A Quote by Sugar Ray Leonard
I had a drug problem. I'd go to parties, take a leak, and there was cocaine right there. I was 25 when it started, rich, famous, and retired.
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I played a major role in the spread of crack cocaine, the marketing of crack cocaine, the glamorization of crack cocaine. But it's hard to say that it was totally my fault. My judge in Cincinnati told me, "Mr. Ross, I know that the prosecutor and the media and the DEA all want to blame you for this problem, but I sentenced my first drug dealer the year you were born, so I know you're not the cause. This is a problem we've had since before you were born."
Looking at the data and at my drug use and evaluating it carefully just let me see that I wasn't special, but my drug use challenged what I thought about cocaine. Because I would accept when I would say, "What happened to that person?" and someone would say, "They started using cocaine...they went downhill..." I would just accept that, even though I had a different experience and all these other people had a different experience. But I would throw that out because I thought my experience was an aberration.
People always want to ask me about my drug problem - I never had a drug problem; I had a self-esteem problem!
I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery.
I have been married to my wife, Paula, for 25 years. We have wonderful kids. Things are - it's been a really rich life, so I started thinking, is there a way to get valence a little more into the stories, the idea that, yes, things can go wrong, but also they can go right.
I'll get rid of the drug problem. The first drug dealer will be publicly executed in front of everybody and all of the sudden the rest of the drug dealers are going to go "Uh oh!" Watch how fast the drug problem disappears. If you use drugs, you're addicted and you steal something, you'll get sent off to the outback and to work camps and all of the sudden no drug addicts. See how simple that is? So simple.
The Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily. And I've had numerous conversations with the leader of the Philippines and - and he's got a big problem. He's got a massive drug problem. He's been very, very tough on that drug problem, but he has a massive drug problem.
I used to find myself goofed out in the street on drugs. And I had such a bad problem with addiction at the time that I didn't mind. I was dealing cocaine and shooting up a lot of cocaine. And that's not a good space to be in.
Cocaine and crack are essentially the same thing. Cocaine is a middle-class drug. Crack is a poor person's drug, which carries a felony conviction for possession. And once you get this felony conviction, which given that the whole community is pretty much strung out on it, you become basically sidelined into an alternative kind of lifestyle. You become completely marginalized. You can't get public housing, you can't get a lot of jobs, you can't vote. You have a real problem doing anything to get you out of the rut that you're in. You become basically a non - person.
The fundamental problem the Conservative Party has had since 1997 at least is that it is seen as 'the party of the rich, they don't care about public services.' This is supported by all serious market research. Another problem that all parties have is that their promises are not believed.
One bulls-eye and you're rich and famous. The rich get more famous and the famous get rich. You're the talk of the town....The sense of so much depending on success is very hard to ignore, perhaps impossible. It leads to disproportionate anxiety and disproportionate relief or disappointment.
I know lots of people that take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work every day, no problem. But we never hear that side of the story.
When you become rich and famous and you get a lot of attention, very few people get to go through that cycle without having a hard time. Everybody in their lives has a hard period. I don't know anybody who's ever been alive who hasn't had like, heartbreak, despair, depression, death, drug or alcohol, or weight problems, or health problems.
To be honest, I don't know. I started one [book] back in 1982 or '83 when I first retired. But I was only 25 or 26 and not ready to write my memoirs.
I also had my own addiction to cocaine and heroin in my 20s. I knew that it was driven not by the things that the drug workers were telling me; in fact, I couldn't believe any drug information that was given to me by authorities because I knew from my own experience that it was wrong.
When I started skating, it was such a small community. You didn't aspire to be rich or famous or make a career out of it because that wasn't something anyone had done yet.
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