Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Ed Templeton
Monday, July 1, 2013 at 3:45PM As promised, here's Ed's collection of raw quotes from '03. Once again, you can read the whole final version of the article here. Coming up, there are some really good ones from Duane Peters, BA, Marc Johnson, Dave Carnie, Dressen, TA, Dyrdek, Gino, Berra, and tons more I'll keep posting up as I get the time. Thanks for reading. Photo: Templeton —ME
ED TEMPLETON:
"Skateboarding has at times been extremely involved with drugs. It’s about youth and it’s about coming to that age where experimentation happens. At one point, I feel like there was like a critical mass in skateboarding on pot. It was almost like if you were a skater, you smoked pot by default. Now, with skating getting more mainstream, it has been scaled back a little. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening."
"The majority of it has to do with the people getting paid to do it. Your average kid trying to get sponsored isn’t necessarily into drugs."
"It’s a lot of different things. It’s the money and the free time. You have a job that doesn’t require that you look good, or be coherent. You can’t show up to regular jobs with bloodshot eyes."
"I’ve personally watched kids go from innocent 15 year old skate rats to full hooker, booze and drugs users in a year."
"The rock star dudes live the rock star life. It’s always been like that. Hosoi used to always have two rooms at every hotel they stayed at. One for sleeping and the other just for partying. Nobody would sleep. The rock n’ roll mold gets into the drug element by default."
"Some people can handle skating and partying—drinking or smoking weed. Like you seriously wouldn’t know they’re stoners or even alcoholics. But then there are dudes that just can’t deal with it. They start to suck at skating because of their habits. As a company owner I’ve had instances with riders where I had no choice but to address it."
"Pot can just drain you’re energy if it affects you that way. Guys just sitting around playing video games all day don’t get coverage."
"As a parent, I wouldn’t say skating is any worse then something like basketball or football. If you’re taking your kid to the Vans park everyday, he’s not going to be around drugs. It depends who he’s hanging with."