The International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC) is next week and folks that are in the industry or thinking of joining will be there to learn and network. Even though the ICBC is a business conference, much fun will be had as well and one of the highlights will be an appearance by the great Tommy Chong. (You should join Tommy in Vancouver for the ICBC, so get your tickets now.) Here’s a snippet of the Smell the Truth piece:

STT: What topics do you plan to address at this year’s ICBC?

TC: Well, mainly the approach, the mental approach, you know. I’d like to get rid of all this anxiety and all this worry and all this crap. I mean, We’re in the marijuana business, c’mon. Don’t get uptight, don’t get territorial, don’t get worried about your profits and all that stuff, and concentrate more on what we’ve been doing for the past 100 years.

I also tell people, we don’t need people to tell us how to grow it or how to smoke it or where to smoke it, we don’t need that. What we need is people to quit putting us in jail and charging us for nonexistent crimes.

All I would advise the authorities is to enjoy the peace, because that’s what marijuana brings to the world, is peace.

STT: What was Vancouver’s cannabis culture like when you used to live there compared to now?

TC: For a while there, we had to get all our weed from Mexico. And then the Vietnam War happened, and then we started getting our weed from Thailand and Vietnam. And after and during the Vietnam War, people started growing BC buds, so all we had to do is get it from Denman Island or one of the islands.

You could always get it. During the 60s, 70s and 80s, there was so much bud being grown in B.C. that it was always available. Before that, we smoked a lot of hash, because the hash would come in from India, Amsterdam, and all those places.

Head on over to Smell the Truth for the full interview and head on up to cannabis-friendly Vancouver, British Columbia, to hang out with Tommy Chong and many other entrepreneurs and activists at the one-and-only International Cannabis Business Conference.