What’s the difference between Miami weed and Jamaican weed? The weed in Miami is expensive, like $800 an ounce. It looks real good and smells real good, but it only gets you high for fifteen minutes. But when you go to Jamaica, they grow it out of the sand, the black dirt, with the yellow sun and the blue water, the shit is the same as kush but with seeds. It’ll get you high for five hours instead of fifteen minutes, and it’s way cheaper. $40 will get you an ounce of that good sticky in Jamaica that breaks down just like kush. When you smoke it you can taste it. Jamaica has natural kush. How does it compare to California weed and other places you’ve been? Cali weed is good too, but all that stuff is chemically grown so it’s only gonna give you the chemical high for fifteen minutes. We’ll run through $2,000 easy in two or three days out there [in California]. Jamaica has the best weed. Jamaican weed is so good I almost went to prison bringing this back right now. Customs almost searched my whole life. Wait a minute. Customs just pulled you aside at the airport bringing weed back from Jamaica? How did you not get busted? They were sweating me extra hard but I’ve got God on my side. If I was a pussy nigga that had never really been through nothin’, I woulda been sweating. I would’ve been nervous. But I’ve been through a lot worse than a couple joints of Jamaican weed. I just stood there [in customs] and played it like a G and got up outta there with my good stuff. I brought kush to Jamaica and now I’m bringing Jamaica to Miami. Ain’t that some shit? How many times have you been arrested for drug-related offenses? I’ve been arrested one, two, three, four... about six or seven times. I just got arrested in Detroit last year, in August. I’ve got a warrant up there now. I was in the airport coming through with some kush and they picked me up. I never took care of it so now I’ve got a warrant. (laughs) Would you consider yourself a drug user, or a drug dealer? Do you make money off it? No, I’m not a user. I’m an abuser. An abuser? Sounds like you don’t take it seriously. Nope. I don’t take it seriously. Some people have a problem. Some people let drugs use them; I use drugs. I don’t sit there and say, “I need a line of coke or a pill or I can’t do nothing.” I need my weed now or I can’t do shit or I’ma snap on anybody three feet near me, but I don’t take it to that extreme where I can’t handle my business. If I don’t handle my business I can’t get high. My business and my family are first and foremost, then after I do all that, I get as high as a kite. I’ll snort an eight-ball; I’ll pop five pills; I’ll sip two or three ounces of syrup; I’ll pop two or three Xanax bars. How much money do you spend during an average week on drugs? Don’t tell [Rick] Ross, but on an average week I spend about $500 to $600 on weed, coke, pills, and Percs. When I had money to spare I was spending $1,500 a week. Right now I’m down to $500 ‘cause I’m trying to reserve myself, but at the height of my escapades it was $1,500 a week, no pressure. How do you think you’re able to “use drugs” without letting them “use you”? At an early age I saw what drugs do to you. My aunt used to be on bricks bad, that’s crack-cocaine. She was freebasing real bad when I was six years old. I saw what overdoing it will do to you. I just made a promise within myself not to go that far, not to ever let it mess up my family, my money, my mind, you know? That’s recreation. I like to do it when I know I don’t have anything to do or when I know it’s time to vibe. People like to see me vibe and when I vibe, I’m usually on four or five different drugs. If I can get paid and do that at the same time, I’m getting off scot-free. I feel like I’m stealing. When you were six years old and your aunt was doing crack-cocaine, what are your earliest memories of seeing the drug’s effects? My aunt used to have this pink nightgown and she would lay down on the sofa. She’s like 240 [pounds] now but back then she was about 89 pounds, and she’s a very tall lady. Imagine a 6’2”, 89 pound lady laying on the couch in a pink nightgown that was
78 // OZONE MAG
An unusually sober-looking GunPlay (right) with fellow Poe Boy artists Flo Rida and Rick Ross
so old, the material was so thin, it was almost see-through. The material is so thin it’s falling in between her ribcage. I came in the house and when I saw her, I thought she was dead. I said, “Aunt Ruthie, wake up, somebody’s at the door.” I looked at her chest and it wasn’t even rising up and down. It just messed my mind up. I said, “Hell naw, I ain’t never doing that shit [crack].” One time, after a big [domestic] fight, my mother went real bad on me. She said, “Don’t you ever do drugs!” She was screaming and crying and slapping me. How does your mother feel about your drug use now? She doesn’t like it but she knows that I’m a smart guy and I know what I’m doing and I handle my business. She doesn’t like it at all. I done came home plenty of times and parked my car halfway on the front porch. My mom had to help me out the car ‘cause I couldn’t drive anymore and I was screaming, “We the best!” and being all happy. She’s like, “You’re too drunk,” and I’m like, “Naw, I’m too successful.” When good stuff happens to me and I overcome a hump in my life, that’s a reason for me to go out, celebrate, and do six drugs. What’s been your worst experience from doing drugs? Usually I take four or five pills. One time, I took just one pill and I swear I thought I was gonna die. I had my homeboy drop me at the hospital and drive off ‘cause I really thought I was gonna die. I didn’t want him to go to prison so I told him to just drop me off at the emergency room and keep going. I took one pill from one of my homeboys and I didn’t look at it or nothing; I just popped it and the next thing you know I felt like I was gonna die. I felt like one of these people that’s on TV, like how they be shaking and shit when they overdose on ecstasy and synthetic pills. They stripped me down to my boxers and left my chain on. So I got my boxers and my chain on and that’s it. I was sweating, drinking water, shaking, and I kinda dozed off. I felt somebody lift up my chain and I grabbed that nurse – a male nurse – I grabbed him by his wrist and his neck at the same time and boom! The head nurse lady said, “Don’t you ever touch one of my employees again or I’m gonna send you to prison!” I thought he was gonna steal my chain and I got sober instantly. I was damn near in a coma but I felt that muthafucka touch my chain and it was going down. How old were you when you started experimenting with drugs? I started smoking weed at 12 years old, in seventh grade, when I was in drop-out prevention. I think that’s how I got in drop-out prevention ‘cause I started smoking weed. I started snorting coke at 15 in the summer of ’94. Why did you decide to start using cocaine? I always had a lot of it [for sale]. I used to serve this one baser all night, outta my mama’s house. I would walk down to the corner store and serve him 40’s all night. He would buy four 40’s a night, every night. That’s when all my niggas was serving lil’ nickel bags of weed and shit and I was sitting here serving 40’s of coke and getting money. One day his eyes were real wide and he walked up to me when he was buying that 40 and said, “Yo, you ever did this shit?” I said, “Naw, man.” He said, “Don’t you ever do this shit, dawg. This shit is the devil.” In my mind, I know crack is the devil. [But] I know rich dudes that maintain in life and still do coke. So I’m like,