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69-year-old Paul McCartney gives up cannabis for 8-year-old daughter
By Jeff MillsFebruary 16th, 2012, 3:30 pmComments (5)
Sir Paul McCartney, the almost-septuagenarian who sounds as smooth as ever, told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview that, after only sixty-nine years of smoking reefer, he's finished being a pothead, due to a "sense of responsibility" he feels in rearing his eight-year-old daughter Beatrice.
In a clear understatement, McCartney said:
"I smoked my share. When you're bringing up a youngster, your sense of responsibility does kick in, if you're lucky, at some point. Enough's enough — you just don't seem to think it's necessary."
It's an admirable move by the former Beatle, because he liked smoking cannabis "a lot." He didn't give up the habit for his four other children though, and one can guess that Beatrice's mother, McCartney's second wife, Heather Mills, may have had something to do with the decision. Mills claimed during the couple's divorce proceedings that McCartney smoked ganja as often as most people drink tea.
If she hasn't already, Beatrice will likely one day poke around the internet and learn that her old man was introduced to the drug by Bob Dylan back in the mid-sixties (so you can argue that Dylan influenced Sgt. Pepper's in an oblique way), and that his dope resume includes various possession busts in the likes of Sweden, Scotland, and Barbados. And then there was that deportation from Japan in 1980 after it turned out that a half-pound of marijuana somehow wound up in his luggage. (Some of that had to be for George, and definitely for Ringo.)
The bottom line is, it's big of McCartney to do this for his daughter because, after all, not exactly being a pauper, he had to be smoking the government stuff, or whatever. And who did he think he was anyway, Robert Altman?
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Commentarium (5 Comments)
The Beatles undermine any argument against illegal drug use. "Drugs can ruin your life... or helpyou become the best rock group in history."
That's the fallacy of post hoc propter hoc. The syllogism, "The Beatles were a great band. The Beatles smoked dope. The Beatles were a great band because they smoked dope," is patently ridiculous. It might be true, and it might be true they were a great band despite smoking dope, and it might be true their smoking dope was unrelated to their being a great band.
Logical fallacies are fun but really they should be used cautiously on the internet because maybe this really isn't the place for serious discourse and I'm not paid to write about the Beatles on the internet. But once in a while I'll indulge.
While I didn't present the evidence in a glib two-liner, I formed my stance based on observation of Beatles history and late 60's western culture. The explosion in the complexity of the Beatles's music which kept them from stagnation is completely in tune with the historical fact of when they started heavily taking drugs, and furthermore completely consistent with how drugs affect cognition. This growth in the imagery used in their lyrics and experimentation with achieving new sounds is entirely consistent with the mind-altering aspects of the drugs they've personally admitted to have taken.
Speaking of fallacies, I see my argument is being turned into straw as you oversimplify my statement in your argument. I did not say "dope" in my post and in fact I was referring to the use of prescription stimulants, LSD, and cocaine in addition to marijuana. Placing dope in my mouth unfairly belittles my argument by citing a drug of lower potency. I also specifically left room for other factors to have played strong influences on the fame of the Beatles, despite your simplification of "The Beatles were a great band because they smoked dope." Surely, their individual upbringings under guardians with musical backgrounds, their participation in the subculture of adolescents who placed great value in skiffle/rock music and mutual teaching of skills, and their sheer drive and talent were huge factors in how the Beatles played out. But with the hindsight of a historical perspective there there are strong patterns between what the Beatles consumed to alter their minds and what their minds then turned into music. We can't order hundreds of the Beatles in a lab catalog and test their careers with and without the variable of drug use, but from how events actually played out, it is prudent to say that drug use had a positive impact on their music.
yer smart
I'm with Broseph on this one. The Beatles were a great band. The Beatles did drugs. Whether or not one is related to the other, the fact that both are true pretty much demolishes the "If you do drugs, your life will suck" message that anti-drug campaigns try to establish.
Now you say something