Coming from Willie Nelson, it was a revelation that must have left Snoop Dogg, Matthew McConaughey, and the Ghost of Bob Marley feeling that the world had suddenly turned upside down.
But lest you start preparing for the end of times—preferably by firing up a Grim Reaper bong—rest assured that one of the cannabis movement’s most high-profile advocates is not by any means off the weed.
Last week, the 86-year-old Nelson told a San Antonio television reporter that he has stopped smoking marijuana for health reasons.
“I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful,” the country music legend told KSAT’s Paul Venema. “I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever. And that almost killed me.”
That led to immediate and widespread speculation that Nelson was no longer baked from the moment he rolls out of the bed to the moment he turns out the lights at night. Which, one might argue, isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for his Willie’s Reserve line of cannabis products.
Today, though, Nelson’s son has taken to Twitter to straighten things out. Just because his dad can’t do 10 minutes on the stairmaster without feeling like he’s trying to breathe through a straw at the top of Mount Everest doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his favorite mind-altering pastime.
Nelson is still getting ripped to the tits, he’s just not doing it while hitting blunts the size of a sperm whale.
“There is a lot of articles going around saying my father is no longer smoking weed,” Lukas Nelson tweeted. “It’s almost 2020, how people ingest cannabis has changed.”
Here’s the clarification below. In the meantime, you’ve probably got another five or six decades before your lungs start looking like beef jerky and feel like their stuffed with fiberglass, so spark up! And don’t forget the Pringles.
