Action Bronson - Stoned Beyond Belief

Introduction

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN A BURDEN TO WRITE.
THIS HASNT BEEN AN EASY BOOK TO WRITE.

ITS TAKING AWAY FROM MY HIGH TIME.

MY THEM TIME.

MY ME TIME.

BUT THIS BOOK IS A BIG DEAL, BECAUSE WEED CHANGED MY LIFE.

I think that weed was the best influence on me, period, all the time, starting with the path it has taken me on. It changed the course of mad things in my life. As a youth, pre-weed, I was playing football, I was doing good in school, I was in shape. Im not blaming the weed for what changed, just that I liked weed so much, I decided to give everything else up and go chase my dreams. My real dreams: smoking weed every day.

My priorities were a lot different back then. Smoking weed wasnt like a ritual for me early on. I didnt realize how spiritual it was to me until later on. Now smoking it, preparing to smoke it, that is my therapy. Weed is my companion: I always have my tree with me. If Im up on a fucking mountaintop, its going to be me and tree. The tree of life, you know. And I smoke weed wherever I am because it is who I am. I feel like you should always be who you arewhy try to hide something? I cant hide anything, thats how I am: I am just myself to the extreme.

Plus, weed helps me get through the trauma.

Weed does so many things. Weed should be a superhero.

Weed can expand your horizons: You dont think the same way you used to think. Thats what drew me to it, the chance to have that altered state of reality. Because sometimes you dont want to be in your reality, so youre trying to get yourself as much as you can into another one, and then that just becomes your norm. But its an enjoyable norm: Its not like a medically induced lithium norm. In fact, my awareness is on the craziest peak everself-awareness, nature awareness. My self-discovery is off the charts.

A lot of people who are depressed or have anxiety, they dont need to go to a shrink, they just need to smoke some weed. I really do feel that way. A lot of great people found themselves through weed. Everyone who likes great food and is not a stuck-up piece of garbage smokes weed. Or has done something similar. Outside-the-box thinkers smoke weed.

Weed puts you on another plane; it is a conduit for happiness, for knowledge seeking, for understanding, and also for release and total relaxation and comfortability. It doesnt matter where you are: When youre stoned, youre your own world, and thats all that matters to you.

Weed just puts you in a space of good vibes and good celestial feelings and good celestial energies. Way back in the day all we could buy were nickel bags, and we used to call smoking them nick at night. Wed work all day, and at the end of the day wed look at each other and say, Nick at Night? And wed all agree, and wed go back to my friends house, smoke on his little balcony in his room, and wed be cracking up and just enjoying our lives.

People like getting high; it feels good. It just really feels incredible.

Weed is also a connector. Man, Ive been far and wide in this country and this world, and weed has let me meet so many people. People all over the world often stop me in the street to try to smoke with me: If they dont know English, they just stop you with a smoke in their hand. Theyll start with where theyre from. Maroc. Maroc. Then theyll say hashish, hashish, and then theyll say the name of their favorite football player, usually some famous French footballer-its ridiculous, but it works. I know what theyre saying: Lets smoke some weed.

Somebody says, Yo, I got some great fucking weed. Aiight, I go. I call their bluff.

Because I love weed. I do. I need it every day. I diagnosed myself with extreme ADHD-all the letters you could possibly have-and this is the only thing that slows all that down. I cant sit still, I cant stand still, I cant stop shaking my leg. Ive been fidgety since grade school. I feel like I need the weed to combat my hyperactivity. So its medicine.

Its also food and drink. Its cereal. Its fucking steak. I could be as hungry as a motherfucker right now and be dreaming of a steak. If I smoke a joint, its just as good. Im eventually going to want that steak a million times more, but in that moment Im smoking, Ill be satisfied.

I get Stoned Beyond Belief every single day of my life. But as you smoke and you smoke and you smoke, you build up a tolerance, and youre constantly searching for that old high school stoned. Thats what Im looking for: your eyes really low, tearing up, almost shut, a big grin on your face, hungry as a mother fucker, eating chips, the chips falling all over you, ashes on your shirt, just acting really silly. Youre like the old cars with the pop-up headlights, where one of them is stuck halfway down. You want to feel like you lost your phone: Wheres my phone? Its literally right next to you.

Thats the high I am trying to find, that weed thats going to get me high like it did back then. Thats Stoned Beyond Belief. Im still fucking searching for that. I seek that feeling every day.

Theres so much amazing stuff going on in America right now with weed, and its mainly on the West Coast. Nearly everything I know thats fire comes from Out West. First, weed is legal there, so all the amazing botanists and growers and artisanal hash makers moved out that way. Theres so many good people involved in the cannabis community and culture out there, every kind of product is made, every kind of byproduct or tool. Youll visit and come back with all kinds of elixirs and tinctures, pens and oils and products. Weed cream that doesnt get you high but will cure your back pain or your eczema. And now the West Coast has opened the doors for all of us. Their knowledge has expanded to Colorado and Michigan and Maine and Massachusetts and the world.

For me, a lot of my own weed transformation came in LA a few years ago. I became awoken to the weed universe, to the bounty and beauty that the land provides. LA was where I first got turned on to really good weed, and then to extracts and oil and nextlevel hash: Right now there is no place like the Pacific Northwest for hash and the good strains of weed and just the fire. And Colorado? Its all there too. So many who grow weed or make weed products are fans of music in general, and they love to offer their thanks to me for making music by allowing me to taste the best flavors of weed in the world. Over the years its become a beautiful, harmonious relationship among grower, maker, and connoisseur.

AB: I gotta get more poignant about this. Al, do you have any input here? You dont have any input, do you wanna lay down?

AL: Bout what?

AB: One hundred things weed-related is what Im trying to get at. But theres so many things. Do you have any things from your past? Can we interview you? We can do What Al Likes.