Cannabis Advocacy Goes Classified
High Canada had the pleasure of sitting down and interviewing the Canadian Hip Hop artist known as Classified recently to discuss cannabis in Canada since legalization. Also known as Luke Boyd - a Canadian rapper and record producer from Enfield, Nova Scotia. Classified is also a die hard lover of all things cannabis. Is it easier or harder for people who live in the public eye, like you do, who don’t consume regularly to get cannabis? I noticed you only have a few stores on the East Coast? I haven’t noticed a big difference. I noticed that friends who would get it from buddies are now going to the store. It’s more of a curiosity thing. It costs a bit more there is more packaging. The closest store to us is about 20 minutes away rather than just going to a buddy down the road. The store is cool to try out you know. I think people just buy legally from the store once for the packaging and just re use it. In your new video ‘Legal Marijuana’, from the new album 'Tomorrow Could Be The Day Things Change', you showcased a lot of cannabis advocates such as Amy Anonymous, Naomi Poley and Tweedledoob. Are you familiar with that community?
I have known Amy for years now. She’s been in the cannabis community for years, we had mutual friends and she came to shows we would shoot the shit. Most of the people I had already met or ran into.
In this song you speak about medical cannabis, what is your relationship to that; are you a medical user or do you know of medical users? I never really smoked weed as a teenager. My dad, now that I am older, we now smoke together. He has done a lot of things to his back for years and now cannabis helps with that. Recreational is good I don’t think people are smoking any more or less now that it is legal but medical is super important. Before some patients would feel like they are breaking the law medicating and now they can medicate and get off pills without worrying about the law and for patients I think that is a really great thing. As far as retail sales in your province of Nova Scotia, do you foresee independent craft retail or do you see it sticking with the liquor store type store? I don’t know for sure but I would say they will stick with the liquor store. I don’t see the government saying ‘you know what, lets go the other way now’ but who knows. If they can't keep up with it. From my experience, the first time I went into the liquor store that sells weed, they had big screens up of all their available weed. The second time I went, those screens were all off, and I asked ‘oh where’s the screens’ and they said ‘honestly we sell out of things too quick, here’s the daily piece of paper of what we have left today’. They can’t even keep up with it. I can’t see them giving that up, profiting, always selling out, ordering more... I can’t see them giving it up.
We hear you have some cannabis stocks as well, possibly loosely repping Organigram I knew when cannabis became legal that the stocks would get kinda funny. I don’t check too often but I know around December everything dropped however I am seeing pot stocks heading back up. I got into Canopy, Organigram, Aurora and a few others early, which was good. No, they don’t sponsor me I wasn’t really repping them, they gave me a hat. Ray, their head of marketing and I have been good friends so I have always had a good connection with the company. They have come to my shows and set up a booth and talked to my fan base and that’s where our whole relationship kinda started from. I consider a lot of those guys friends. Right now I have talked to a few LP’s and it’s a weird time no one really knows what we are allowed to be doing so were all a little hesitant right now. Have you smoked a lot of LP cannabis? When we were on tour that’s when cannabis became legal. So we definitely tried a good amount. I like certain smells and tastes but I am not one of those guys who is really particular on brands or anything. If it’s good weed and smells good I will smoke it. I’m not a fan of outdoor stuff I like the skunky smelling stuff. How many days (if ever) have you gone without smoking? 10 days. I made it 10 days about 4 years ago. I’m not going to lie it felt good but then I smoked one joint and that was it. It was good to reset. My line of work I can wake up and smoke a joint at 10am or 11am, smoke all day and no one would say shit. Sometimes that becomes a bit too much and you need to cut down. That was me changing it up and resetting, going 10 days to get back into the mode.
Fun Facts
Sativa over Indica
Spliff over Blunt, Joint
Bong over pipe
Shoot over Pale
Hash over Oil
Flower over extracts
Edibles over Candy
Favourite Munchies: Anything in the cupboard. But honestly Nachos and Doritos.