How to Be a Cannabis Advocate with The Ganja Guru
From Rolling Up in Restaurants to His Recent Arrest in Florida, Roger Shares The Many Ways He's Working to Crush the Stigma & Open Peoples' Eyes to Cannabis as Medicine
Tammy: What's up everyone? It's your girl Tammy, aka The Cannabis Cutie. And I'm here today to bring you a new series: How To Be A Cannabis Advocate.
Today, I have with me one of the most recognizable cannabis advocates from my Instagram, and one of my really good friends, The Ganja Guru, Roger.
So, Roger, you're a cannabis advocate?
Roger: I am a cannabis advocate.
Tammy: Okay, why?
Roger: I feel I've been a user for so long. And you know the saying, when you know better, do better?
I feel like that related to me and cannabis because I have been a daily user for so long.
And then I realized there's this whole War on Drugs, there's this whole cannabis industry, there's this whole media push behind it.
But then there's also people who laid the foundation that are really paying the price.
We know the world is not fair, but in a way that I can, I can do my little work to be able to make the right, wrong and the wrong, right.
And that was what I decided to do, rather than just be a big consumer or making jokes, I decided to also give homage to the people who have laid that foundation.
So I find when we are smoking cannabis in or even just outside our home, that's an act of rebellion.
So let's make sure that we're doing it with intention.
Let me make sure that I'm saying the message that I want to say.
My clothes, how I carry myself, will always be that thing that says it all. This is not just an unintentional use. There’s a reason behind my light up, behind my roll.
Tammy: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you definitely have rolled a post-dinner blunt at restaurants in LA.
Roger: Yes, I think it's great because you won't go into a setting like that telling any other person that they can't have their medicine after their meal.
Right after dinner, you take your medication. For some people, that's their insulin. For some people, that's their blood regulators. For us, that's cannabinoids.
I don't have to smoke it there in the restaurant. But I want to be ready to walk out the door and get right to it.
Sometimes it's met with the cool server that's like “oh, man, I like that.” Usually I will pass on something to him.
But sometimes it's an educational moment where someone will try to stop you from what you're doing.
And you think about kids, and you think about how people are seeing what you're doing.
And it's like, “Well, you're actually having wine at your dinner table, and you're gonna drive your kids home. That's what's gonna happen here. This is just me preparing my medication.”
Tammy: You're right, it is an educational moment. We have had a moment at a restaurant where someone was not happy for the rest of dinner.
We've talked about this in the Higher Learning Book Club. The Baby Boomer generation is the least tolerant and most affected by the propaganda that was put out about cannabis.
And she was of that generation and was very offended.
Roger: There are so many things that the Boomers were misguided about our generation, even when it comes to fashion.
There's a whole group of people that don't talk to their kids or grandkids because they sag their pants. More propaganda that was put on by the same thing that's cannabis, just to demonize a thing that is more a group of people than the actual thing that they’re demonizing.
We all love to give people their freedom in everything that they do. But when the whole demographic of younger black men started sagging their pants, that was a thing that was demonized.
You have that same parallel when it comes to cannabis. It's just a campaign against something in order to target a group of people–those that consume it.
You can’t directly demonize the group of people. So you demonize the things that the group of people do.
Tammy: Exactly. It's a collective agreement, you guys have all decided that we're going to look at this thing and think this way about it.
And yet with alcohol, so much of our culture centers around it. It’s all packaged pretty, but it’s poison.
But just to pivot a little bit, what would you say is one of the biggest challenges and hurdles of being a cannabis advocate?
Roger: What I'm going through right now and being profiled in the state of Florida based on a cannabis patterned outfit–and it was a choice to wear cannabis leaves and palm tree leaves in a place where cannabis is not legal.
But it doesn't give them the opportunity to do what they've been doing. Because we have new systems in place for accountability. So now I have to be a pinnacle for that.
And a lot of times, like myself included, we want to be embarrassed by the reality of our cannabis usage, or the trials that come with misuses.
Don't be ashamed, just take it for what it is because it's really embarrassing that police are still policing people for cannabis.
Meanwhile, everybody knows how helpful it is. It's really embarrassing that the United States government would allow people to be in prison for something that their Constitution was written on.
Tammy: Well, let's talk about the War on Drugs quickly. We know that the War on Drugs is mostly aimed at younger men who happen to be black or brown.
And one thing that I was always taught by one of my coaches, as a youth was, you have to be perfect. And I never understood what he meant by it.
But as you get older, you see it's because you get profiled. There's already an assumption that you're doing something wrong. And if you give them any indication, they're going to use that and say they're suspicious.
So can you tell us about your arrest?
Roger: So I was in the state of Florida, which we all know can be questionable.
I knew that I was going to be traveling from Orlando to Miami to visit a friend of mine from college. We did a little smoke in Miami. And then I was driving back to Orlando.
No smoking in the car. I was in my mom's vehicle. I know how areas in between those cities can be so I was respecting the law.
So I'm almost there. And I stopped because I saw gas was cheap.
I pull into the gas station. And I see two police officers already have someone in a situation. In the process of getting my gas, those officers have let a guy go. And now they're in the gas station.
And pretty quickly they see my silk up and down outfit that has palm tree leaves and cannabis leaves integrated in beautiful print.
They see that while I'm in the line checking out to get my water. I actually even feel their eyes on me. I look up at that mirror above the counter, and I see them looking at me.
So I just speak because it's the South. I didn't think anything of it because I knew I hadn't been doing anything wrong.
The only thing that I had done was had cannabis in the car underneath the seat tucked off in a beautiful box.
So I'm pulling out of the gas station and the police officer pulls out behind me. And immediately it's a weird intersection. So we both do the weird exchange and I'm getting right back on the interstate and he puts his lights on immediately.
I hadn't done anything wrong. This is gonna be a quick and easy situation. We know to just shut the fuck up. Don't say anything. So I know how to avoid the situation.
And the police officer is the nicest guy. “I wanted to stop you to let you know that you almost got in the car accident, but everything's fine. You're not gonna get a ticket. Just want to check your license and registration.”
I'm looking for my registration because it's my mom's car. I handed him my license easily. And after, when I'm looking for my registration, he says, “Is this your car? Is it a rental?”
I tell him it's my mom's car. We're doing a family vacation right now. I'm going to pick them up right now.
And he just says that I have to get out of the car to run my license and I'm like, “Officer, that's not standard protocol at all. I'm not getting a ticket. Why would I get out of the car?”
And he asked me, “Have you ever gotten into any trouble with the law?” Because he can see me shaking?
So I tell him I don't feel comfortable getting out of the car. He's very kind and reassures me he is just gonna run my license.
So I get out of the car while he's running my license. Then three other police cars pull up, one of them happens to be a canine officer. He asked me while he's running my license for consent to search the car.
Of course, I don't give him consent to search the car. And they keep trying to coerce me: either I give them consent or they're going to have the dog search it. Either way it goes, I don't give consent and they're going to search the car.
So this is the dramatics in me - I literally put my hands behind my head, and I say you're gonna do whatever you'd like to do. And I start reciting the Lord's Prayer.
I'm not giving you consent, and you're doing what you want to do in this place where my rights are being violated.
Tammy: Yes, your rights were being violated. You did not commit a crime.
Roger: There's no crime committed. He already voiced that.
Tammy: They had no probable cause to stop you.
Roger: Thank you. They have to prove probable cause and a reason to search.
Tammy: Outside of the outfit and the locks with the shells, they just saw a hippie and assumed that you had weed. And they guessed right, but they did not have any reason to pull him over.
Roger: The canines got me. And you know, I have a hemp farm in Alabama. So, I know that canines can't tell the difference between hemp and cannabis.
So even more than you finding things in my car, you can't even determine whether it's hemp, which is completely legal federally, in all states. You still can't tell me that what I'm doing is wrong.
They even made jokes about how they were going to be smoking so good–with their body cams on. Police are super comfortable. And that's why we have to do this cannabis advocacy work because people are too comfortable playing with people's reality.
Tammy: And it'll affect you for the rest of your life. Because one of the things about the War on Drugs is: it's not the fact that you have to go to jail. Or pay all this money to get through the legal system.
It’s that you are now subjugated to being discriminated against.
That means you can now be denied education, housing, loans, jobs, anything for the rest of your life.
Every application that you fill out asks: have you ever been arrested and/or charged with a felony?
You have to check yes, for the rest of your life, which means people get to judge you for that for the rest of your life. Even on Airbnb, people are being kicked off for a charge they got 10 years ago.
Roger: Right. So I asked the police officers, “Sorry, isn't this a legal state? How much can you purchase legally in this state?”
“I don't know. That's not my problem” And I had a box with 21 grams and the felony limit in Florida was 20 grams. It's crazy because it's not even an ounce of weed–which is what I normally leave the house with everyday in CA.
So not even having what would be my normal travel pack is enough for them to try to say that I now have to spend five years or more in jail, pay fines.
Fortunately, I was able to pay my bond to get out. How many people cannot afford to even pay their bond to get out?
Tammy: You were already a cannabis advocate. Your arrest adds more to it.
Roger: I want it to. I would like to put the whole state of Florida in a chokehold because of the way that they're doing people.
When the officer stopped me initially and he found the cannabis, I'm like, “Sir, can I get my ticket so I can go?” Because I know it's legal. I thought it was decriminalized. I thought people were not getting arrested. I thought we were trying to get the 40,000 out right now.
Tammy: Yeah, we're trying to release the 40,000 that are sitting in jail for cannabis. But as some of those cycle out, we put new ones in there too.
So yeah, it's an issue. I'm so sorry that it had to happen to you.
So give us some tips. Maybe they're a farmer or they're a young black man who really loves cannabis and wants to shout it from the rooftops? What advice would you give them?
Roger: Wear it on your chest. Come out of your cannabis closet because that's the only way that you will find that tribe that you're looking for.
If everyone has their cannabis use in the closet, then we'll never know that our doctors use cannabis. Our lawyers use cannabis. Our police officers use cannabis. Our favorite artists use cannabis. Our favorite athletes use cannabis. All these people need to be able to have access.
Tell people about our endocannabinoid system and that it is a natural piece of us and that's why it stays in our bodies so long.
Things like pills and alcohol that are not supposed to be in our body get pushed out of our body quickly. But we have an endocannabinoid system because our bodies receive and even make cannabinoids, so we've been mis-educated for so long.
So many aspects of the social lives of black people have been just demonized.
But cannabis is the liberation for black people, for brown people, for indigenous people. We've been here on this dirt for so long. And this plant has as well.
And if you look at people of color, and you look at the cannabis plant, they both have a really crucial part in the history and the formation of where we are now. But they both got demonized.
Tammy: Thank you so much Roger for coming in and sharing your story and those gems.
Be on the lookout for the next interview in our advocacy series.
Until then, be sure to check out my new, free guide on How to Be a Cannabis Advocate.👇
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