White Boy Rick swings into cannabis and ‘The 8th’ Amendment
At the age of 14, Richard Wershe Jr., aka “White Boy Rick,” became the youngest FBI informant in American history. With his help, the FBI hunted down some of Detroit’s largest drug gangs. In 1987, however, the police received a tip that Rick had hidden 18 pounds of cocaine in his neighbor’s garden.
The 17-year-old was arrested and sentenced to life in prison under the notoriously cruel Michigan 650 Lifer Act.
In 1998 this law was revised. Over the years, it became known to what extent Wershe was exploited by the FBI and local police. The legend of White Boy Rick began to travel well beyond Detroit’s borders. In 2017 the Netflix documentary White boy told his story and the following year the feature film White boy Rick brought his life to the big screen – while he languished in prison.
In July 2020, Rick Wershe was finally released. After serving 32 years on a nonviolent drug offense, he stepped out to find a country not only in the midst of a national reckoning of police violence and corruption, but also an attitude towards drugs, especially marijuana.
Now back in Michigan, Wershe is engaged to his childhood sweetheart, is suing the FBI and Detroit Police Department, and is launching his own cannabis brand to address criminal justice reform issues.
The brand is called The 8th. It is a reference to both standard marijuana weight measurements and the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution that prohibits the imposition of cruel and unusual penalties.
Made in partnership with Michigan-based cannabis company Pleasantrees, the new brand will sell flowers, vapes, merch, and more.
Wershe and Pleasantrees plan to go public on October 8th in Michigan with a limited edition of The 8th products.
I recently spoke to Wershe about The 8th and other developments in his life.
Help “the forgotten” in prison
Sheet: Hi rick You have such an incredible story and I want to get into it, but first tell me how this new cannabis brand came about.
“I can’t change my mistakes, but I can show that I am not who they portrayed me as.”
– Rick Wershe, aka White Boy Rick
Rick: To be honest, I made friends with a disabled child who wrote me letters while I was in detention. He became a pen pal, so to speak. At one point, he stopped taking the pills they gave him, but his insurance didn’t cover cannabis. So I knew some caregivers who gave him some free cannabis. Then when I got home I met with Pleasantrees and we talked and I felt like I could do something good and give something back in this area.
Sheet: I heard the 8th has social justice and prison reform. How is that going to manifest?
Rick: It is planned to return part of the proceeds to the diversion of prisons and prison reform. We want to help the people I call “the forgotten” – because in prison you are forgotten. We’ll also educate people about what the eighth amendment is. You may know now after reading about my brand, but did you know before?
Sheet: Honestly no.
Rick: Thanks very much. Most people do not know their constitutional rights. You have them for a reason. The eighth amendment says that you must not be cruelly and unusually punished. What about the sixth amendment: your right to a lawyer. Most downtown kids don’t know that. Most adults don’t know that. So I want to use the brand to give something back, but also to educate.
Imprisoned in 1987, run free in 2020
Sheet: Is it surreal to spend all your time in jail for a nonviolent drug offense only to be released years later and see this evolved discussion of marijuana and drugs in general?
Rick: Ah, of course. I mean, Oregon decriminalized all drugs. Attitudes towards drugs have changed a lot. I can talk to judges and prosecutors and all kinds of people.
Everything I’ve been through and the journey I’ve gone in my life has given me a platform. Before there was this upcoming series with Eminem going to play me, I was an advocate for anyone who fought a nonviolent crime twenty or thirty years when child molester turns three or four years old. They are the lowest form of criminal in the whole world but we give them breaks but we don’t give a break to a downtown kid who wanted to help his family or just to survive?
Sometimes people just do something to survive and then you turn out to be a bigger drug dealer than you wanted to be. But that does not justify leaving people in prison for life.
No war on drugs; a war against the children in the city center
Sheet: What do you think people are doing wrong when discussing the war on drugs?
Rick: The war on drugs is wrong, brother. There is no war on drugs. Check out the story of it. There is evidence that the CIA imported drugs and worked with cartels. The war on drugs was a war against [people in] Poverty. There was a boom in the prison industry. It was a war against downtown children.
Sheet: You dropped out in July 2020 amid a new national reckoning with police brutality and corruption. Was it encouraging to see this conversation take place?
Rick: It’s very encouraging. What happened to George Floyd shouldn’t happen to anyone. The sad fact is, it’s been happening for ages – we just didn’t have cell phones.
The day I was arrested, I was beaten so badly that I ended up in the hospital. I was hit so badly that I couldn’t breathe. They lied and said I resisted. How do you fight back when you’re handcuffed and 17? The police did that. They fucking hit you. It was normal.
What makes a person think that it is okay to put a knee around someone’s neck and choke them to death? And most of the time, these guys get out. Just because someone grew up in Beverly Hills and someone else grew up in east Detroit doesn’t mean they have different rights. That is not in the Constitution. It says we are all the same.
“I’m not angry. I don’t want pity. ‘
Sheet: You seem to have such a productive and positive attitude, trying to make something good of what happened to you, but do you ever have anger and resentment about what happened in your life?
Rick: I am not angry. I can’t change what happened to me. But I can try to make sure it doesn’t happen to any other child. Time is the most precious commodity in the world and you can’t just get it back. If you take that away from people by locking them up, you take it away not only from them but also from their families. I know what my kids went through.
When you sentence someone to jail, you are sentencing their entire family. They judge their children. They send their children on a completely different journey through life.
I don’t want a pity party. I went to a Detroit Lions game yesterday and a whole section started cheering on my name. Each of these people, when I met them or took a picture with them, thanked me and said they were sorry for what I went through. But I don’t want these people to feel sorry for me. I want to show them that I am not what the media and the police said I am. They thanked me for what I’m doing for the community and that’s what I want people to remember about me. That I am a giver.
I can’t change the mistakes I’ve made, but I can show that I’m not who they portrayed me to be. I was never a threat to society. That was all to justify the crimes they committed against me.
More films, documentaries and lobbying will follow
Sheet: What have you got down the pike? Eminem is playing you in an upcoming series?
Rick: Eminem plays me in the Black Mafia Family series. I recently met with 50 Cent who is producing the show. He’s a great example of someone defying the odds; Although people called him a drug dealer and a threat to society, he turned around and became a businessman, film producer, and an extremely successful public figure.
The documentary is tentatively titled The Long Road Home. It documents the first week of my return home and tells my story. Unlike a lot of things out there, it will be 100% true.
Rick says The 8th will have a limited release on October 8th in Michigan.
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