The Media Got It Wrong feat. Ricky Williams

My own lived experience, was I prefer to the point where I jeopardize my career. Is I prefer the cannabis because it felt more like I was taking care of myself than the pills, where I felt more like I was masking stuff.

Right, Wow, that's real.

Lava for Good and Stand Together Music present The War on Drugs Podcast Season two. This season, we're diving deeper into the real stories behind the War on Drugs, its impact, its failures, and the people offering a better path forward. Today on the show, two time All American Texas Longhorn and nineteen ninety eight Heisman Trophy winner, two thousand and two NFL League Leader in rushing, All Pro and Pro Bowl selectee for the Miami Dolphins, and longtime cannabis advocate mister Ricky Williams.

All Right, welcome to season two of The War on Drugs.

Yes, yes, we're talking to real people. We get to hear their real stories about how they've been impacted by the world.

And you know, we're fighting it. We're working the world.

It's still waged, it's going, but we're still fighting a good fight.

We're gonna kick it off with one that I know we were both really excited to talk to. Oh yeah, Ricky Williams, former Texas running back. Yes, uh NFL running back. I'm a big Ravens fan. He played with the Ravens for a little bit, Saints, all these other teams, and I remember like those interviews that he was doing because there was so much pressure like on people don't know the Saints. Essentially New Orleans Saints traded like their entire draft to move up to get this guy.

He was the only draft pick.

Like it was there, literally their only draft traded, and so everything was on like the team was I don't even know.

They won maybe like two games of a year before they stunk, and this was like the savior and the media was just all around him and it was not used to have interviews like his helmet on Advisor and like so you could and people that you know, it's just like, oh look at look at crazy guy.

He doesn't like people.

Yeah, you look at those old interviews. They weren't that from that long ago.

Like the lack of knowledge like it actually helps sometimes and know like we are moving in a good direction kind of seeing like how people talked about him back then, like he would not be talked about that way now right, someone was saying, then there'd be a bunch of people being like, obviously this is someone dealing with either is you know, like we are the problem. You know, there would be like something back and forth. Then it was just like look at this loopy yeah.

Yeah, And I don't know if this is where it came from, but it definitely is the sentiment from the sports journalists when you look at like Steven A. Smith, stay off the weed, like and it's like, man, you need some weed. Yeah, because you're yelling this early in the morning, like you wake up this loud, Like my son wakes up that loud, and it is terrible.

Yeah, you know, it's it's crazy the world. You know, it's twenty years ago about that he was. And you know back then the NFL, you could be suspended for cannabis for a long time.

Super strict, yeah they.

Yeah, and it was arbitrary the way that's testing now that we know where you have a certain amount in your system, and it was and we as we know, like it's they try to almost do it as like other drugs that are water soluble, like you know.

Like cocaine or something like that.

Yeah, in there, but you have cannabis in your system or in your urine and test positive, you know, months after, And so they're doing it on these arbitrary notions. I know they've laxed it obviously. Moving forward, they've made changes where they don't suspend anymore, they required you know, more violations.

Or they reduce the amount that could be in your system right exactly drastically, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or they increase the amount. Yeah yeah, they increase the amount.

Yeah.

And really the reason that a lot of these things have been changed is partly because of you know, his advocacy. And I mean I look back in two thousand and four and like I said, I just know the story from through the media and how they painted it, and it wasn't really social media like it is, so he could never really come out and kind of tell his story. You see them on one interview here, our interview here, and you can just gather what you can from a

There with that Ricky Williams, here's the interview.

What's going on, man? Thank you for having me. Man.

It's beautiful out here, beautiful home, beautiful area. I don't want to tell anybody where you are right now because we want to keep it as peaceful as possible.

We do not want people out here. Man, it's too peaceful. Man.

Great to have you here. Heisman Trophy winner, pro Bowler advocate for the people, Ricky Williams, Glad to have you here, Man, good to be here. Yes, yes, I guess I got to hear it from you because we hear your story, especially somebody that was as prolific as you were in the sport. We hear their narration, their story of what happened. But can I get at least part of that from you? From San Diego to Texas to New Orleans to where

Okay.

Yeah, So I grew up and I grew up in San Diego, raised by a single mom. As a kid, young kid, I had a dream that I would be a professional athlete. But at the time, I thought it would be a professional baseball player. Okay, big big Padres fan. Played Little League, and then when I got to eighth grade, I started playing football for the first time, and after a couple of years, I was really good. So I

To play baseball and Footballah.

I got drafted by the Phillies, got a chance to play some baseball, and I got a scholarship to go to the University of Texas to play football. At the time, I thought I would just play college football and then when I was done, I would go be a professional baseball player. But I had so much success on the football field and not enough success on the baseball diamond that it kind of got flipped and I gave up baseball.

And I stuck with football.

Then I went to the got drafted the big all the trade from the Saints and Mike dickerd traded everything and the next year's first round fish everybody you're drafted. Yeah, I was only a couple of free agents, but I was the.

Only draft pick. Yeah.

And then I had had three so so years in New Orleans, had a lot of injuries. Then I got traded in Miami, and that first year in Miami really took off, led the NFL and Russian Pro Bowl, All Pro, all that good stuff. And then I came back for my second year in Miami, and to me, it kind of started before then. But really the story started that second year, my second year in Miami, because what occurred in the first year of Miami is I failed a drug test and I was put in the NFL's drug program.

But let me, I'm sorry not to cut you off, but you failed to drug test after putting up ridiculous numbers.

It was right before I put up the right before, right before I okay, okay, the timing of it was was interesting. So now that's the kind of the football story up to a certain point. Now I'm going to tell more of the cannabis side of the store. So, growing up, my stepdad was a rosta and so and I was a huge, huge Bob Marley fan. So my first my first relationship with cannabis was not as a consumer.

It was just appreciating two.

Wise men who I respected who used cannabis.

First book I ever read front to back.

Was Bob Martley's biography, so I was like in it. But because I was a professional, I mean because I wanted to be a professional athlete and I was AH and I grew up in the eighties.

Just say no, they didn't. They didn't mix. They didn't mix in my in my head. And also I grew up in San Diego, so it was it was all around. It was all around.

And I had a couple of friends that smoke, So I probably smoked three or four times before I left high school.

That's it.

I get to college and I started noticing that sometimes on Fridays the guys would go to my to sean the other running back storm room and shoot dice and pass a blown around. And so I was just trying to be cool with the upperclassmates. I you know, mix it up with them. But again, maybe ten times. And then I get to my senior year, my senior year in college, and I came back from my senior year because I wanted to win the Heisman Trophy.

And the season started off kind of bumpy, you know.

I had a couple of rough games, broke up with my girl, and I just was in a really bad place, like why did I come back?

You know?

I was like, lo.

My roommate was a smoker, so he was like, you just need to chill, and he slid his bond over to me. I remember, I took a hit, coughed a little bit, and I went upstairs. I was laying on the laying on the bed, looking up and I noticed it was the first time in weeks that I wasn't obsessing about all the things that were going wrong. And then that that that moment of clarity, I started to look to

The next two weeks of the season, I had back to back.

Three hundred yard games, rushing three hundred yard games back to back, and after that, I was like, Okay, there's something there's something here, right, there's something here.

I'm not I'm not all in yet, but I can't.

Say that this is a bad thing because it just helped me like get out of a phone right and kind of change change to my season around. So like when the Heisman Trophy, fast forward, go through a bunch of the draft stuff, and during the draft prep, I moved back to San Diego and had a little money, you know, so I bought my first ounce.

I remember about my first out.

And this is this is you you you're this is.

Right after my senior before the draft.

So it's never like.

You was just a dude just smoking before every game or it.

Was never it was never that, but but it was like a relationship was developing, you know, a relationship was developing. So I had a little free time. I was training and I just smoke a little bit to relax. But I didn't have a real relationship at this point. I just was messing around and I had some free free time. I heard somebody say cannabis is synonymous with freedom, you know,

We're in the system.

So so since then I got a little money, I got help. I can figure out if I get caught with this little bit, so I had a little bit of freedom. Then I get drafted to New Orleans and I kind of put it aside because now I got to focus on football. So go through my rookie year, and my rookie year is a disaster. I mean just mainly because of injuries. I just was hurt the whole year. Second year, I trained really hard. I come back killing it in week ten and I break my ankle.

Literally.

I broke my ankle on my thousandth yard. If you look in the stats, you see I got a thousand yards my second year in New Orleans just because it was my ankle.

Snap. And something in me snapped at that moment because.

I realized I put all, like all my heart and so into this game and it can just be taken away.

Literally like that.

Yeah, And so I thought, okay, I need to start working on a plan. B you know what am I going to do other than football? Because I can't trust

So it's right.

Before it's right before the season starts, and I come to work and there's a little like thing on my.

Locker that says you're being tested today.

I was like what Because NFL back then, NFL tested only one time a year, but they had a big window, big window when they can test, but it was only one test when I was in New Orleans. That one test was in training camp, and I thought when I got to Miami that the test would be in training camp, but it wasn't it was in the off season, so that's when they got me. But again a couple of times a week. But I wasn't like blowing before games

Game suspension, and then you get a year suspension.

So I was I was just on the map where I was getting tested nine times a month, and I was like, it's fine, and they make you talk.

To the therapist once a week.

So I was like, you know, I can't hurt to have someone to talk to, and I don't you know, I'm good not smoking.

About four game in the season, I was like, I can't do this.

If I smoking, you are to put your body on the line. After I started smoking, and then I tried to stop. I was like, I ain't going back to the farm. I was like, I'm not going back to that life. So then it was like, okay, how do I keep smoking and pass the tests?

You know?

And then it took me.

A little while to figure it out, but I figured out how to how to make it through with passing the test. Had a little system, so I make it in. The drug program is two years. You got to make it through two seasons and then you're out of the program. Okay, So found my little system. Made it through the first year, good Pro Bowl, all that good stuff. You know, nobody knows, right, nobody knows, but I'm good that next year I come back again. That's back to where we were. My second

I said, this is it. And it just didn't work out that way.

The Dolphins didn't get a quarterback, and they just kept giving me the ball, giving me the ball, giving me the ball and my body was beat up. And I remember we played the Eagles on it was Monday night.

I played the Eagles.

And we lost that game and we were at a playoff contention, and I was hurt, and I remember I smoked that night. I went to bed and the dude was coming to drug test me at six in the morning, So set my alarm.

I had my little system. I drink my little.

Drink, so my urine clear for five hours. Okay, so I wake up early.

I was that late.

I woke up early, drank my drink, and then I fell asleep because part of the system is you got to drink, to drink twice and then you're good. But I fell asleep and I woke up when he knocked on the door, and I was like, damn.

I was like, I'll probably be fine. Pissed.

Got a letter of the next week that I fell a drug test. So now it's the second drug the second failed test. And the big thing about the second failed test is they find you. And the biggest thing about the fine as they take it out of your check, which means the team has to know that you failed a drug test.

Okay, Okay, So this is the NFL. It's not even the team.

It's not even the team. So the idea some players don't care, some players do. I did at the moment, so nobody knew I was in the drug program.

Nobody.

The NFL does a decent job of keeping it confidential, so the team didn't know. But after that second test, the public doesn't know, but the team knows, you know. And it feels silly to say it now. But in that time, like the team knowing that I smoked, it was like, you can relate to this. It was like they got something on me. Now you know they got something.

This is going to be what they point.

To exactly exactly when I go for a renegotiation to get paid, right, they got they got something on me. So I was like okay, So I kind of pushed through that. And then something happened where it leaked to the public that I failed a drug test, and that was something. Again, it feels silly saying it now.

That's something.

I don't think I was ready four right, it's one thing the team knows and they're going to keep it on the low. But now the public knows, you know, and I not that my image was one hundred percent pure. But at least back in two thousand and four, I felt like, you know, it would tarnish my image.

I mean, I think most athletes at that point would think that men four.

So I was kind of bent out of shape. And at the same time, I was thinking, like, this is a lot. You know, this is a lot.

And so.

When I fell another drug test and it was going to be a four game suspension, I just said I'm out. I said I'm good. I said it's time for me to do something else. Anyway, I think the significant thing about that moment is before then I didn't consider cannabis is being medicinal, right, there was, at least in the football world, there was nobody having that conversation, nobody talking about it like that. So I thought I just was

Right.

And also I noticed that when I started smoking more that I stopped taking the pills that they gave me less and pills that they were giving me. They're giving me Pax for my social anxiety, and they were giving me intocend.

It's an insight, like an anti inflammatory.

And the guys would joke, It's like it's funny because if you didn't take the anti inflammatory the night before, your body was hurting at practice the next day. So the guys would joke, you know, there's gonna be a bad day if they forgot to take their pills. And I started thinking about it. In order for us to feel good to practice, we have to take pills. And when I noticed I started smoking, I didn't have to

So just the side effects.

And again I wasn't reading anything, and there was no one that was talking to me about it, so I didn't have the language. But my own lived experience was I prefer to the point where I jeopardize my career. Is I prefer the cannabis because it felt more like I was taking care of myself than the pills, where felt more like I was masking stuff.

Right, Wow, that's real.

This is what I've realized about pharmaceuticals. It's like so much about the pills that the doctor was giving me. It was like to cover stuff up, to hide it, to pretend like it wasn't there.

Like the pills make it better.

But whether it was the anxiety or the underlying cause of the pain, the pills didn't make it better. It just put me in a position where I was pushing myself beyond where it was good for me. And I noticed with cannabis it was it was making me feel better, but from a different perspective of being more aware of what hurts, where I feel the pain, so that I can go to treatment, so that I can stretch, so that I can do something about it, rather than just popping a pill and going about my business.

Yeah, well you popped the pill and then well everything hurts. But when you a little more tuned in, you're like, oh, wait a minute, is this part of my knee that's yeah, okay, And it.

Might seem simple, but true story, true story. My my second year in Miami, I had this little, this little strain.

Right behind my calf muscle and go to.

The doctors and I'll try to get him to explain it to them, and they didn't know what I was talking about. And so finally I said screw it. And we had like the medical books in the training room, so I just got one of the books and I like looked at that part of my body and I looked really closely, and I saw there's this little tiny muscle, you know, and I said, it's this is called the

So I just found it's a different mindset.

And because I think the mindset of most athletes, hopefully it's changing coming in is it's kind of like they can use my body anyway they want, and I have to follow all their rules right, And to me, I just couldn't make that work. So I think it's things are changing and people in the leagues are allowing the players to consume cannabis. It is giving the players more tools to be able to better take care of themselves, and I think it helps just in the mindset of

As you're saying this, when you're saying you stepped away from it, I'm allowed a lot more insight, you know. I think people can now, Like just you saying that, that's like, oh wait a minute, Like, yeah, that was definitely decision for yourself.

Tell you, I can feel it.

I can feel like if I come back and try to do this, something's gonna I'm gonna get hurt because my heart's not in it.

I'm somewhere else.

I had this taste of the things that I could be experiencing, and again I started doing the math, and I said, my life is short, and if I don't have take this time to get to know myself and live a little bit now, I might never have the opportunity to. And I feel like I accomplished everything I wanted to and needed to with football, so I felt good about taking that next step.

I was free.

It was scary to make that call, but as soon as I hung up the phone, like the cannabis stuff aside. To me, I think cannabis was my ticket out. It gave me a way to get out. It truly did.

It opened my mind to even imagine that I could be something other than a football player.

I think a lot of guys the reason they stayed playing football so long is they can't imagine themselves doing anything else that would feel as good as football. And I started to see, I'm not gonna be able to do this for the rest of my life. I need to find something else I love. And when I started traveling.

I was like, I love I love this experience.

Of being able to go anywhere in the world and have an experience and be myself. And then I was traveling and I met this guy who gave me a book on alternative healing, and I started flipping through it, and I noticed there was a whole chapter on cannabis, and it was the first time that I had seen

Right.

So, because you said you went to school for you've been to several.

Yeah, I've been a bunch of school.

When was it?

Like, Yo, this is the because they call it alternative medicine, but I don't like to call it that because that tries to make it sound like it's crazy.

I actually came wait before this, exactly.

Yeah, this is the part of the conversation that I don't think anybody talks about enough, you know, and part of it is read we don't have the language. It's like the dark ages of cannabis. When it was made illegal, we lost we lost the language, we lost the way.

People used to talk about it.

But if you go back to the late eighteen hundred, doctors knew how to talk about cannabis, and they had they had some clarity about all the things that could help with But I feel like we've lost we'd lost our ability to how to talk about it. And I think the biggest the biggest motivation for my advocacy is to empower people with the language and the permission to share their actual experience about it. Because we're talking about something that happened in two thousand and four, two thousand

Not lying about it, right, not lying.

Too much about right. That was my advocacy is somewhat telling the truth. And I remember when I came up here, right after I retired, I was sitting interviewing for sixty minutes with Mike Wallace, and Mike Wallace asked me, point, Blake, you know NFL tested you right now.

Would you pass the drug test? And I remember like.

Sitting there and like being nervous because all these people are watching, you know, And I was like, I have an opportunity to lie or to tell the truth, you know, And somehow and I told the truth right, And to me, that was the That was the first, my first form of true advocacy. But it wasn't until ten years later where I was at. I was living in Austin because I went back to school after I retired, and a teammate of mine, Kyle Turley.

Big big time advocate, he's all in.

He called me up and he said, hey, there's a cannabis conference at the convention Center in Phoenix, won't you come out and tell your story? And I was in Austin and I was getting a lot of flak for my reputation, so I was like, I'm good.

I said, I'm good, and I hung up.

The phone and I sat there and I thought about it, and I was like, first, I was like.

There's a cannabis convention at a convention center.

I was like whoa.

I was like okay, and then I thought, you know, fuck it. Everybody knows I smoke anyway. So I called them back up and I was like, I'll do it. That's when that real advocacy started. I remember I went to Phoenix and I was sitting on this stage is probably like one hundred.

And fifty people in the audience.

And it was the first time that I told my story that I actually shared how it made me feel and how I used it, and it was like it was cathartic. It was healing, you know, because it was something that I kept inside that I didn't talk about, and to share with people right powerful, most powerful though it was afterwards, twenty twenty thirty people came up to me afterwards and basically told me I was their hero. And because I hadn't put myself out there, I didn't have exposure to the way that my.

Story touched a lot of people.

Because the way it unfolded for me, I kind of felt like a coward, you know. But to see that because I, you know, tried, I made an effort that it really inspired other people. When their parents or their coaches were giving them a hard time about smoking, they could point to me and say, look, you know, he doing.

It, and look at him. I was like, WHOA. And I remember something my mom always says. He says, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated.

And I felt like in that cannabis convention, right for the first time since I failed a test.

That I was actually being celebrated, you know, without.

Without the astro, you know, and people would like the stories would even if someone wrote a positive story about me, right at the bottom, they would say he failed multiple drug tests, right, And I was like, right, like, we really need to throw that in everything.

You don't.

It's going to be funny to see how it evolves because most of us, most of us adults now have come out of a place where the prohibition, where it was always something different or you had to hide it. But I imagine, you know, maybe even my youngest kid or pretty soon after, it's not going to have that stigma so much that they have to deal with, so they to have more of a clean slate. And I think what they come up with and how they use it is gonna be even We're gonna see it keep growing and evolve.

Right, and then it might not even be as abusive as I would say how I used it, you know, because now you don't have to run off somewhere, you don't have to go to one person's basement, and you don't have to put a bunch of spray on and eye drops and try.

To whole thing.

Like now you feel like now you're like, okay, I just needed two quick hits, but now it's this whole process. So you're like, I gotta finish it. Yeah, you know, I can't bring it back home like I got so yeah. So that's that's insightful, man, because so for me, I do comedy and I did Last Common Standing and I had some weed jokes in there, and I remember there was people like, man, you're not gonna be able to talk about weed. It's gonna be on NBC, and I'm like,

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I mean I definitely looked at you on the sports side and I'm like, no, like, there's so many people that tried to put that on. Oh, well you're gonna not You're not gonna have drive, You're not gonna have ambition, You're not gonna you know.

What I'm not.

Able to do is deal with all y'all putting stuff on me.

But I'm able to deal with it when I have a look.

I'm telling you, I had a conversation today and the dude talking to me, he's like, yeah, it's like I smoke.

To treat my adhd.

I was like, no, no, no, I was like, you spoke to deal with the people that are trying to like label you the way you are. Yeah, So that's that's actually And then we got to it. That's the deeper reason why I was saying I can't do this if I spoken, you know, it's just being around. This is real talk, okay, because part of the part of the drug conversation is about people using substances or whatever to escape their problems. Okay, and that's real. But you don't

To do that.

And when I launched my brand Heisman, our tagline is sparked Greatness because that's my background and that's my story, and my thing is cannabis helps us recover, Okay, but if you ain't doing shit, you don't have nothing to recover from, right, So it has to be it has to be a balance of actually doing something right, because even the creativity has to be the balance of doing something right and the need to like come back afterwards and reflect and make the connection so that you can

I had to smoke, you know.

And and and I think that's part of the definition of medicine because sometimes in life we have to do things that we don't really want to do, but we have to learn to take care of ourselves while we're doing it. But also the recognition of when it's time to move on and do something else.

I wanted to ask you, what's your relationship with the NFL. Are you advocating with them or is it a relationship with them now?

I've had several conversations with the NFL, mainly on the Players Association side, because when I was going through my appeals, when I fell drug tests, the part of an appeal process is they send someone from the Players Association to support you. But at the time, cannabis was still so stigmatized it wasn't really much support, you know. They just kind of sat off in the corner, like didn't say

Abuse, this is about wellness, you know.

And I've been talking to him about that over and over again, and finally they started to listen and in the last collective parting agreement, they said, we're taking cannabis off the table as a negotiating piece for substances of abuse and we're talking about.

It as wellness.

And that's what started to get the NFL to lighten, so they don't suspend players anymore for filling cannabis tests. They've raised the amount of THC metabolites in the urine to like three hundred and fifty nanograms per milli leader And that doesn't make sense, that doesn't mean anything to anyone, but it's basically, you have to have a huge cannabis problem in order for the NFL to get on the NFL's radar, where when I was, you just had to have a little system.

Where can people or how can people do what you're doing, or how can they support what you're doing and advocate for the wellness side of the cannabis industry.

Yeah, So what we've seen in the past decade is the NFL really changing their stance about head injuries, for example. So there's been a huge shift where because of the fans, really because of the fans that the NFL is having to take player safety more seriously.

And they they've done it.

And I think when cannabis gets lumped into that conversation about player safety and player wellness, I think that's when the NFL really starts to listen. When on social media, you know, they're seeing people say it's a travesty that these guys aren't allowed to take care of themselves with natural through natural means, and they're forced to take pharmaceuticals. And I already know that's what's been opening the NFL's

Yeah, And I mean in the grand scheme of things, it would benefit them. You're getting you're getting the whole person, or at least you know them, closer to one hundred percent than just trying to keep putting the band aid on whatever's actually wrong.

But also the alternative because and this is this is when I talk to the NBA players right. This is the argument that they used in the bubble helped. But the argument that NBA players used was, you know, after after a game and they have a specific story.

I think they must have all got a line.

They said, those specific games that we have back to backs, They said, after a game are adrenaline is so hyped up? You know that we don't have the ability to come down, so a lot of us are drinking and doing other things. Right, imagine if we could smoke that allow us to come down and get ready to do it the next day. Right, that's the car. They all say the same thing, and

All these pads.

But I think when you humanize the athlete and you realize what we're doing and the amount of stress physical emotional, mental stress, and the alternatives we have to nurture ourselves based on the current landscape right now, it's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Right, And like what you've done in allowing other athletes to step forward help everybody, because like you said, it helps athletes take care of theirselves. The compassion for somebody, well, it's the same thing for people who have cancer.

Are the kids who have seizures.

Or anybody who else is using it, like you said, medicinally and to help with wellness.

And I think you put it a lot.

Of ways just we're talking to you right here, that a lot of people don't look at it. A lot of people just are from that you know DARE program just say no reaf madeness era where oh it's you're a druggie, you're a druga and taking that out of it, like you said, giving people the right language to be able to talk about.

I think the language and permission are the two biggest things because if people don't have permission, you can have the language, but they ain't gonna use it right. And if people have the language but they don't have permission, they're going to hide.

So it's like you got to have you got to have both.

And I feel like I'm in a position where I can talk right and as I talk, people can pick up the language of how I talked about.

It ways that it related to them. But permission, right, that's where the advocacy work comes.

In because when the NFL stops testing or takes it off the list, all the players that were too afraid but they're in a lot of pain, but they are.

Too afraid to try it.

It opens the door all the people in the world, right that know they need some help and whatever the doctor said isn't working, but they don't want to break the law. I think it's the first time in my life where I have appreciated, truly appreciated the power of the law.

Right, it's real.

I've been too DC three times.

Right right before then, I was like, but this came up, and I was like, because just being in the industry, I've seen so many people and I heard so many stories, right aside from my own, I heard so many stories, and it's it's not even about me anymore. It's about realizing that because of my story, I have the ability to open doors and hopefully allow other people to have access in relief.

Right, Yeah, what can people do to advocate on their own or you know, just try to get the thing pushed legally to where it needs to be.

Yeah, So I think what individuals can do is just be honest. It's just right, and it's not like take a flag and wave it around, you know, at your kid's soccer game.

It's not it's not that.

But if you're if you're around a mom or someone and they say, you know, I have a headache or I can't sleep, you know, and you know that taking a five milligrand gummy has helped you sleep?

Right, just say something, you know, because it's not about hiding, it's about it.

You have something that might offer someone some relief, and they might look at you like you're crazier say no. But they hear that enough times, right, because sometimes it's not the first time, and it doesn't feel good to be the first one to put up the idea and the person say that's crazy, But you say it once they hear it from someone else. To hear it from someone else, to hear it from someone else in their

More specifically towards the NFL.

You know, if a story comes out or you see something, don't be like.

Everyone else and put the same tag why was he smoked?

Why? Right?

I get it, But that doesn't help, you know, So it's another version of just being honest, right, you know, and if I was giving a pep talk is to like, you know, I say, find yourself in history, you know, in the future, let's say ten fifteen years down the road, right, this is going to be a part of our everyday life,

Thank you, Thank you for inviting us out here.

And I've got to come back out here at some point because I got to check out some of the some of the scenery out here. But thank you again, man, one Drugs Podcast, Ricky Williams, Thank you so much.

Man.

I feel like I'm a survivor of the world Drugs.

You are a survivor.

You definitely you a general at this point, Like, yeah, you definitely a general. You came out of it and you pulled more people through than what they put you through. So we appreciate thank you. Thank you.

There it is Ricky Williams.

Man in his own words, Uh yeah, it was great to be there and just just hear his side of the story. And how he really wanted his freedom.

Peace by the way to you can you can peace. You can feel his like genuine like at EA's.

Yeah, yeah, to find something that kind of works for you For me, I'm like, man, think about how many other people weren't able.

To find that? Yeah, So what talent, what ability? What genius?

Are we missing in the world because we put this stipulation on this one plane.

Now, something that Ricky was talking about the kind of triggers on to me was, you know, kind of this thing of like medicinal versus recreational and what's accepted and what's not, and you know, someone having anxiety dealing with these things at the peak of their powers, really actually trying to use something in a way that is medicinal. Like all the arguments that people have, Oh, people just want to go this is not what was happening here.

This was a person trying to deal with this.

And it's crazy how far we have come. I think in that conversation, because if Ricky's saying that on his own podcast or someone else's or what's going on about his use on that, I think we look at the today in a completely different light, like, oh, he has anxiety. I think it's really good that he's talking about. Like then it was you know, Mike Lupika and the Sports Report, all these were like this guy is a bomb and a bus. All he wants to do is party and

And it wasn't that long ago.

And one of the things that he said too, that I think kind of ties into what you were just saying, is a lot of times people don't have the language to talk about it, right, he said at that time, he didn't have, you know, it was he couldn't put it into words. He didn't know that, oh, okay, this actually helps with that. He knows it's helping him. But how are you going to tell somebody when the whole world looks at it, Like you just said, you're just trying to get hot, You're just trying to party.

You're just a weed head. Yeah, you're you're a stoner.

And now that we do have the language and capacity, no matter which side of it, you're on. These are kind conversations that can be had. These are conversations that can be talked about even if you don't if you want to keep your kids away from weed, or if you want to be able to have it medicinally. Now that we have these words like it helps with anxiety and mental health. Yeah, it's all of these things that I don't think we're even thought of saying in the same sentence with marijuana.

Yeah.

I mean, like you couldn't talk about being like, hey, I don't think I should play now, you're not tough, And it was like, oh, you can't. Ricky was always he can't deal with the pressure, right, and it's like, what does that even mean. I'm just supposed to be dealing with the pressure.

And at the same time, oh, you're dealing with paint. Come take this right exact Yeah, yeah, come get this shot.

And then the turk guy, like the health guy, will be like, yeah, he can get you a few more like yeah, I mean you hear those stories about the pill passing and like the greenies, like the coffee they're taking amphetamines.

In the eighties.

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Yeah, And so again that's why hearing these stories, particularly someone that was like in the middle of this area and where we've come now and hearing like how it's different for athletes, and you know, you think even like very recently Shikari Richardson she got suspended and even a lot of the pushback on her it really was like, well, this is her fault. She's wrong, like she should have known, and like, you know what it's and if.

She wasn't able to tell her side of.

It right exactly, probably roll with that.

And who knows if she would ever got back into the Olympics.

Yeah, and you saw the push I mean there was I would I don't know what there was, but I assume the vast majority of folks in our country were like, this is not something that she should be knocked.

Out of the Olympics. And I think there was a lot more empathy on her for she was.

Asked the question had been asked right after a race, ties back into anxiety, mental health issues, those type of things, and me, you know me, come on, man, she won a race. She should get an extra metal like she won. Yeah, give her an extra little add on, man, You know how to give you the thing when you graduated, like give her an extra little sash because.

She is crazy's looking to that.

Yeah, so special.

Thank you to Ricky Williams. His family had his kid there. Reminded me of being with my son.

It was great. Yeah, that's that's the first episode.

What we got up next another amazing athlete.

But we're going to talk a little bit more about actual physical pain and that's with Liz Carmose. She's a veteran m M, A fighter, gorilla, total badass. She's going to talk about some of her you know, in a world of combat sport where you're constantly under injury and strain and training. CBDs really helped her with her training and keeping at the top of her game so long in that sport, which you know, it's a pretty short shelf life for a lot of folks.

And so we'll this ball rolling.

But what an awesome guest to kick off with Ricky Williams. Awesome that you gotta do at Clay and amazing like in his home, Like it's cool to get to get that vibe and it's been awesome to travel around and see these people where they're at.

Again, special thank you to Ricky and awesome.

That was a war on drugs.

The War on Drugs is a production of Lava for Good and Stand Together Music and association with Signal Company Number one. Stand Together Music unites musicians and their teams with proven change makers to co create solutions to some of the most pressing issues in our country, including criminal justice, for foreign addiction, recovery, mental health, education, free speech, and ending the War on drugs. Learn more at Standogether Music