32 Years in Prison for Weed

Kyle: It's just utter disgust. Finding out that Richard was sentenced to 98 years and that he served 32 of them. My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach right now, thinking about it and saying it. He just exemplifies the thousands of families and lives that have been ruined by the failed drug war and the maligning of cannabis, especially just such a helpful substance.

Rick: Those are nice glasses.

Kyle: Thank you.

Kyle: Hey, everybody. We have a special guest once again. His name is Rick DeLisi.

Kyle: Thanks for joining me, brother.

Rick: Thank you for having me.

Kyle: So, your dad is Uncle Rick, Rich DeLisi, the man who spent—who gave up 32 years of his life for some [___] idiocy.

Rick: For some idiocy and total judicial incompetence. But the thing is, those 32 years weren't just on my dad. You know, that was on my whole family. It was a wild struggle. All of us intertwined into some type of luminance where we could see light, past what we were going through, you know? And somehow, it all fell really on my shoulders because everybody in the family kind of treated my father as if he was some sort of criminal for creating something that he had to abandon I think, you know? So, he was the glue in sort of the family, but also the crazy one. But then, once he got locked up, it was like, poof. So, I didn’t have anybody to fall back on except my mother and that she ended up being a very smart single mother who took care of me and got me out of the United States. I always had this affinity with Amsterdam growing up, like it was some kind of like freedom wonderland.

Kyle: Mythical place?

Rick: Yeah.

Kyle: Like Christiana?

Rick: I gone there for like 4 days before with my grandmother and seen it and it was almost like a hashy Disney World to me.

Kyle: That’s what I call it - adult Disney World.

Rick: Yeah, it was like an adult Disney World, but you always smelled hash in the air, when you were in the main areas.

Kyle: That feels so much better than the grass, doesn't it?

Rick: Yeah. From a distance really it does. It smells like the essence of weed.

Kyle: That's kind of concentrated. Is what it is.

Rick: Yeah, it is concentrated. And when you smell it oozing out of those cafes when you’re walking by—it intrigued the shit out of me as a young son of a cannabis person because my father was quite open about his cannabis use in life.

Kyle: So, you ended up moving there?

Rick: I went there, yeah, for three weeks. I remember my ticket and I met my wife in the second week at a record store called Dance Tracks on the Rose Pracht and that was history, bro. 

Kyle: I’m going to take you back here for a minute not like I did when I talked with your dad, and I want to ask you: “What were some of the first things you felt and thought about on the day you found out your dad was going away for 90 years?” 

Rick: For some reason, during the first year or two, I didn’t think it was real. It just hadn’t really hit me. And the way my family was talking about it, it felt like something was going to pop. Like, this will all go away, you know? Things will get better. We’ll figure it out.

Kyle: It's pretty unbelievable, right? 

Rick: Yeah, and then, cause I remember when he first got sentenced to 98 years, they thought it was going to be 10, maybe 12, maybe 17 at the most. He’d be out in four, you know, maybe even serve in some places that were like kind of halfway free. 

Kyle: No license.

Rick: No, and then they deliberated after the courts for a few minutes, came back out, and said 98 years. And it was like everybody in the courtroom was gobsmacked. There was this silence. I remember the “Ahh” all in unison, you know? And I remember when I looked over at my mom, and she was kind of passing out, like processing it. Like, she was now a single mother for life. And i think, when she met my father, she had hopes and dreams that, at some point, things would all be how they are now. She was kind of a visionary, but that didn’t happen as quickly as she thought.So, yeah, that’s when the fight began. I remember that real moment of, “You’re the man of the house.” And I was like, “What? I’m 11.” But that was it. It started there. And I mean I was in Amsterdam shortly thereafter like, by the time I was 16, I was living in Amsterdam. My mom was real out of it.

Kyle: But you still carried all that burden with you. 

Rick: It got harder because, in Amsterdam, like, to get a collect call was like four times the price, and if they actually had international collect calls from a prison, it got harder and then I guess talked to him once every three weeks for a few years. There’s a sense of hopelessness that kicks in every now and then. He goes through that, I go through that. We kind of ping-pong it back and forth to each other with motivation to keep going. And eventually, you know. I never really had stable parents growing up, so it was kind of like hip-hop, cannabis, and the streets had my back in some way. It all came together through the legalization process of cannabis. It’s kind of wild.

Kyle: Wow. So when did — how long ago — how long before your dad got out did The Last Prisoner Project come into the picture?

Rick: Oh, so that was the first time was around, I’d say, the end of 2018. When Champelli a good friend of mine, Joseph, told me to holler at Steve D’Angelo because he had co-founded this group called The Last Prisoner Project and that I should really try to reach out to them. I’m part of Cana-Instagram Revolution , I call it that like all the suddenly we had a our own marketing route, which was like direct-to-consumer, which was weird for me. And I used it in that way with communicating with people that have a certain stature in the cannabis industry. So at a certain point through working with certain groups, either growing or making extracts—and getting renowned, I used cups to kind of divert their attention to my father’s case, through the energy that we accumulated, you know? 

Rick: So if we won a cup, when we stood on the podium at the end I'd be like - “I just want to let everybody know, my father’s in prison for 98 years for cannabis. It’s wild to see all this going on in the world, but I hope we can all come together and like, shine some light in his dark cell.” You know what i mean? And it was around 2018 that it kind of started to take I’d say 2015 it started gaining traction. With people like Marcus cup “Bubbleman” some DNA Genetics, Burner everybody giving a little bit of shine in their posts. Which i started raise people’s eyebrows and then know me in the scene and then we took it further and then it was last Christmas project. 

Rick: The end of 2018—so this before COVID — and I remember I reached out to Steve. His assistant, Chako , got in touch with me and told me we were going to make something happen. And it all kind of dominoed from there. God bless that whole movement, you know, from Mary to Sarah to Steve. Everybody who came together to make that movement what it's evolved to be now, it's really helping a lot of people. So it’s nice to kind of be in a certain partnership with them, you know. It validates my life’s sacrifice in a way. 

Kyle: It certainly seems like it's picking up, like every few days or  every few weeks, there's getting somebody else out now, you know? And it'll never be enough because the numbers are just so [___] high, but you still got to rejoice every victory, right?

Rick: I think we’re coming close, I think we're getting to that point that, if you didn’t seriously, like you know, poke a stick at the government—and you just were selling weed or growing trees—they’re learning to.

Kyle: We're close.

Rick: Yeah we're close. We're getting there. But I think it’s more for the Hispanic and Black communities, how it's used against them as like a proprietor to do other things to them. That’s a really sad fact in our judicial system. That’s what I’m really trying to help in the future—that’s more my focus. Because yeah, my dad was served 98 or ,excuse me, sentenced ridicul to 98 years for cannabis, but let’s not forget he had a fleet of planes, and there was a certain criminal level to my father's aspect, when you see a lot of these people in prison for like a third strike or this dumbass shit that was connected to that, Black and Hispanic are paying the major price. 

Kyle: We all know the drug war is a failure. It’s committed absolute, you know, genocide, pretty much, on our own citizens. The War on Drugs wasn’t a war on drugs, it was a war on people. Yeah, a war on our own people. So, I know you'll keep busy with that and that's going, you know, that's I don't know if that'll ever end until they open up all the jail cells. I asked you about the hard, the bad, tell me about the moment you found out your dad was coming home.

Rick: That was wild. For years, we used this system on the internet which was like an inmate database search in Florida—it was the only way literally see my  father for 25 years, which is ludicrous. All my family we checked on him to this site. I remember it was Halloween 2020, the night before Halloween, the 30th. My uncle, who was involved in my dad’s work in the past, so he stayed very keyed into what had happened with my father, and he messaged me like: ”Hey man you're not going to believe this, like go on the website”, - and this is 1:00 in the morning my time in Amsterdam. Which I always stayed up late cuz my wife worked at the Bulldog she was the manager at the Bulldog so she was always home usually at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, I always made sure she was home safe and shit. 

Rick: So I'm sitting there chatting my cousin FaceTiming, and my uncle calls me and says, “Hey man, you’re not going to believe this, look on the site.”, - and he's like he's jilted, so he's like telling me like he's in shock in his face. I look on the site, and for the first time, instead of saying 2027, it says 2020 — that he’s getting out in July. I’m like, this can’t [___] be possible. I like refreshing my browser, I like turning off my browser, I restarting it, I'm glitcher. My uncle’s like, “Yeah, isn’t that [___] crazy?”. So I go to my wife — she's sleeping just got home and she's like in bed I shake her foot. I said, “Babe, I don’t like to wake you up, but hey, I can’t believe this. I just checked the inmate database search, and he’s coming home.”I’m [___] teared up because I know the source of that database is factual it has to do with the Florida parole system. So it's all very keyed in. So, i was just like, “Oh, wow.”.  

Rick: The next morning, I got a call from the Last Prisoner Project, saying that there was a news article picked up on Fox, and it was going viral. We were going see it, we saw and then it was just like the parole board got in touch with me personally in Amsterdam. And then I knew, because I mean there's no Florida hillbilly justice system going to reach out to Amsterdam, unless they want to tell you something that's important so then all of a sudden, they're telling me the exact date he's coming home, oh he's coming home the the 6th, no the 8th, no okay” - with this good time this lead time, oh we're going to get him home the 6th so all of a sudden like I mean it's October I'm thinking I got to get a place it was just crazy man, it was crazy and then, what was awesome, was just to see the influx of the in of the Cannabis industry go in on it. 

Rick: Once they had seen there was positive things happening, I mean so many people donate my dad had $68,000 within a day starting with Burner giving $5,000, it started like a domino effect of people who would come up off the industry and I said, “You see Pop? We might actually be able to get you restitution, you know what I mean? And like maybe you're going to feel validated for what you did at some point, you know?” That was incredible. So, there’s a crazy double-edged sword to it, you know. I mean through all the sacrifice, and all the drama, and all the sadness comes the reward of perseverance, and there's a lot of love in the industry and I've been showered with it and I love this cannabis industry.

Kyle: Me too, man.

Rick: It’s amazing. Just to see, yeah.

Kyle: So last thing before we get out here we got to mentioned we're making about your dad’s life now.

Rick: One of our major goals after he got out was to get a publication or somehow to get the story across the people and eventually letting it all unfold we figured out that that comes with the power of advocacy so it's just been unbelievable to know that that's happening and just seeing it unfold and seeing the level of the production, the direction, and the script writing—it's great. You know, I'm really excited.

Kyle: I'm glad to be involved in it all. I can't wait to watch the video, the product.

Rick: I’m so glad, yeah. I can't wait until we're all on the red carpet, kicking and smoking J's.

Kyle: Just like big shiny lights going back and CRA. So, it's called, uh—what? Go ahead and tell us what the working title is.

Rick: “Santa Marta Gold: The Life and Story of a Kingpin”, I believe. I think we're going in and out on titles right now, but that's the valuable. So, my father, more than anything, moved Santa Marta Gold from Colombia. His whole operation stemmed from Colombia and Santa Marta. That’s how we’re going with it.

Kyle: Well, you know, there's a teaser trailer that you can find out online. You can google Santa Marta Gold or The Richard DeLisi Story and check that out. You're going to want to know about this story.

Rick: Yeah, go follow them.

Kyle: Go follow them.

Rick: My name is Rich DeLisi. I grew up without a father.

Rick’s father: No thanks to the U.S. government.

Rick: Was is now making billions off of tax revenue from cannabis. 

Rick’s father: We're here making a movie about it. Go follow.

Rick: Go follow.