The joint and I

Stoner icon Tommy Chong gets down on pot, "Evil Bong," and what's trippy about being in prison.

By Scott Lamb

Read more: Drugs, Books, Marijuana, Interviews, Authors, Books Interviews

Aug. 9, 2006 | It's a little hard to imagine what the last three decades of teen comedies would be like without Cheech and Chong. The stock character of the high school stoner -- slow-talking, good-natured but slightly mischievous, usually bearded -- is practically the invention of the comedy duo, who broke up in 1985, and it was a role that Tommy Chong embodied fully, both on the records he put out with his friend Cheech Marin in the '70s and '80s and in his daily life. Now 68, Chong still has the look -- in his picture on the cover of his new book, "The I Chong: Meditations From the Joint," his eyes are obviously bloodshot. Still, he confesses, "The truth is, I never smoked as much pot as my loyal fans thought I did."

Chong had tried before to sit down and commit the Cheech and Chong story to paper, but his first real inspiration to write came from a different source: His arrest as part of a nationwide sting called Operation Pipe Dreams that the Drug Enforcement Agency launched against bong manufacturers in 2003. On Feb. 23 of that year, armed DEA agents simultaneously raided Chong's house in California and his son's bong company, Chong Glass. The government offered him a deal: He could plead guilty and do time, or they would go after his son and his wife, who'd written the check that got the glass business started. Chong opted for prison.

The book that resulted from the experience is no straight autobiography. Instead, Chong has given us a story that's partly an account of his trial and jail time, partly a memoir about growing up half Irish and half Chinese in Calgary, Alberta, and partly a collection of spiritual advice. It's probably no surprise that the book tends to wander in some places and to go on at length about seemingly minor details elsewhere. Yet Chong's earnest charm is winning; reading his prose is like sharing in your own warm, hippie-tinged conversation with him. As in the 2005 documentary about his arrest, "A/k/a Tommy Chong," the most interesting parts of the book are those that raise questions about the logic of the country's drug policies.

I spoke to Chong by phone from his hotel in Joliet, Ill., where he was on the road with his stand-up act, and asked him about legalizing pot, the MTV generation and whether he could identify with fellow ex-con Martha Stewart.

I guess the obligatory first question is: When was the last time you smoked?

I smoked up with Tom Green -- you know Tom Green, the TV guy? Well, I did a show, and I smoked up with him. And I got a bronchiolar condition that kind of scared me, because I usually don't share bongs. And so, I haven't smoked since -- it's been almost a month.

I've cleared up my bronchiolar condition, so I'm back to normal. I don't think I'll smoke [anymore]. I think I'll get a vaporizer, or just cook it into some healthy food.

You mentioned in the book that you were going on a smoking break for political reasons.

It was a fast.

A fast, exactly.

It was so I could have control over the fact that I was going to be drug-tested [due to his probation]. It was one of those, "You can't fire me, I quit!"

Now that you're out, are you doing a lot more political work around getting marijuana legalized than you were before prison?

Not really, because my views haven't really changed, you know? I'm sort of like -- it's a toss-up between legalization and decriminalization. It's like legalizing smoking, you know. Ultimately smoking is not good for you. And the same thing with marijuana -- unless you have M.S. or cancer or glaucoma or some reason [to smoke it]. Really, marijuana is a medicine, and to come right out and legalize it, to say to world, "Hey, kill yourself," I don't really subscribe to that.

If everybody would just mind their own business, everything would be fine. We have a way of equaling things up. So, if marijuana was just treated like cigarettes, you know, no smoking, if you light up, OK, you're in trouble. But that's it, you know, as far as punishing people for taking a substance that actually helps them.

So, I don't know. I'm really at the point where I believe that marijuana should be treated like gays in the military: Don't ask and don't tell.

About the book: I was very impressed that the full title manages to get in two puns.

Where's the other one?

"Meditations From the Joint."

Oh, right, right, right.

This is the book you were fated to write.

"Meditations From the Joint." That is funny.

Next page: "Cheech and Chong was born on a rainy night in Vancouver"