When we think of celebrities, we think of music stars, film and television actors, and our sporting heroes. People who are in the public eye and get written about and talked about, people we look up to. And many of these celebrities have spoken about using marijuana.
The link between the creative arts and drug use is not a new thing. We can look back to the great Romantic poets of the late 18th and early 19th century – Lord Byron and Shelley, for example – who used opium as a recreational drug. The creativity associated with marijuana, which we will talk more about later on, is well known.
Back to modern times, and who are the superstars of the day who use weed? Now that it has been legalized in many states of the USA, and decriminalized in others, people in the spotlight are more open about their drug use. Let’s talk about a few of the biggest names who have spoken out about marijuana use.
Which Celebrities Smoke Weed?
So, who can we expect to find vaping weed with a wax pen that occupies a place in the public eye? Let’s start with one of the biggest superstars of music and screen of the last decade, the inimitable Lady Gaga.
A music superstar who also has many film and TV roles to her name, Lady Gaga has admitted in interviews that she uses marijuana to help with a chronic pain issue as she suffers from fibromyalgia. This is just one of many chronic illnesses that marijuana has been shown to help with. Going a step further, she is also on record as saying she uses weed when writing her music, as it stimulates the creative process. This claim will crop up many times as we examine more celebrity weed users.
If we are to look at one music genre that is directly associated with weed it has to be rap. Rap legend Snoop Dog is no surprise here as his lyrics often refer to drugs, and he has spoken about it in many an interview. Indeed, there’s a story about him going head-to-head smoking weed with country music megastar Willie Nelson, who even has a range of cannabis products on the market in the shape of ‘Willie’s Remedy’, which is proving popular in the USA.
Film and TV star Woody Harrelson is another famous face and one who is actively involved in campaigning for the legalization of cannabis. Ironically, he admits to quitting, and then meeting none other than Willie Nelson a couple of years later, and, he says: ‘that was that!’
Clearly, there are many top stars of sound and screen who use weed, but what about those sports stars we talked about? We’ll come to them in a minute, but first, let’s have a quick look at some of the reasons given by stars for using weed.
Why Do Celebrities Smoke Weed?
Before we go on, we’d like to recommend this article in Rolling Stone as a good piece about stars and weed. As usual from the world’s greatest rock magazine, it’s well written and readable. It also offers a little insight into some of the reasons for smoking or – as is more often the case now – the safer option of vaping weed.
A lot of stars use weed to combat the stress and pressure of fame. We may sit back and wish we had their lives, but the list of celebrities who have cracked under the demands of being in limelight gives a clear indication it’s not all plain sailing.
Miley Cyrus is a good example of a star using weed to relax and get away from the strain of fame. She leaped to superstar status when playing the role of ‘Hannah Montana’ and admits to smoking a lot of marijuana during that time. It’s worth remembering she was in her early teens when she began playing the role. The pressure on a young girl – one with a superstar father in Billy Ray Cyrus – playing a supremely popular role model for similarly aged girls must have been massive. She gave up when she had surgery in 2019, to protect her voice.
For sports stars and athletes, it’s a controversial subject. Many sports explicitly forbid the use of cannabis – and several other substances – informal competition. However, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) permits its use although not immediately before fights. The sport’s biggest draw – Conor McGregor – is a known user.
Swimming’s Michael Phelps, with 28 gold medals to his name, was ‘outed’ on a video smoking a bong some years ago. Perhaps he did so because weed has been shown to expand lung capacity? With athletes, the use of cannabis in training is not uncommon as it has numerous benefits including being a muscle relaxant, but in most professional sports they need to be careful when they use it, and in what quantity. Let’s finish by looking at the link between cannabis and artistic creativity.
Marijuana and Creativity
Here’s another great article that covers the subject and is well worth a read, and touches on creativity and weed. Author Aldous Huxley conducted an experiment in the early 1950s using the drug mescaline, a psychedelic substance extracted from a cactus plant, in which he aimed to explore the impact of the drug on the thought process. He published two extended essays – The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell – which many argue opened the path for the ‘hippy explosion’ of the 1960s in which cannabis use became widespread.
Massively popular music stars The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Doors – the latter taking their name from Huxley’s book – were documented as using drugs in the creative process, and sometimes sang about it (indeed, The Beatles Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is said to be a reference to LSD, and in A Day in the Life John Lennon sings of getting on the bus and ‘having a smoke’).
We’ve already quoted Lady Gaga as saying she uses cannabis to help the creative process, and she is far from alone as we see from the above paragraph. What does weed do that aids the creative process?
Authentic research has shown that vaping weed increases the cerebral blood flow to the frontal lobe of the brain, and it is the effect on this part of the neurological system that is believed to effectively allow for greater levels of ‘free thinking’.
With so many celebrities in different spheres admitting to using weed to enhance the creative process, there is clearly some weight to the theories, and now it is legal, we will undoubtedly read of more superstars who use weed.