Gary Pray

Photo Credit: Joe Budd

“This is generational. We've got the children of the children of the drug epidemic.”

I was born in Virginia, but I've lived in New York most of my life. In the Bronx mostly, some part of it in Harlem as well.

In New York, we have different policies, different penalties, than California. It's not common to walk around and smoke. When you see the police, you definitely have to duck and get away because people have gone to jail for having weed in their pocket.  They put a lot more energy into busting people for petty drugs. I've definitely been harassed, stopped, searched.

I remember I was coming from a party with my friends and when we entered the train station, some cops were standing there and called us over. We were like, ‘What did we do?’ We were just getting on the train. It's not like we were standing in the subway smoking. They began to get more aggressive and the next thing you know, they're throwing us against the walls and checking our pockets. They didn’t really find anything, but one of my friends did have a little weed and they took him in. They said they were detaining him to make sure he didn't have any warrants.

So we had to find out which police station he was at, notify his family so they could go provide bail or support for him - it was one of those situations where you go in on Friday and you can't see a judge until Monday.

That's just the sad reality of something so small like possession of marijuana. He wasn't harming anyone, he wasn't using it when we came across these police. And now he’s caught up in the system where if he gets stopped for something else, it comes up on his record and now he’s looked at as somebody who’s causing this crime wave. Just like that, his whole life is changed.

It makes me question the police - what is their main goal? Why are they putting these young black kids or minorities in the system over something that's not that serious in the larger scheme of things? And then it makes me think that I have to watch myself. When I see the police, are they going to stop me for no reason?

I hits me because I come from a family full of people that have been incarcerated. My dad did about seventeen years tied to drug charges, and weapons as well. He was incarcerated when I wasn’t even one-year-old, so I had to grow up without this person in my life.

I have a relationship with him now because he's made that effort to be in my life, but when I was younger, I looked at it as abandonment because I couldn't fully understand the situation. Now, I'm constantly talking to him about making good decisions and not going back. He’s had ins-and-outs since he got out, it's a cycle that's continued, so I have to consistently remind him that he’s here now and I need him to stay here now.

That means I grew up in a single parent house. I have two brothers. So, this is a woman raising three sons on her own in the Bronx and we went through poverty, living in shelters, section eight housing, welfare, just to survive. My mom worked her ass off just to keep her kids safe and afloat. It wasn’t easy. She went and got a degree so she could get a better job and move us out of that situation - I had to babysit my brothers while she went to college. My father being in jail led to her having to spend her life taking care of three sons on her own. The War on Drug can affect a lot more people than who’s directly involved in the bust.

The South Bronx - the Bronx period - is definitely one of the most poverty stricken boroughs of New York City. Drugs really hit hard in the 80s and, ever since then, there are people that haven't recovered. This is generational. We've got the children of the children of the drug epidemic. They're used to getting caught up and don’t see how to be prosperous beyond drugs. They have friends that are in jail. They have family that are in jail. It’s normal for them.

There's a lot of people that are just grinding for their families. Some kids don't have income from their parents and they're out on the streets trying to get money any way possible. So, they get caught up in the drug game because that's what's in front of them as soon as they come out the door.

Ultimately, the goal is to get some type of help. It may not seen that way, but these people, some of them have been to jail and it's hard to find a job. Some of them don't have a lot of skills. Some of them didn't make it through school, or have any other means of getting money.  When you can't find people to support you, to guide you, that cycle repeats itself. It’s leading to generations of people caught up in this drug game.

To have a product and to make money off of a product, that's salesman skills. Now, to sell that same product and over here, for these people, those skills are a crime, and over here, for these people, those skills are making them millions, that's the imbalance of our system.

Even if weed is legal, the people who've been in these communities who have seen their friends, loved ones, locked up for year and years and years, they don't have the resources. It takes money to start a business, you gotta be a lawyer to understand these laws. Who are the people who can afford to buy the real estate, have the lawyers? Rich white people. Even though it's legal here doesn't mean everyone's going to benefit equally.

And when I think about the Bronx, the South Bronx, even if weed gets legalized there tomorrow that doesn't mean all these problems are solved. There’s been generations of harm done now, it's not going to get fixed in a minute.