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Oaksterdam University in the News!!!
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| Interview: Chong revels in stoner stereotype |
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| Written by Chris Conrad | |||||||
| Saturday, 10 June 2006 | |||||||
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Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong was keynote speaker at the 2006 national NORML conference. After the showing of his forthcoming documentary, AKA Tommy Chong was cancelled due to smoking in the screening area, the former Drug War POW came by to talk with me at the Oaksterdam News table.  The comic duo Cheech and Chong in its day. Q: The film AKA Tommy Chong shows how your early career took you from being a couple of regular comics who played at strip joints to major movie stars, to social stereotypes, and then you end up as a Drug War POW for smoking paraphernalia. Chong: Yeah, I learned the hard way that I should never put my picture on a bong. Q: It looks like you were not initially into politics, just humor? Chong: Nah, my arrest forced me to be a spokesperson rather than just another comic, but I’m glad that my celebrity gets people to hear what I have to say. Q: What are you up to these days? Chong: Nowadays I’m an advisor — and my advice for people is to watch out for the Feds, because they’re really, really mean. Q. Do you have a medical approval? Chong: Yeah, I’ve had my card for years now, but the feds took it when they busted me. I got so much anxiety and stress from them that I had to get a new one. Seriously, I used weed to get off cigarettes. Whenever I felt like a smoke, I’d just light up a joint instead of a cigarette. It really worked: I’d forget I hadn’t smoked a cigarette.  Chong visits the Oaksterdam News at the 2006 NORML conference. Photo by Jaime Galindo Q: When did you start smoking herb? Chong: I first used it when I was 18. I got high the first time and loved it. I nursed that joint along for weeks. I call it the rat technique, trying to make everything last. Q: Are you concerned about the stereotype that your Cheech and Chong characters created and how they have created such a lasting stigma, like when the drug czar referred to medical marijuana as “Cheech and Chong medicine”? Chong: I was actually kind of proud of that. Anyhow, we created these stereotypes based on people that we liked and got a big kick out of being around. They became a stereotype for the right wing but are seen as friends by friendly people. Look, what was Carl Sagan’s contribution to the movement? He was a genius who smoked pot everyday; but when you point to some brilliant guy who comes up with scientific theories while smoking pot every day, he’s treated like an anomaly, not a stereotype. But most people aren’t geniuses and they can’t relate to him. He can’t be the stereotype because there aren’t enough people like him. But everybody knows a Cheech and Chong type, so it sticks. Those fundamentalists are like talking to a stone; 
Those fundamentalists are like talking to a stone; 
Q: I know you’ve been to Amsterdam because I saw Nice Dreams and even went to the Nice Dreams Coffeeshop back in the day; did you have anything to do with it? Chong: (Laughing) Nah, they did that on their own; I thought it was funny. Q: What do you think about transferring the Amsterdam model to America? Chong: I’m not interested in that. We have to create our own system here, and it’s not going to be the same as in Amsterdam. We’re creating our own system here and it has to match our economic realities. Bush and Cheney are so criminal it reeks. We have to overcome that or fit into it. So, here’s the system. A plant grows that gives you all these gifts, one of which is it makes you happy. And that scares the shit out of these guys, so they try to get rid of us. But with pot, you’re not dealing with people who are criminals. So here’s the deal, the jails are now run by potheads. They’re the smartest people in there and they do the clerical work, the gardening and come up with all the suggestions. Plus lots of guards sell pot. Just like the DEA busts dealers, takes their money and pot then lets them go … and the cops end up selling it. You know what else is criminal; the prisons are privately run. The one I was in was run by Wackenhut — who changed its name to GEO — but what this whole thing about is making money for them. So we already have a system, but you have to realize that the US government is the most corrupt in the world; people just don’t want to admit it. Q: So why did they come after you? Chong: I think my troubles began when I went to Missouri and started outing people on the radio,
I think my troubles began when I went to Missouri and started outing people on the radio,
Q: Are you coming to Seattle HempFest this year, the world’s biggest hemp rally? Chong: They just asked me, and I’m thinking about it. You know, Woodstock was really the first cannabis event ever held at such a large scale; a half-million people with no plan. But it was all mellow. Without pot, that could’ve been a disaster. Q: How did your arrest affect things? Chong: There is no upside. When I went to jail, a lot of people wouldn’t come near me anymore.
When I went to jail, a lot of people wouldn’t come near me anymore.
Q: So what keeps you in this? Chong: I’ve always had profound spiritual experiences. I went to Bible camp when very young — seven or eight years old — I was really into it all and came to understand so much. When I smoke, I go back to that place of spiritual sensibility at a gut level that helps make sense of things. Like when you make a mistake, it’s really a learning event. You don’t learn from your successes; you learn from your mistakes. People are so worried and brainwashed that they have to be perfect but you can learn some great stuff when you screw up. You learn what not to do. Then you actually look forward to your mistake, because it’s like skiing or skateboarding you might get hurt — but you don’t do that again, do you? Q: I know you’ve got other people who want to talk, but is there anything in particular you’d like to say to our readers? Chong: Well, maybe one thing. There’s this whole unseen level of understanding of reality
There’s this whole unseen level of understanding of reality
So if you have that natural curiosity and interest in whatever is below the surface, you go looking for it; exploring and bringing back new insights to your daily life. Basically, it’s that we’re in a multi-level, multi-dimensional reality but most people get locked into their own little part of it and don’t get any farther. If you open up to it, there’s so much more out there. Most people will never know it. But pot can take you there or give you a taste of it. We’re so lucky to be able to get glimpses of it, and once you do, you aren’t so afraid of life and what it holds, even if it involves mistakes or prison. It’s all a great adventure, and that’s what makes life so great. Q: I never knew Tommy Chong had this heavy, philosophical side. Chong: Nobody does, and if you tell them, they won’t believe you anyhow. | |||||||
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