Many, like Very Important Pothead Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, have been paying tribute to Bruce Lee on the 50th anniversary of his death. The Chinese-American martial artist and movie star smashed as many racial barriers and stereotypes as he did opponents, and another myth he smashed was that of the weak, do-nothing cannabis consumer.
According to the biography Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, it was Steve McQueen who turned Lee onto marijuana. "It quickly became his drug of choice – Puff the Magic Dragon," Polly writes. "After a training session with one of his celebrity clients, Bruce would light a blunt and talk philosophy," listen to music and "have a ball," James Coburn recalled. "Blowing Gold was one of his favorite things."
"It was different and scary," Bruce said of his first experience getting stoned. "I was feeling pretty high when Steve gave me a cup of hot tea. As I placed the cup to my lips, it felt like a river gushing into my mouth. It was weird. Everything was so exaggerated. Even the damn noise from my slurping was so loud it sounded like splashing waves. When I got into my car and started to go, the street seemed like it was moving real fast toward me. The white centerline just flew at me and so did the telephone poles. You just noticed everything more sharply. You become aware of everything. To me it was artificial 'awareness.' But, you know, this is what we are trying to reach in martial arts, the 'awareness,' but in a more natural way."
Polly theorizes that "beyond its consciousness-raising appeal, Bruce's fondness for cannabis—at first he used marijuana and then later switched to hash—may have involved an element of self-medication. 'Never Sits Still' was a nickname and he had been hyperactive and impulsive since his childhood. Marijuana and hash seem to have served as a kind of chill pill."
After a near fatal cerebral edema caused him to collapse on a Hong Kong movie set on May 10, 1973, Lee was examined by neurosurgeon Dr. Peter Wu. During the examination, Lee admitted that he had eaten hash immediately before the episode, and Wu advised him not to take it again. "It's harmless," Bruce scoffed. "Steve McQueen introduced me to it. Steve McQueen would not take it if there was anything dangerous about it." He refused diagnostic tests, saying he would get treated in the US.
"In 1973, Hong Kong had very little experience with marijuana," writes Polly. "It was conceived of as an evil Western hippie drug. Research since then has proven that cannabis does not cause cerebral edema or lead to death." He quotes Dr. Daniel Friedman, a neurologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. "There are no receptors for THC in the brainstem, the part of the brain that maintains breathing and heart rate," said Dr. Friedman, "which is why it is very near impossible to die directly from a THC overdose unlike heroin or barbiturates."
In the US, after a battery of tests, Bruce's fainting episode was diagnosed as a grande mal idiopathic, meaning a seizure with no apparent cause, by neurologist Dr. David Reisbord at UCLA. Polly theorized the cause was heat stroke. "By all accounts, the stress of filming Enter the Dragon had drained him physically and mentally," he wrote. "His friends say he was drinking alcohol more frequently, although there was no evidence he and by the night before his collapse. A month prior to his collapse, Bruce underwent surgery to have the sweat glands removed from his armpits, because he felt his dripping pits looked bad on screen. Without the sweat glands his body would have been less able to dissipate heat."
On July 20 the same year, Lee was found unconscious and died at the age of 32 after being given the painkiller Equagesic. A reaction to that unprescribed pill was ruled the cause of death in an autopsy by Scotland Yard forensic scientist Donald Teare, who said it would "be both irresponsible and irrational" to say that cannabis might have triggered either of the events Lee suffered in 1973.
Much like Jim Croce's widow Ingrid was forced to fight for her insurance settlement after marijuana was found on the plane that crashed and killed her husband, an inquest was held about Lee's death at which his insurance provider's lawyer tried to get Linda Lee to admit that Bruce used cannabis prior to his life insurance application. Lauren Holly plays Linda in the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story based on her 1975 book Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, starring their son Jason Scott Lee, who also died tragically and young.
Basketball/golf champion Steph Curry recently spoke about "what Bruce Lee stood for in terms of unifying people, speaking on the the collective harmony of everybody from different backgrounds, different races" while announcing that the shoes he was wearing sporting Lee's image would raise money and awareness against Asian hate. The Bruce Lee Foundation and Camp Bruce Lee provide a program where "kids discover Bruce Lee and practice his messages on confidence and unlimited potential." Which doubtlessly does more to address youth drug abuse and mental health than anything else.
Bruce continues to be revered by martial artists everywhere, who quite rightly ascribe to him the God-like status his prowess demands. In the finale to the Netflix series Disjointed starring Kathy Bates as the proprietress of a cannabis dispensary, Jesus Bruce Lee Christ comes down from heaven to appear to anti-drug martial arts instructor Tae Kwon Doug, who has a studio next door. "I forgive all my neighbors their sins. That's the Jesus part of me," JBLC says. "I'm also a regular consumer of cannabis. That's the Bruce Lee part of me," he adds, taking a martial arts stance. Having his mind is blown by learning that his idol "preferred hash, baked in brownies" leads Doug to make peace with the hippie pot smokers next door. Smashing stereotypes will do that for you.
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