Hydrolife Canada February/March 2017

enhancement from: being healthy on that regular
day-to-day basis, having the motivation to go to
the gym and do your workouts. I would do a bike
ride that was 150-km long and I would stop every
two hours basically to smoke a joint. At first, it [the
ride] was kinda nice, like ‘Oh, beautiful.’ But after
100 km or 120 km, it’s like, ‘What am I even doing
out here? This is ridiculous!’ And then, you smoke
a joint and you’re like, ‘This is kinda fun actually,’
and you get back on your bike and keep going.
So, you know the exercise that you get from your
workout, due to the motivation that you’re getting
from using cannabis, at the end of the day is
performance enhancing.
HL: How do you feel the public perception around
using pot has changed, from the time you won
your medal to today?
R: It’s changed a lot. I think it’s going to change
a little bit more, but I think that everybody is
starting to realize that the science is backing up
the industry; it’s backing up the cannabis plant.
I felt like it was my responsibility after Japan to
not turn my back on it, but to make people realize
that it wasn’t a mistake that I was using cannabis
before the Olympics. It was a mistake that I tested
positive for it because I didn’t know I was failing
my drug test before I went there; as it turned out, I
had tested positive three times for cannabis before
I went and I didn’t know. They didn’t tell me about
it, so I could have made sure I wasn’t going to test
positive for it. It’s kind of weird—they wouldn’t tell
you, but then they took your medal away after you
get there. Anyways, perception has changed a lot.
At the time, people were really, I don’t want to say
brainwashed, but the propaganda that was put
out there in the ’80s especially about the dangers
of cannabis and that it was a gateway drug. That
was the beginning of a new idea about it.
HL: You haven’t exactly faded from the
limelight. You have multi-million dollar real
estate developments, you participate in several
charities, you’re working through licensing with a
medical marijuana company. How do you stay so
focused on so many things?
R: I am pretty busy, compared to some people. I
think that I’m just accustomed to it. [I] focused on
my racing and all that it entails, and throughout
the ’90s, I was flipping real estate in Whistler
and that basically paid my way to the World Cup
Tour and to the Olympics. I had some European
sponsors, but I was on a shoestring budget.
I've been paying a mortgage since I was 19. I’m
used to having these pressures on me and at
first, they’re like these huge pressures, then the
feeling just becomes normal; the new normal.
Having kids helped me focus a lot. I’ve worked in
the construction industry for roughly 10 years in
Whistler, building houses there. That gave me a
different perspective on life and what a dollar is
worth and that sort of thing.
And so I always kind of felt I had more to do and
I was waiting and waiting for cannabis to sort of
catch up to where I was or where British Columbia
was so that I could launch Ross’ Gold and have it
be successful and looked up to instead of, ‘Oh, now
look what he’s doing!’, you know? I feel like when
we finally came out four or five years ago with the
“I FOUND THAT if I smoked some
cannabis in the morning before I
would go to the gym, I would feel
so much more enthusiastic about it.”
company that it was still ahead of the curve, it
was still an edgy idea. But now after five years of
growing the company, our store is about to open.
Not only that, but the federal government is finally
being proactive about legalization, so now it’s the
perfect storm. But it took me a lot of years to get
here, for everyone to catch up and in the meantime, I
sort of had to make do. You know, I did walk on to job
sites in Whistler looking for work. I did go through
a period where I was basically broke and had to
kind of build up from zero. I went through some
unfortunate relationships that not only emotionally
but financially drained me. And so, I think it’s just
life. Going through life and realizing that the bad
feelings do go away and that the sun does shine.
There’s been some tough years, but it’s made me
realize that you just keep doing what you want to do
and what you love. And just never give up about it
and you can accomplish it. I did it once already!
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