Cypress Hill: Decriminalising Weed Will Create Jobs

The always outspoken Cypress Hill think decriminalising marijuana across the US will continue to boost a “proven, flowing and growing revenue stream”.

Vocalist B-Real had no hesitation to talk politics in a recent interview, claiming that his native California should have been the first state to abolish criminal penalties for weed possession.

“California should have been the first state to do what Washington and Colorado have recently done,” he says. “Due to some confusion going on with some people involved in the legalisation party, it kind of... There was a whole momentum off, and now you have Washington and Denver which have gone before us, and that's a great thing. Our only setback was that we could have been the ones to set the standard and push it forward. I imagine that in the next voting cycle California will probably be the next state to do the same thing. It would be ridiculous for us not to.”

The Latino rapper said that the drug would prove very profitable for a number of American cities if it was legal.

“Right now there's not really any new revenue streams, new capital coming from anywhere for all the states that might be hurting. California has got so many different types of revenue streams that come through here with the movie industry, and music, and art and all that stuff – same thing with New York and all the other major cities. But most cities don't have those types of opportunities, and this would be perfect because it's a proven, flowing and growing revenue stream. I think it's something that all states in America should consider. We have to fight the bullshit thinking and realise that people need jobs, and this is one way to create it.”

B-Real also believes that the majority of his nation's law enforcement smoke marijuana themselves and that they're just pawns for the government.

“I tell you what – if there was an off the record poll that you could take with policemen I bet that a good third or fourth of them are actually marijuana smokers themselves, but they can't do it or can't admit it because of their job and the drug testing and what not. And then there's another percentage that are sympathetic to it, and then you still have that small group of old-school thinking that can't get it past their heads that this is not the same type of drug as cocaine or heroin or methamphetamine. They look at it as all the same. There's always that old-school thinking type of police officers. However, younger police know what's up. They don't have to arrest you unless you're going out of your way to fuck up, you know?”

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