They threw us in the paddy wagon and we spent the night in jail, in central booking off Canal Street. But the thing about that experience is that there must be 20 cells in the catacombs down there and my buddy and I were the only two white dudes in all of them. It was shocking. We hear the statistics, but to actually see it is pretty upsetting. It was like, "Well, this is obviously not right." The other thing was that you're sitting in the cell with 15 other dudes, and everyone talks about why they're in jail. Everyone was like, "Weed. Smoking weed. Smoking weed. Selling weed. Smoking weed." Everyone was in jail for weed. There were a couple of dudes in there for soliciting prostitutes, but everyone else was in jail for weed.
Being in jail is horrible. It's a horrible experience, I never want to do it again. The way that you're treated is just awful. Like you're not a human being. And it was clear that they were just going out and looking for people to arrest. This was Giuliani time. There were quotas, and they were actually going out and arresting people like it's a game. And then seeing the people who are suffering because of that game—it was eye-opening. I think once you open your mind to that kind of stuff, you see it more, and you can’t unsee it.
Now I don't really use cannabis recreationally anymore. I see it as medicine. I use it for anxiety, I use it as a painkiller. I like a beer's worth of weed: you're not stoned, you're just sort of buzzed. And it’s cool that now I can actually get what I need. The specific dosage and the right strain and all that. There are a lot of cool things about the wave of legalization, and one is that people can really use it as medicine more. But they can't legalize it without addressing all the people in jail.