\n<\/p>\n
\n\tRush\u2019s Alex Lifeson<\/a> spent decades as one of rock\u2019s most brilliantly productive stoners. He always played concerts sober, but half-joked to me in 2015 that he wrote \u201c80 percent\u201d of his oft-labyrinthine parts for Rush\u2019s music with THC assistance. But this year, with a high-pressure reunion tour looming, he finally quit weed, as he revealed in our recent cover story<\/a> interview, published in collaboration with Rolling Stone <\/em>Canada. \u201cI started having these negative feelings about my confidence and about what was ahead of us. We were halfway through the process. It\u2019s too late to jump off this ship that\u2019s screaming across the sea. And I thought, this is interfering with the way my brain should be working, and the kind of focus and discipline that all of a sudden I really wanted to have in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe Rush legend is far from the first musician to publicly talk about quitting weed in some fashion \u2014\u00a0though only some of them stuck to it, and one of them was totally making it up.<\/p>\n \n\tWillie Nelson<\/a> (sort of)<\/strong> Lukas Nelson<\/a><\/strong> \n\tPaul McCartney<\/a><\/strong> \n\tSnoop Dogg<\/a> (except not) <\/strong>
Nelson said<\/a> in a November 2019 interview with San Antonio\u2019s KSAT that he was done with smoking weed, 65 years after his first joint. \u201cI have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past,\u201d he said. He canceled tour dates that summer over breathing problems. His publicist soon clarified<\/a> that Nelson had given up smoking<\/em>, not cannabis itself: he still used edibles and even vaped.<\/p>\n
Willie\u2019s son, Lukas Nelson, quit more definitively, swearing off weed and alcohol around 2023.\u00a0 \u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it sober completely, because I\u2019ll still do mushrooms,\u201d he\u00a0 said<\/a> on Rolling Stone\u2019s Nashville Now<\/em> podcast in 2025. He explained that his dad had no problem with his decision: \u201cMy dad respects individuality. He respects being yourself. He and I both now don\u2019t smoke weed. I don\u2019t think it mattered to him either way\u2026 When I was smoking I\u2019d smoke six, seven joints a day. I was so into weed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2012, 48 years after Bob Dylan introduced the Beatles to marijuana in a New York hotel room, McCartney told me in a cover-story interview that he was finally done smoking weed. \u201cI did a lot, and it was enough,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cI smoked my share. When you\u2019re bringing up a youngster, your sense of responsibility does kick in, if you\u2019re lucky, at some point. Enough\u2019s enough \u2013 you just don\u2019t seem to think it\u2019s necessary.\u201d That said, various paparazzi photos, videos, and accounts from other celebrities in the intervening years suggest that maybe, just maybe, the guy who wrote \u201cGot to Get You Into My Life\u201d about weed might have changed his mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter much consideration and conversation with my family, I\u2019ve decided to give up smoke,\u201d Snoop posted in November 2023.\u00a0 It seemed vaguely possible, since he had mentioned in an interview earlier that year that becoming a grandfather made him want to slow down. Soon enough, however, a company that sells smokeless fire pits annoyed the entire Internet by revealing<\/a> that it had hired Snoop as its \u201csmokesman\u201d and that the whole thing was a stunt.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n