Willie Nelson's Step Back From Smoking Marijuana Explained

Willie Nelson is among the pantheon of all-time famous marijuana smokers. The country crooner had credited weed with having a positive effect on his life. "I found out that pot is the best thing for me because I needed something to slow me down a little bit," he told The New York Times in September 2014. Smoking helped keep the "Whiskey River" artist from drinking to excess. "[T]here's no telling how many people I would have killed by now," Nelson said about trading in smoking for drinking.

The singer continued smoking after that interview, but health issues started to arise. In 2017, Nelson canceled a show in Salt Lake City and was hospitalized for respiratory issues. At the time, Nelson wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the issues were due to the "altitude." A couple of years later, in August 2019, Nelson put his tour on hold due to "a breathing problem," as he wrote on X. Even though the tour resumed in September of that year, it was clear that Nelson was bothered by breathing issues.

Later that year, the "Roll Me Up" singer gave some clarification regarding his health status. "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," he told KSAT in November 2019. "I don't smoke anymore — take better care of myself," Nelson added. This statement caused many to believe that Nelson had given up marijuana altogether, but that was not the case.

Shortly after the headline-making interview with Willie Nelson appeared to indicate that he had quit smoking marijuana, the Associated Press reached out to a spokesperson for the country singer, Elaine Schock, to confirm the report. The AP wrote that Schock implied that Nelson was partaking in "different ways" than just smoking. "That said, Willie does what he wants, when he wants, when it comes to smoking," the spokesperson replied in an email in December 2019.

It would be difficult to believe that the "On the Road Again" singer had quit cannabis entirely, as earlier that year — in April 2019 — he told Rolling Stone that he was high "pretty much all the time." Nelson might have swapped out smoking weed for ingesting edibles, but he was previously on record as not being a fan of eating cannabis products. "Honestly, I don't do edibles. I'd rather do it the old-fashioned way, because I don't enjoy the high that the body gets," Nelson told The New York Times in 2014. Perhaps Nelson's thoughts on edibles had changed over time, especially as his lung issues developed.

Nelson may have curtailed his weed smoking, but he did not abandon it for good. During an interview with Forbes in April 2023, the interviewer asked which celebrities Nelson would want to have a smoke session with. "I think if you got one, let's burn it," Nelson replied. Not only had Nelson not quit smoking, but he even stopped another celeb from quitting.

Another famous marijuana smoker, Woody Harrelson, had successfully quit smoking for years. That is until he finally succumbed to Willie Nelson's peer pressure. "He was never comfortable with me quitting. It just bothered him," Harrelson said about Nelson on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in May 2018. Whenever the "White Men Can't Jump" actor would run into Nelson, the singer offered him weed. "This happened like 500 times," Harrelson recalled. Eventually, the "Bloody Mary Morning" got his wish one day when Harrelson accepted a joint. "I take a big draw of it, and he says, 'Welcome home, son,'" Harrelson added.

Not only did Nelson influence notable celebrities to partake, but he also provided cannabis products to the public with his Willie's Reserve brand. The company did more than attach Nelson's name to the product; they also brought him in as a tester. "I've been smoking weed a long time and I've got a great tolerance for it ... so I'm not really the best guy to ask about those things," the singer admitted to GQ in 2015. Willie's Reserve offers several products, including ready-rolled joints and eighth and quarter jars filled with the company's strain. As an endorsement of the brand, Nelson discussed how years of weed smoking had not hindered his performance skills. "I'm kinda like the canary in the mine," he told GQ. "Here's the old fart, 82, out there doing an hour-and-a-half, two-hour show, remembering all the goddamn words."