Willie Nelson Says He’s Quit Smoking Weed Which Feels Like The Day Jordan Retired From Basketball

Willie Nelson smoking weed

Getty Image / Liaison


It’s a sad day for stoner history because Country Music legend Willie Nelson has announced that he’s quit smoking weed because of health reasons. The man’s 86-years-old and has been touring hard and partying just as hard for most of his life so I guess this wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Willie Nelson is on America’s ‘Mt. Rushmore of Weed‘. Even though he’s told the news that he quit smoking to protect his lungs (comments below) he’s still one of the most iconic stoners in America, right up there with Snoop Dogg.

The news came from KSAT who caught up with Willie to ask him about touring. Willie says that he’ll never give up touring because it’s as much of a part of his life as anything else. Smoking weed, however, he had to kick that habit because of damage he’d done to his lungs in other ways.

“I love the bus,” he told KSAT TV’s Paul Venema during a recent interview. “This is my home.”
Performing, he says, is his key to happiness and good health.
“It’s an energy exchange,” he said, describing his relationship with the audience. “They give me a lot of positive energy and I hope to give them a lot of positive energy.”
He added “For an hour they get away from everything they don’t like.”

Years of smoking marijuana, the country music legend admits, has taken a toll on his health.
Nelson, 86, said “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.”
“I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever,” he said. “And that almost killed me.”
It didn’t, so he made a decision.
“I don’t smoke anymore – take better care of myself,” Nelson said. (via KSAT)

Willie was born in 1933. It’s a sad day for stoner culture to see him step down from the throne but I think he’s pretty damn smart to look after his lungs when he’s spent so many years smoking.

Also, cedar bark? Am I missing something here? He says he ‘started smoking cedar bark’ before moving onto ‘cigarettes to whatever’.

Who the hell smokes wood? Straight up wood? Was he using a cedar bark pipe to smoke other things or was he literally inhaling the smoke from cedar bark? That sounds like a habit that would nuke your lungs.

It’s unclear if Willie Nelson’s done with edibles and tincture. Methinks he’s not. But he didn’t talk about that in the interview so I can’t fill in the blanks there.

To check out the full KSAT article, just follow that link.