By Jerry Turiya
Lee Jun-Fah, known professionally as Bruce Lee, is a San Franciscan born, Hong Kong raised actor, director, and martial artist. In the short time Bruce Lee was on and off the silver screen, he became one of the greatest and most well known martial artists in the world. Within Martial Arts and Action movies, the list of comparable and iconic actors to Bruce Lee is a very short list, but Bruce Lee is on the not-so-short list of iconic stoners.
When I think of stoner icons, Bruce Lee doesn’t start off the list with the likes of Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, or Cheech and Chong, but without a doubt, all these icons have carved out a legacy within pop culture and the hearts of stoners worldwide. These larger than life characters have changed the way everyone has looked at cannabis whether it is with music or film. Many of these icons were big proponents and advocates for the plant outside their art.
Allegedly, Bruce would show up to parties and start handing out joints, Bruce’s personal favorite was eating hashish and chewing on marijuana root. Bruce Lee’s personal diet and regiment avoided refined sugar and included chewing cannabis to help his muscles to become more relaxed and fluid in his fighting. It is a huge hypothetical to think about if Bruce Lee would have been more outspoken about and advocated for marijuana in the 80’s, 90’s, and present day, but it’s likely.
Bruce Lee passed away in 1973 from a reaction to the muscle relaxer pain-killer called Equagesic. Equagesic is a combination tranquilizer and analgesic used as an adjunct in the short-term treatment of pain accompanied by tension and/or anxiety. The doctor originally tried to blame his death on cannabis, and while we all know this to be more fiction than fact, Equagesic was the cause of his death.
Bruce Lee is without a doubt one of the most influential martial artists of all time with classic 70’s martial arts films like Enter the Dragon (1973), Fists of Fury (1972), and Way of the Dragon (1972). While you can catch all the great fights on YouTube from Lee’s greats or the iconic battle between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdhul-Jabbar in Game of Death (1972), it’d be great for some streamable content on everyone’s favorite streaming service. Netflix, why don’t we show the man with the iron fists some love and give us, the viewers, some streamable content?
