top of page
chase-baker-gEaDxcf8mEU-unsplash_edited.png

RUDE DRUGS?

Rude Drugs are more than just raw plant medicines — they are a cultural force. HIP HOP itself can be seen as a rude genre: born in the streets, disruptive, unapologetic, and often misunderstood by mainstream society. In the same way, cannabis is a rude drug: a plant with a long history of healing and ritual use, yet demonized and given a ‘bad reputation’ by institutions. When HIP HOP and weed meet, we get a “rude boy” combination — unexpected, rebellious, and dismissed by traditional systems of authority. Yet, just like the raw herbs people cultivate and use outside of doctors’ orders, these rude drugs carry real potential for healing, expression, and transformation. They challenge the notion of what medicine and art should look like, insisting that the raw, the rejected, and the rude can also be sources of power and restoration.

The Rude Boy Spirit

​

The term “rude” carries weight in culture. In Caribbean and urban British contexts, a rude boy is raw, rebellious, and unafraid to defy authority. Similarly, Rude Drugs embody this spirit: they refuse to be tamed, domesticated, or dismissed.

 

  • HIP HOP is a Rude Genre — born in the streets, disruptive, judged by society, but carrying deep healing power through rhythm, word, and expression.

  • Cannabis is a Rude Plant — demonized, criminalized, given a bad reputation, yet still used worldwide as medicine, ritual, and therapy.

 

Together, HIP HOP and weed form a rude boy combination: raw, resistant, and unexpected. They may not look like medicine or healing from the outside — but they are.

1000043548.png

HEALING IN THE UNEXPECTED

Rude Drugs challenge the mainstream idea of what healing “should” look like. Medicine is not only white coats, clinics, and prescriptions. Healing can come through a spliff and a sound system, through raw herbs boiled into tea, through lyrics that carry pain, struggle, and truth.

 

Rude Drugs remind us that:

 

  • Healing is not always respectable.

  • Healing is not always polished.

  • Healing can be raw, disruptive, and rude.

The Framework of Rude Drugs

​

A. Philosophical Pillars

 

  1. Rawness – Healing power exists in unrefined, natural, and unapologetic forms.

  2. Resistance – Rude Drugs push back against systems that exclude, demonize, or control.

  3. Reclamation – What is dismissed as “bad” or “dangerous” can be reclaimed as medicine and art.

  4. Remedy – Beyond rebellion, Rude Drugs actually work: they soothe, heal, and transform.

 

B. Domains of Application

 

  • Pharmacognosy: Natural medicines used outside medical institutions.

  • Culture & Music: HIP HOP, reggae, and other “rude” art forms as healing expressions.

  • Community Health: Grassroots healing traditions, from bush teas to cannabis rituals.

  • Identity & Resistance: Empowerment through reclaiming the rude as valid.

Declaration

​​

We declare that rude is not lesser. Rude is not broken. Rude is not failed refinement.

Rude is resistance. Rude is raw power. Rude is the medicine of the streets, the rhythms of survival, the herbs of the people.

 

Rude Drugs are our healing. Rude Drugs are our culture. Rude Drugs are our future.

bottom of page