After half a century of spreading the smoke of a hilarious counter-culture, stoner-comedy pioneer Tommy Chong takes his cinematic bow with Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie (in cinemas May 21), a final nostalgic and still politically incorrect trip. Zeweed caught up with him to discuss spirituality, religion, health and ganja.
When you land an interview with Tommy Chong, you expect to talk about a lot of things, but not necessarily God and eternal existence.
It all started with a simple question about his battle with the two cancers that afflicted him, and the beneficial effects of cannabis on his health.
“ I have my own theory about grass. Either the observation of a layman’s, yes, but also a connoisseur‘s,” Tommy tells me knowingly.
” Our immune system is the key to all healing. And our immune system can’t function properly when it’s on constant alert. That’s why rest is so important, and why, when we’re ill conventional medicine’s approach is to isolate ourselves on a hospital bed, far from any stress or negative distractions. ”
“Grass helped me beat my cancer”.
What Tommy calls “ a layman’s observation ” is in fact a proven medical postulate.
“When we’re stressed, our bodies become more susceptible to infection and disease. This is because the stress hormone cortisol triggers an ancestral fight-or-flight response in us, and consequently reduces the number of lymphocytes ( or white blood cells NDLR) in our bloodstream. As a result, our bodies become less effective at fighting off external aggressors.
What cannabis does is place you in a state of rest. As a result, your immune system, which is not solicited to fight exogenous aggressions, can concentrate on the body and ensure its harmonious functioning. . ” continues Tommy.
“But true healing isn’t physical: the ultimate cure is spiritual. I’m convinced that weed helped me beat my cancer “.
“And my contact with God allowed my body to believe it.”
For Tommy Chong, the spiritual remedy lies in a deep, personal connection with God.
“I know that God loves me. And when people ask me how I know that, I tell them, “Have you seen my wife? “laughs the comedian (married to the sublime Shelby Chong), accompanying his joke with a deep, throaty laugh.
“When you have that close connection with God, you can conquer anything,” he tells me as his tone returned to serious. “And my contact with God allowed my body to believe it.”
Tommy pauses for a moment, thinking back to his penniless childhood and the little shanty at the end of Alberta, Canada, where he spent his childhood and adolescence.
“ It was the cheapest house, the only one my father could afford. He bought it on a stroke of luck for something like $500. ”
Today, Tommy takes my call from his home nestled in the heights of Pacific Palisades, one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Los Angeles, between Malibu and Santa-Monica.
A few days ago, the house of one of his neighbors was sold for $50 million. “ I can’t believe I live in a place where a house costs literally 10,000 times more than the one I grew up in. Even though, fundamentally, I don’t care. My wife and family take care of all that. I just sit here and stay in touch with God. “laughs Chong, smiling peacefully.
“I can’t believe I live in a place where a house literally costs 10,000 times more than the one I grew up in. Even though, fundamentally, I don’t care.”
For him, connecting with God, or his ” higher power ” (sic) as he sometimes calls it, is a simple practice: “.We are all of God. You, me, the whole world. All of us. The good, the bad, every living creature on earth. We are all eternal beings, whether you want to believe it or not. “.
The other half of the famous duo Cheech and Chong remembers reading in a newspaper recently that every drop of water that was on earth in the beginning is still there today, in one form or another.
“As humans, we are 90% water. So it’s scientifically proven that 90% of our particles have always been here, in one form or another. So why not the other 10%? We are eternal beings. Nothing disappears. We simply reappear in another form. This is also physical karma “.
As eternal beings, Tommy believes we exist in two worlds: one that is physical and one that is spiritual.
“In the physical world, there is constant conflict. There are opposites. In the physical world, you can’t have highs without lows, you can’t have just without unjust, you can’t have Joe Biden without Donald Trump “.
And just as there’s the possibility of doing good, or ” staying on track ” as Tommy puts it, there’s also the possibility of doing bad.
“In the history of our existence, we’ve seen how brutal life can be,” he recalls of his incarceration. “But only up to a certain point, then you leave, you enter the spiritual world. And in the spiritual world, there’s nothing but love “.
“I want to believe that good is always one step ahead of evil. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.”
Tommy sees our passage through the physical world as an opportunity to grow, to rise. He compares it to school: take the opportunity to do good, and you’ll rise. Choose the opposite, and you’ll regress.
“As human beings, we have a duty: to help each other. Because we all come from something, from a universal web. No, we don’t appear by magic, even if the Catholic Church would have us believe that there is such a thing as immaculate conception! “. Tommy lets out a big, hearty laugh.
” When you enter the physical world, you have to be physical, and that’s what we do. And there have to be opposites, so there will always be naysayers and opposites. And if you look at the percentages, they’re almost equal. I want to believe that good is always one step ahead of evil. At least that’s how I see it. Otherwise… we’re in trouble “.
