At 80, David Crosby remembers his greatest weed moments
The singer-songwriter David Crosby is one of the last musicians of the Woodstock generation. A Grammy winner who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – as a co-founder of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash – he has been called anything from an asshole (himself) to an iconoclast and often serves as a cautionary note Story about the dangers of hedonistic excess in the rock star set.
But at 80 the Croz has become decidedly softer. As an elder statesman, he has also entered a new phase of life that is experiencing a late career renaissance. His new album, For Free, has just received rave reviews, his health is healthy in body and mind, and he regularly revels in his role as the nation’s leading common critic via his always-responsive Twitter feed.
And now – in an exclusive interview on the Great Moments in Weed History podcast – he’s finally weighing the positive role cannabis has played in his life, work, and recovery from substance abuse.
On the eve of his 80th birthday, August 14, Crosby turned down the idea of being a music legend and cannabis icon.
“I’m just another stoner, man,” said Crosby.
He smoked the best weed in the sixties and seventies
Maybe so, but he’s still a stoner who fumigated the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, spent much of the 1970s sailing the high seas with some of the most prolific weed smugglers of the era, and has a reputation for having the strongest stash to have in the rock scene Back when the best buds came from overseas.
Was the cannabis of that era really that different from what we smoke today? Crosby had this to say:
“Well, that really depended on who you were and who you knew. The pot we had in the early 1960s was crap: bricked-up, sown kilos that came from Mexico on loading areas. Then someone brought Sinsemilla up from downstairs in Michoacan. And once we got our hands on it, it was a whole different world.
But really, there was no shortage of truly stunning cannabis back then. We also got a real Thai stick that was still on the stick. “
“Sober is sober. Smoking is smoking. ‘
Known for his angelic singing and the occasional demonic off-stage antics, Crosby has long been a counterculture hero as he refused to literally and metaphorically cut his hair. He is also someone known to have struggled with substance abuse. In the mid-1980s, he spent five months in a Texas prison on drug and weapon charges.
When he was released in 1986, he renounced all intoxicants, including weed. But then, around 2000, he decided to reintroduce cannabis into his life – both as a medicine (“I have tendinitis in both hands”) and as a safer alternative to alcohol and hard drugs.
A soft landing with cannabis
Cannabis was never one of his problem substances, but for a long time he did not dare to indulge in it. Now he’s growing his own at home and even has his own personal cannabis line – Mighty Croz – in the works.
So while the Croz is annoyed by the term “California sober”, he happily landed right there.
“Whatever you want to call it, that’s how I do it – cannabis, but nothing else. And it was a good thing in my life even though I couldn’t and didn’t want to speak for others. Also, I don’t want to preach, but it’s not really “sober” – so that’s my take on the term.
Because I think if you try to stay sober, you can’t have a gray area. I’ve been trying to get heroin and cocaine out – that’s really serious stuff – and it took me a year in maximum security to crack it. And then I went to meetings three or four times a week for fourteen years and didn’t touch anything until I didn’t feel like it was snapping on my heels.
I felt okay then to start smoking weed again, and it’s still the only thing I do. But I think that any kind of sobriety is to be cheated. Sober is sober. Smoking is smoking. I don’t think there’s a middle ground. “
Trust your nose
While Crosby may still fondly remember the specific strain of African grass he first smoked the Beatles on 50 years ago, he has a healthy skepticism about the hundreds of strains available at California’s legal cannabis dispensaries – and claims that only plant geneticists really know what’s inside the vessel.
So when assessing the modern world of hybrid and polyhybrid varieties, he falls back on the old stoner adage “The nose knows”.
“The names? I think people often came up with them only last week. They do that in the shops all the time.”
A dedicated home gardener
At home, Crosby keeps it simple by growing five different strains, which he named like purple for their most distinctive traits.
“I’ve learned from growing my own pot that it’s a lot of fun.”
He enjoys puffing on a Pax vaporizer, which usually starts in the mid to late afternoon and ends each day with rolling up a fat joint and watching a movie with his wife. In between, he often finds cannabis a creative catalyst for his songwriting.
He also enjoys growing cannabis as a creativity-stimulating pursuit that creates a deep connection with the plant.
“I’ve learned from growing my own pot that it’s a lot of fun. The plants are lovely and beautiful. They grow like crazy and really respond to you. What I end up doing in the morning is making coffee and walking around the garden in my underwear. I will tear off a sheet here and there while I water them and tell them how beautiful they are…. It is wonderful.”
David beehive
Seasoned cannabis journalist David Bienenstock is the author of “How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High” (2016 – Penguin / Random House) and co-host and co-creator of the podcast “Great Moments in Weed History.” Abdullah and Bean. ”Follow him on Twitter @pot_handbook.
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