Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Brad Staba
Another full interview from the Skaters and Drugs batch. Here's Brad Staba talking pretty candidly about the topic back in 2003. Photo: Ed Templeton. I'll put up Ed's text in a few. —ME
BRAD STABA:
“I have terrible allergies which give me headaches all the time. So I smoke a lot of grass to deal with that. Under Proposition 215 in California I was lucky enough to get my medical marijuana certificate and can go to the numerous cannabis clubs around up here. It’s all computerized, you go in, and they hand you like a pill bottle just like any other prescription. I don’t have to sit in front of some sketchy dude's house and wait for his broke ass to get up anymore to buy weed.”
“I’m the kind of guy that smokes grass and can’t sit still. Like if I go skate, I smoke, and play some music and it just sets it off for me. Even with like taking photos or playing music, smoking just slows everything down for me and lets me focus on working at things little by little.”
“Its like in skating you really only hear about it when its like the real addicts who ended up on heroin.”
“If you’re trying to juggle doing like hard drugs and skating, it’s almost like a circus act. I mean you’re juggling two different lives, you know. You almost have to keep choosing between skating and being a pile of shit. ‘Hey, now I skate. Now I’m a pile of shit.’ I think its kind of a joke, but whatever. Do whatever the hell you want, I say. I really never even followed skating to that point. Even when I was a kid I wasn’t like, ‘oh, I want to be like Claus Grabke because he snorts coke.’”
“I take Adavan and Klonopin for anxiety attacks. Ask any professional skateboarder if they’ve ever had anxiety attacks. If they say no, they’re lying. You go to these huge demos, like in Japan or somewhere and sometimes it’s just too much. All these people criddlin’ on your shit. These things are like all common things but if you take the medication for them people look at you like you're fucked up or something. I just have it under control. Weed can totally help your anxiety, depending on how much you smoke. If you smoke too much it’s just like any other medication—you get fucked up by the side effects.”
