In the summer of 2004 I was sentenced to prison for a nine-month stint following my conviction for selling Chong Bongs. While behind bars, I was honored to get regular mail from all over the world, often very personal letters. I still get a lot and received one from a woman named Rebecca; every day I read heartfelt letters like this, and it reinforces the fact that cannabis prohibition is wrong, plain and simple.
Tommy and Shelby Chong:
I want to share with you the saddest day of my life. I am heart broken. My youngest child, my beautiful daughter died early this morning of cirrhosis of the liver. Unknown to me, she contracted hepatitis C when getting a cheap tattoo as a teenager. This was dormant until a year and a half ago … she came down with a rare disease and was paralyzed from the waist down, and gradually came out of it over the following year. However, during this time of regenerating her nerves in her legs and feet, she was in extreme pain. She is not and was not a drug user. No medication from the doctors could relieve the pain in her legs and feet. I suggested that she try marijuana to help with the pain she had … but because of the stigma of being a drug, she did not want to use marijuana. Her pain in her legs and feet was unbearable, so she resorted to drinking Vodka as a pain medication. I knew that she was drinking to relieve the pain; however, I didn’t realize the extent. I also, being a bit naive, did not know that a person with cirrhosis of the liver cannot drink. I am devastated at the loss of my daughter. Why is alcohol legal if it kills people, when marijuana is illegal and it may help people relieve pain? I cannot believe my loss. My daughter was the world to me. Please help me make this point!
From Rebecca
Other letters try to engage my support for a project they are working on, often nobly. I just finished writing to the leader of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party, Nathan Holowaty. He’s a nice clean-cut lad who wants my help with his quest to legalize the recreational use of the magic herb. (I get that a lot!) I wrote Mr. Holowaty back and explained that I have been trying in my own little way to raise the consciousness of the whole world so people accept the herb: through comedy. I believe one can say things in a humorous way and be more effective than the “warriors” who fight, argue and try to change consciousness through the force of reason. That is a way to do it, but not my way. Humor goes back to the beginning of time as a force that enables change without hardening egos. Humor dissolves ego like water dissolves salt. It’s almost impossible to laugh and remain inflexible at the same time. I take that back – it is impossible! Laughter is a force that cannot be controlled; how many of us have been in a somber situation, or in a church at a wedding or a funeral, and suddenly felt like laughing irreverently? Laughter is the antidote to seriousness and all its forboding responsibility and consequences. Now, what substance makes you laugh? And I mean laugh hard, until tears come to your eyes and snot runs out your nose? We’ve all seen the evidence – it’s weed! That’s part of why marijuana is still illegal: When we smoke pot we laugh in the face of our pompous leaders and mock their dominator mentality. They know it, and they hate it!
Memories From The Joint
In my experience, potheads like to have lots of projects on the go. They get vivid ideas while stoned and, never wanting to pass up an opportunity, try to make them happen. This “many irons in the fire” lifestyle, as it were, can also foster procrastination; a new idea is a convenient escape from the often-onerous responsibility of seeing an older project all the way through. It’s a bit true with me, I’ll admit it!
Nathan Holowaty, seen campaigning in a 2007 election in Canada, wrote Tommy for helpIn jail, though, you had to finish something or you got punished. I could have “hired” someone to make my bed for me but I chose to make it myself, and actually developed a bit of discipline. My job assignment while incarcerated was sweeping the sidewalks that led from one dorm to another, and up to “control” where the visiting room was housed. When I’d really get into sweeping I would clear all the dirt from the cracks that divided the cement squares, and still be sweeping long after everyone else in my work detail finished. Steve, my dawg – that is, my most trusted friend in prison – would try and tell me not to work like I was working because it set a bad example. “Con logic” demanded we sabotage anything we could, and never put any effort into working. The prevailing view in jail is to not assist or help the oppressor.
But I had my own agenda. To make prison bearable, you need projects you can put your mind and body to work on for long periods of time. I liked staying busy and getting into whatever task I was assigned because it made the time fly by. I wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible, and never go back.
The US government tried their best to set me up while I was in there, all the time. I was regularly offered more weed than anyone else but it was always a set-up. A few times I came very close to accepting the offered herb, but ultimately I refused because every time, an hour after the offer came to me, I would be summoned to “control” and drug tested on the spot. Every time! If I had inhaled, the guy who gave me the joint would be rewarded with time off his sentence. So it was easy beating the government at their own game.
Though I did not partake at Taft Penitentiary, I pondered the magic of the outlaw herb while behind barbed wire. The Herb has always been with us. The Burning Bush is a gift from God to His people, and once inside us, is always working its sacred magic on our behalf – if you are sacred-minded and appreciative. Understanding is the main gift herb gives man, and those of us who have been granted understanding must share the sacred knowledge with others. So here I am, at Marc Emery’s request, giving you my thoughts in every future issue of Cannabis Culture Magazine.
Ed Rosenthal and Tommy at a Green-Aid benefit.I used the power of humor every chance I got while in jail. One time after I had been there for about a month I missed a “count”, when they line you up and count everyone to see if anyone wandered off. I had really forgotten the noon-hour count because I was in the garden, carving chopsticks. There I was, whittling away, when an inmate came running up and said, “They’re looking for you.” The guard met me half way to the dorm and started yelling at me like I was some kind of… well, some kind of prisoner! “Where were you? What were you doing in the garden? Are you assigned to be in the garden? No? Then what the hell are you doing in
the garden?”
I couldn’t answer that without getting both me, and the guy who hands out garden tools, in trouble – I was not supposed to have access to a knife, and not supposed to be whittling a pair of chopsticks. But everyone wanted to meet me and talk to me, including the guards, so my “famous guy status” allowed me total access to the prison. I was allowed to wander as long as I did not miss a
count. Whoops!
My punishment could have been way worse than the “don’t go near the garden” slap on the wrist they gave me. I stayed away for a while, then applied and received permission to be a “volunteer garden worker.” I held that position until my release. Most of the garden workers were long-timers – that is, people with years and years to go on their sentences. Gardening is the perfect way to “do time,” because of the changing seasons. I realize this is why retired folks garden in the autumn of their lives. The promise of eternity lays hidden in the soil; the seasons merge into each other seamlessly to create a reassuring pattern with no end, and no season is ever exactly the same as another. A lot of life is active in gardens even in fall when they decompose and winter when they appear dormant. Being under the sunshine in the prison garden was as far away mentally as I could get from the concrete and metal cell that I would otherwise be in. I could be most at peace with myself in that garden.
What I’m Doing These Days
My book, I, Chong is selling well and is still available in bookstores. I learned a lot out of my time in the garden and cells of my prison, and put it in this book. It’s a story about my life and my time in jail; how I developed the funny stoner personas that have made both my entertainment and prison career; and what I make of it all.
I am working on The Cheech & Chong Story, unauthorized it seems. Cheech Marin and I still have disputes over who wrote the original movie scripts; he insists I did not write the movies and claims they emerged on the set intuitively. Comedy is indeed chemistry and timing, but there was also a well-rehearsed script for everyone on the set to follow. Movie ‘magic’ is hard work, and a script is always necessary. It’s too bad about Cheech. He says my ego is so huge I have to buy an extra seat whenever I fly. Well, I do have an enormous ego – I’m proud of my achievements and my place in entertainment history! What’s wrong with that?
The widespread distribution of my movie AKA Tommy Chong has been held up because of a dispute between director Josh Gilbert and one of the investors. It’s been two years since its completion and premiere at film festivals. The movie is about how the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bush Administration repeatedly set about to entrap me into selling them bongs to put away the biggest pothead as an ideological warning to the free thinkers in America. The movie follows me on my way to jail, covers how I got to that point, documents my imprisonment, and captures the day of my release. I love the film even though almost no one has ever seen it! I hope it finally gets released to theatres and distributed on DVD later this year.
I’ve been testing a reality TV show concept online at YouTube.com. Citizen Chong is the basis of a show I’m currently pitching around to networks and cable producers. The show will feature my two sons who have moved back home to go to school; Paris, 31 years old, is studying to be a lawyer and wants to eventually buy and operate businesses in Bali. Gilbran, 24, is a Bikram’s Yoga teacher who now wants to pursue a higher education while dad foots the bill, though he doesn’t know what he is going to major in just yet. Shelby, my gorgeous wife and comedy partner, is the sensible one in the show, trying unsuccessfully to keep me from starting my stoner-inspired schemes. All my latest projects are announced at www.myspace.com/tommy_chong and on my YouTube “channel” at www.youtube.com/citizenchong
After my work in the Marijuanalogues theater production, I got the bug to write a play. It’s a collection of classic Cheech & Chong bits wrapped in a story and played by actors. Eric Idle’s play Spamalot inspired me, I must admit. It made me think that my comedy acts – which started in clubs in 1970, became huge records and movies in the ’70s and ’80s, and reprised in the ’90s with That ’70s Show – could do well on stage. Comedy is about re-invention and I’d like to try theater using my familiar comedic characters. I’ll keep everyone updated in my column here each issue!
