Rudy Corpuz
Photo Credit: Joe Budd
“I see weed as really helping out the community.”
I’m born and raised in San Francisco in the south of Market. I'm a SoMa boy, downtown boy. I grew up on 9th Street in all these alleys. Natoma, Minna, Russ, Clementina, Harriet, all these alleys, I know 'em like the back of my hand.
My mom and dad, they was in the Philippines, and my father who was in the service landed here in the '60s. And so, you know, boom. I was born in Letterman hospital. There were nine of us, and I got two step sisters, so it's eleven. I’m the baby boy, the youngest. All of us raised pretty much in San Francisco, ya know what I mean?
Growing up, most of my older brothers and sisters was already out the house, already caught up in the streets. You know, my whole family, they was involved in gangs. And that’s what I used to look up to. Because you know, when I went out on the streets, the things that impressed me were all the glamorous stuff. Flashy cars, the clothes, the person who had respect walking down the street. You dig what I'm saying?
My first memories of weed was the smell, seeing people smoking it and having a good time. And so my older brother and his friends would smoke it, and when they'd get to the end to the roach, they'll put it down and then we'd take them. We'll take the roaches and it'd be like ten roaches, but we'll open 'em up and make like one joint. And we would smoke it, coughing, laughing, just escaping reality but feeling good.
It was just all around me, but I didn't really see how powerful weed was until I seen some of my friends had cancer or AIDS. I had a homeboy, man, who was one of my best homies. He was an AIDS patient. He was dwindling down, bro. And he went to the doctor, they was telling him to smoke weed cause there was nothing else, and that shit helped him! He lived another six, seven years! He gained his weight back, he looked normal, he didn't look like he was sick. And then he ended up going to prison for some other shit, and in prison he couldn't get the medical help he needed, and he died in prison. The impact blew my mind.
And then I had an uncle of mine, right? He had cancer, he was in bed sick. Next thing you know, he was smoking a lot of weed. He didn't really like smoking weed, but it gave him an appetite. And I seen how it made him healthy again, and made him laugh, and made him be human again, cause they was putting so much pills in him. And I was like, ‘Damn, that shit really work, the weed.’
At the same time, you’d see the police jacking people up for weed all the time. If you were smoking weed, they come over and harass you. And so from very young, you’re taught that the police are the enemy. Don't trust the police
Even when I was selling drugs, the cops who would bust us would say, ‘Look, if you don't want to get busted by us, here, you sell the drugs for us. But this is what we want.’ Dig what I'm saying? I'd be like, ‘Damn, I heard that, well, all right.’ I always thought that shit was fake, but it was real. They would give us the drugs to go sell, but then we just gotta give them a little cut.
That was dope, crack - not weed,. Weed, they would trip, but they'd let us keep it. They didn’t care about the weed because the real money was in crack. They’d walk by and be like, "Oh, man, I smell that odor. Where the weed at?" But it wasn't really about that. It was just to give them the right to go ahead and sweat us. Man, when you grow up in the hood, you see that shit all the time.
I was so used to seeing people harassed by the police for weed it took me a while to recognize medical marijuana as a real business. But then I seen them start popping up, and I seen how lucrative they could be. I mean, you got three on one block off 9th Street. Between 9th and 8th, there's like another three. And I'm like, ‘Damn, this must be some real good business.’ But I see it as really helping out the community, and I'ma tell you how.
When we originally tried to do gun buy-backs, we didn't have no resources to make it happen, to give people money. So I thought, well, what about these businesses that are making money selling weed? And so I would share the story with them, that we're a non-profit and we're gonna get guns off the street and destroy them, but we need cash to give away.
It was a no-brainer for them. They was having a lot of issues with violence too, so they wanted to help. And so, boom, I would go to one store, that store would introduce me to that store, and next thing you know, I got $25,000! Five stores, $5,000 a pop.
And that's what actually helped build a relationship, and I seen the power that they have, saw how it could benefit the community. Not just health-wise, but also safety-wise. Dig what I'm saying?
I'm a United Playa, man, and I united some real playaz. I had the SFPD, who was actually the people sweating people for weed, be a part of the community and help out. I’d say, ‘Look, we're all part of the same team.’ I had the Chief of San Francisco PD, Greg Suhr at the time, sit down with one of the guys from the cannabis industry and I explained to both of them how it's gonna be beneficial to all of us.
People would trip out. Here's a guy who's helping kids, here's a guy who's selling weed, and here's a guy whose people arrest people with weed. The dynamic was a trip, but I was able to articulate in the right way, about how we can help prevent gun violence. And that shit worked!
And then guess what happened? I started getting other people involved. The mayor and them got involved cause they seen that it was happening. And then other community-based organizations who deemed weed as being something taboo, they started seeing it really working and helping out the community.
The gun buy-back was just one part of it, though. It also helped pay to get kids jobs for the summer. It also helped people bury family members when they couldn't afford to. We’d help send kids to college with the money. There was so many different ways that cannabis was helping out people that folks don't know because I would never announce it publicly. I would just do it. You know what I mean?
As time’s gone on, I’ve started to think more about how people can utilize businesses in the neighborhood. You in my neighborhood with a weed store? Hire some of our people there. Not just as budtenders or security, but actually help them someday be owners. Because that's the only way we will get equity in our community.
And I think people will see that, whether you’re black, white or peppermint stripe, the businesses are owned by the people. And then you give opportunities to the people who are from the neighborhood. They get to bless the people from the community with jobs, they can help out the families who are currently there, help out the homeless people who are there.
But what's more important is seeing the vision of people, seeing ‘you can do it.’ Look at it like this: from the hood, don't nobody want to stand on a motherfucking corner, man, and take penitentiary chances. But if you see the cats on the corners, making they money, that’s what you’ll do.
Then again, if you see Rudy, you see Gino, legitimately in the store, selling what they selling on the corner, having a legitimate business, it changes the game from a little kid's perspective. It makes them prouder, more confident in who they are, believe in their future. And that’s what, ‘It take the hood to save the hood’ means.
