Rob Van Dam recently shared his thoughts on WWE removing marijuana from its banned substances list during an interview with Chris Van Vliet. The WWE Hall of Famer, who has long been an advocate for cannabis, reflected on how public perception has shifted over the years.
“It’s interesting in a good way. I can’t say I’m surprised. I always knew the direction that marijuana prohibition would go. I was just ahead of the curve like I am with a lot of things. I’m ahead of my time in a lot of ways. So when I started advocating and telling people, ‘Dude, put that cigarette down. That’s killing you, marijuana is not.’ Everyone thought I was crazy back then. Smoking was so popular with cigarettes, which kills one out of two users statistically, long term, and I was learning that they say cannabis is a schedule one worst drug, but no one has overdosed from it because it’s not even possible.
So I was like I gotta tell people about this and stuff. Back then, they didn’t want to hear it, but because people like to be told what to do, they really do. I feel like people like to be told what to do, and then they determine their own self-value, self-judging by how good they’re following directions. That makes them a better person if they stopped all the way at a four-way stop sign when there were no other cars around.
In a lot of people’s minds, because they’re doing what they’re supposed to nowadays, everyone before that was like, ‘Oh, marijuana is horrible.’ Now, because the government’s come around, everyone’s like, ‘Well, I eat a couple of gummies before I go to bed at night. It does help me sleep.’ What about all you guys saying it’s going to lead to harder drugs? When are all these people that are having a couple of gummies going to come out, ‘I went straight to heroin, and then that wasn’t enough?’ Because that’s what they believed before, before the government finally came around and said, ‘Oh, we weren’t right about that.’”
RVD also discussed how his 2006 arrest for marijuana possession cut short his WWE and ECW world title reigns, speculating on how things could have been different had the incident never occurred.
“Who knows where it would have went? I don’t know what [was planned]. I was always the last one to know what people had planned. I don’t know how long the championship would have been around, but for sure, I would have been able to do a hell of a lot more to keep ECW going. Now, that was all because of the marijuana bust, which is not even a thing right now. In that same Hanging Rock, Ohio, for that same 18 grams, you’re not going to get arrested. You’re probably just going to get let go.
I said I was just ahead of my time. To me, what I’m doing right now isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just because the authority says that it’s bad. People that think that, ‘No, they say it’s bad, that’s bad.’ Well, they change that all the time. Coffee’s good for you. Coffee’s bad for you. Guess what? Do some research, make up your mind for yourself.”
