Photo: Ilya S. Savenok / Getty

Were it not already obvious from his starring role in Blunt Talk, that time he put on a lobster costume and hopped in the bath, his inability to stop giggling over a dumb Christmas hat, or his recent loving, languorous petting of a pitbull, Sir Patrick Stewart uses weed, like, every single day. The 76-year-old actor recently released a statement lending his support to a new initiative undertaken by Oxford University to explore medicinal cannabis, the first of its kind in the UK, revealing that he’s partaken of marijuana daily for the past two years to treat his arthritis. It’s a bold public stance that Stewart hopes will help to remove the “prejudice, fear, and ignorance” surrounding cannabis research, which has until now been held back by an uptight British populace that desperately needs to pick it, pack it, fire it up, and come along as researchers investigate the many ameliorative benefits of taking hits from the bong.


“Two years ago, in Los Angeles, I was examined by a doctor and given a note which gave me legal permission to purchase, from a registered outlet, cannabis-based products, which I was advised might help the ortho-arthritis in both my hands,” Stewart says in his message to England, commonwealth of narcs. “This, it would seem, is a genetically-based condition. My mother had badly distorted and painful hands.”

In fact, Stewart explains, his own condition was so bad that he couldn’t make a fist, something that’s now been alleviated by using a cannabis spray. And in conjunction with a cannabis ointment he uses at night, as well as various edibles, Stewart now says the pain and stiffness in his hands has been greatly reduced, allowing him to sleep and function in his daily life. Helllll yeah, nothing like getting your hands nice and blazed to relieve the debilitating pain of eroding cartilage within your joints typically caused by aging, right my dudes?


Stewart also used his statement to point out that the alternative to his treatment—namely a daily cocktail of “NSAID’s, Advil, Aleve, and Naproxen”—would have caused damage to his liver and acid reflux, while his use of cannabis has so far had no side effects, aside from the occasional outbreak of blog posts where his very serious medical condition and worthwhile advocacy will be used as an excuse to make dumb weed jokes based in tired stereotypes. “I believe this program of research might result in benefits for people like myself as well as millions of others,” Stewart concluded, implicitly including his fellow pain-sufferers, as well as anyone who’s about to Netflix some Star Trek: The Next Generation.

