Partners in Crime

Tommy Chong was jailed for selling pot paraphernalia a few years ago. But when he and Cheech Marin filmed pot movies in the 1970s and 1980s, they faced far fewer problems with police. In fact, cops were pretty much on their side -- except when they were stealing Cheech & Chong's dope, man.

"We bought about $5,000 worth of pot and kept it in the trailer. And the cops were guarding it," Chong tells me.

"The cops stole it," Cheech adds. "They stole our props, maaaan. They didn't give us props!"

"So," Chong says, "we put in an insurance claim for props."

Yes, Cheech & Chong were reimbursed with insurance cash for pot stolen by cops on a film set. They swear this is a true story.

Cheech & Chong -- now back on tour, and preparing to finally film a new pot movie this fall -- are in good spirits. But they get sharply sarcastic when they talk about how "racist" pot laws are.

"When it was called hemp, it was legal" decades ago, Chong says. "Not only was it legal, but the government made you grow it. It was mandatory. You had to grow hemp."

Chong continues with his early 20th century history lesson, which includes this:

William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate fictionalized in "Citizen Kane," demonized weed as "marijuana, the evil drug," Chong says correctly.

Hearst's motivation was to get hemp off the market to force out of business those competing newspapers that printed on hemp (hemp was cheaper than paper), because Hearst could afford paper and his rivals could afford only hemp.

So his hemp demonizing was masked as an anti-pot crusade, as Chong opines:

"They said it turned black people and Mexican people and Chinese people ... horny for white women. That's the reason they made it illegal," Chong says.

"It still works," Cheech snarks. "It makes you horny for white girls, because who would be horny for them if not for pot?"

I take it upon myself to tell Chong the newspaper industry, with expensive paper and not cheap hemp, is struggling financially.

"Karma -- it takes a while, but it works," Chong says.

Do Cheech & Chong still smoke? Cheech jokes, "Not right now, I'm eating yogurt." But Chong answers seriously: He smokes through a vaporizer, which delivers more THC than any other delivery system.

Over the years, Cheech says, "I've smoked tons of tons. It's actually a ton of kilos."

"I've smoked half of that, because we're partners," Chong says. "Even the skank's good: Are we talkin' about weed or women? In fact, we've all had the most fun with the stuff that isn't supposed to be that good."

In addition to the usual skank weed and green buds, they've smoked government-engineered weed, like the stuff puffed in "American Beauty." Chong calls government dope "a mellow high."

"Yes, it does exist, and there are big differences" between government pot and regular weed, Chong says. "The only trouble is you can't articulate them after you smoke it."

"It's the same with wine," Cheech says. "There's a difference between wines. But after you've drunk about four or five bottles, you could be licking a skunk's asshole and it'd taste the same."

Anyway, Cheech & Chong hope pot and hemp get nationally decriminalized someday.

"Every time the Democrats are in power, we're always close to legalization," Chong says.

"It's quasi legal now with both parties," Cheech says. "You could walk down the street of just about any city and smoke a joint. As long as you don't smoke in a cop's face, nobody's gonna do anything."

And in Cleveland, Cheech jokes, pot smoke is "better than the air."

They both know President Obama has acknowledged pot use, or as Cheech jokes:

"He's a black guy, basketball player from Hawaii surfer. What do you think?"

And so, you see, Cheech & Chong are as feisty as ever, even though feisty isn't really the trait associated with getting high.

They hope their next movie starts production in the fall and is finished before next summer. They won't divulge details. Chong promises only one thing:

"You can bet there's gonna be some pot in it."

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.