to all this stuff, you know what I kind of flashed back

to was the story of Lenn Bias. I mean, you know, you were you know, you were just uh what a you know, a young kid back then. But I mean I remember Lynn Bias. Yeah, and I was then. I was finishing on my graduate work study on the whole drug issue and about to start becoming a professor. But I remember Lynn Bias. And for our audience, you know, Lynn Bias was a remarkable college basketball player, black man.

He gets drafted second in the draft by the Boston Celtics, and the next day he's out celebrating and snorting some cocaine and has in arrhythmia and dies, you know, of of a heart thing, you know, maybe an underlying condition whatever. And the response right of the society, I mean, it was this huge grief. But the very next thing that happened was a few weeks later, members of Congress get together and they passed one of the most draconian drug

laws ever passed mandatory minimum of twenty years for drug offenses. Right. That results that helped with the results, you know, in the incarceration of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, mostly young black men. And what do they call the law, the len Bias law, you know, and it's just and then you know, if you even think about some of the other deaths, not all the deaths were about oh

that person was on drugs. You think about how how Brianna Taylor got killed in Louisville, Right, it was a drug grade, right, and she got shot, or you know, years ago Katherine Johnson, ninety two year old woman in Atlanta. You know what I mean. I mean the drug enforcement thing.

And so what you see is this kind of you know, interplay on the one hand between the fears, the sensationalism around black people using drugs, and on the other hand, the justification of this drug war, which has led to, you know, the United States having the highest incarceration rate, you know, in the history of democratic societies, and a history of incarcerating black men that grossly exceeds anything apart

South Africa. Every day you write all the set up, they put the cocaine and drugs in the neighborhoods, then arresting for it and make it illegal, then arresting for them put him in jail for the rest of life. When I was growing up in middle school, at one point, cocaine was big, and there's a lot of my friends, close friends selling. Um. I remember one point, you were getting a year for every graham of cocaine, not ounce,

every graham of cocaine. You know, it is, guy's getting caught with ten ounces of cocaine twenty hours and thirty six ounces, and they're getting a year for each graham. That didn't make any sense at all. Hey, I'm telling you. In New York, some of my first advocacy was around trying to reform the draconian Rockefeller drug laws in New York.

When I first started working on this in you know, in the mid nineties, four percent of all the people locked up in New York State prisons on a drug charge were black or brown, even though black and brown people were no more likely or maybe a little more likely than white people to be selling in those drugs, you know. So, I mean, it seems to me that you're among a whole group of athletes, former athletes, current athletes who really beginning to speak out about this issue

in a serious way, especially with cannabis. Yeah. Well, let me ask you when it comes to the issues around race. I mean, how do you think this all plays out in professional sports? I was looking at the stats recently, and you see the NBA, it's three fours black. It's only you know, seventeen percent white, and probably more than half those whites are not American, They're from abroad. Right. You look at the NFL, it's sixty percent black and

maybe a quarter white. Right. Baseball, on the other hand, sixty percent white and then a third Hispanic and less than ten percent black. And so, I mean, do you think that is there ways in which these policies are tougher? Is the one reason the NBA took so long to, you know, to kind of relax it's marijuana policy because it's more, you know, that's primarily black athletes. Is that a factor here? That that's one? But just think about

this and and and you gotta think about two. Everything that's going on today and how how how blacks are speaking up and how things that has been unfair for years. People are starting to understand that that people are just not complaining. This has been going on for a long time. We've been been treated and treated a certain way and treated less than for a long time, perfect example, the

Malice in the Palace. If that had if that was us and that happened today, just tell people what malice in the Palace are because they won't know on this okay, what malice is. The Palace is probably the biggest brawl ever in NBA history. It started on the court between two rival teams. I was on the Indiana Pacers and we were playing in Detroit against the Detroit Pistons. Um It was a big rivalry and then we were winning the game. It was a big game to see what

team was gonna be the championship contender. We end up blowing him out. RNA Tests wanted to get give back a file to Ben Wallace from the previous year in the Eastern Conference Finals, which didn't make any sense because we were winning by fifteen points. If forty five seconds left in the game, the game was over. Rahn decides to go file him anyway. Ben pushes him in the face. It starts a big old scuffle between both teams. No punches are thrown, but it's a lot of pushing going on.

The referees do a bad job of getting being off the court with Ben instigates the fight for another fifteen twenty minutes to the point where the fans are so riled up that a fan throws a beer on run our test it lands and runa test face RHNA tests darts off in the stands after the guy, and our whole team goes and it turns into a big old brow where we get get to fight in the stands and we all get suspended, and wrong get suspended you know,

for the whole season. I end up losing three million dollars. But to what I was I was trying to say is if that happened today, I wouldn't we wouldn't have got suspended three million dollars. I wouldn't have got suspended thirty games that wrong would it got suspended for the rest of the season because we were at work. We were we were at work playing in the NBA. We

were fighting fans because things were thrown at us. If you if in any state or in any place in the world, ethan, if a beer is thrown in your face, that's a so But when you deal it. But when you're dealing with rich black athletes, you just have to take Yeah, today, but everything going on today and how and how we're speaking of now, if that happened today,

it would be a totally different situation. Now, it's good that things have change, it, but I think about, you know, you have brawls and hockey all the time, right, you know, and you don't have and that's mostly white guys, and you don't have penalties like you've had in basketball. And then I see, you know, people make a fair point that when you looked at like, you know, for example, what happened with some of the you know, the the violence and other stuff that happened around the George Floyd

you know stuff and all of that. But then people compared the police crackdown on that, which could be pretty onerous with what happened when you had mostly white people protesting against the you know, the vaccine and the mask restrictions and all the the COVID stuff. And what's the saying is there some equality going on here or is it simply the fact that when we see black people, you know, getting violent or acting out, we're gonna crack down,

whether it's in sports or in borders. This xiety we're there's basically a higher tolerance of white people acting out and getting violent, whether in sports or in broader society in the very similar ways. I mean, you agree with that analysis. That's a great analysis. You're exactly right. And it should never be a time whether Indiana Pacers are playing basketball, a cop Rolls should run on the court and to spray Reggie Miller saying and saying you do

not know that Reggie Millers on the Indiana Pacers. That should never happen in the arena. Everybody that anybody that works for the Pistons, uhh, that's involved the organization, all should know Reggie Millers in that arena for for cops, for for two cops to be there. Your job is to protect the players and to make sure that this is the event is safe. And you don't know Reggie Miller's on the team and you're about to Mason in front of the world. That says a lot about that night.

But that's why I was glad we was able to put that documentary out because a lot of things we couldn't say and show came to light. And if that happened today, I think it would have been better taking care of and better defended. Yeah, honey, look, it's it's a long history we're talking about here. Because if you look at the origins of the drug prohibition laws, I mean, when it came to opium and the opius, it was

about anti Chinese prejudice. When it came to cannabis, it was actually about prejudice against you know, Mexican Americans and Mexican migrants. When it came to cocaine, it was about black people using cocaine and Louisiana and out in the South, and white people being a phrase or what a what a negro crazed on cocaine was gonna do to our precious white women, right, and about their becoming you know, violent.

So there's this there's this long history going back there that continues to be part of the culture and mine. You're not just in the US, I mean you talk you look at even at the United Kingdom, right where they don't have pop shooting people in the same way, but they got a surprising large number of people dying in custody, oftentimes black people as well, getting disproportionately arrested. You know, you see the same thing playing out. I mean, US is special, but this is a phenomenon that goes

even more broadly beyond that. So I mean, for me, I'm happy to see the activism around athletes and others around cannabis reform and not testing for this stuff, branching in other areas like broader civil rights, like broader racial justice, you know, because I think that's, you know, it's that's the way this thing is going to open up and really can gain some not just traction a momentum, but

some real staying power, you know. So listen, staff, I gotta ask you to ask questions before you go, and they're both going to be outside what we've been talking about. The thing that's booming more quickly than anything else in the drug area right now is psychedelics. People using psychedelics, investing in psychedelics, you know. And and this is an issue where you still see very few black people involved, right You see more and more black people getting involved

in the cannabis industry now. Is not just Al Harrington, it's other famous you know, celebrities and others, and just simple black entrepreneurs. But the psychedelics, not much going on in terms of hearing about black people using it or black people investing in it. Is that strange? Have you thought about it? Is that gonna change in some way? What do you think, well, I can give you one

reason now, because I don't even know what it is. See, let's say that half of the black people not involved in it, because we don't even know what psychedelics is. I'm talking about psilocybin, mushrooms, magic mushrooms, I'm talking about talking about talking Okay, I'm talking about mescaline sometimes LSD and also m D M a ecstasy which isn't really a psychedelic. But there's all this medical evidence now about people getting tremendous benefits and dealing with depression and anxiety

and addiction and a whole range of other things. There's now startup companies that are worth a billion dollars. I mean, what's happening in the psychelics area has happen like what happened to cannabis area, you know, both in terms of use and in terms of the markets. Different in some respects. But when I went to a psycholics conference in Miami last month, like, there's almost no black people there. There's a few, right, But I'm just saying there's something there.

So tell me about you and and and magic mushrooms. I'm Black people don't like hallucinate, but I know what. The mushrooms are becoming big around cannabis users because that's on the that's on learned the positive side of mushrooms as well. I know one guy, his daughter was going through a phase, but she wouldn't talk, she wouldn't say anything to him, you know, And just one day he took a small piece and gave it to his daughter.

He said, the conversation he had with his daughter for the for the next two days had them both in tears. And she she said things to him that she never would probably would have got out if he would have gave it the mushroom, you know, take ten minutes, lady, she she was a different person. So I know what that did for him, and I know what that did for his daughter in a relationship, and I know that means more than him than anything. So that was one

positive effect of it, you know. And and like I said, I know a lot of people that's in the cannabis space are starting to get involved with things like mushrooms because they're starting to see the positive effects of it. And some people like the way that uh it brings them down and gives them a relaxation more than cannabis who listens. Stack, I really appreciate your taking the time to be on the show with me. I understand you're you're getting married pretty soon, so Marcel's tough on that.

I respect the work that you're doing with the podcast, the way you're speaking out in the cannabis issue, the way you're getting involved in the racial justice session around George Floyd. So so just thanks ever so much for doing what you're doing. More power to you. Please keep it up and God bless all right, my man, any time, Thanks for having We love to hear from our listeners.

If you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's produced by Noham

Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geese, This and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio, and me Ethan Edelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to ab Brio, s f Bianca Grimshaw, and Robert Deep. Join me next week for a conversation with Simon Schnapper, founder of the Jails fun which invests in psychedelic startups. He's been one of the principal people

teaching me about the rapidly evolving business of psychedelics. A family member maybe a year ago, he's like, I read this thing and the the paper. Is this this ecstasy and and helping vets? And I go yeah, And he's like, is that what you do? And I'm like, that's exactly what I'm doing. And he's like, uh, I always thought you were just a drug dealer. Um, so now you're legited the eyes of the family. Yes, yes, indeed, subscribe to Collective now see it, don't miss it.