Jay Baruchel is launching “Highly Legal”, a new Canadian Audible Original podcast with a focus on marijuana.
These days, the “Man Seeking Woman” star is an unabashed pothead, but that wasn’t always the case.
In an interview with Complex, Ottawa-born Baruchel recalled being reluctant to light up when he and fellow Canadian Seth Rogen were co-starring in the Judd Apatow-created comedy series “Undeclared”.
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“We were both 18 in California and [Rogen] refused to accept that I wouldn’t like weed,” Baruchel said. “I was telling him I was terribly underwhelmed by it, and he was like, ‘It’s really made for you, man. Your stomach’s always bugging you and you like thinking about big, deep, wanky existential stuff.’”
Eventually, Baruchel gave in to Rogen’s marijuana evangelism. “I was like, ‘Okay fine, I’ll try it once.’ It was like something out of a movie: he put on Dark Side of the Moon and wouldn’t ya know it, here I am 20 years later hosting a podcast about weed,” he said with a laugh.
As Baruchel told Complex, the effects of weed in his life have been overwhelmingly positive.
“Generally, it’s kinda had a legacy of being a clarifying agent in my life,” he explained. “I, as a worrywart, used to have a tendency to worry about everything, stuff over which I exert zero control. And one of the good effects pot has had on my life is it’s made me realize that things like being a good husband and son and brother and friend, making sure the bills are paid on time, doing good work — so long as that stuff is all accomplished, then everything else can kinda wait.”
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Addressing the stereotype that marijuana use results in laziness and irresponsibility, Baruchel maintained that it’s had the opposite effect on him.
“I don’t think it makes anybody anything that they aren’t already,” he said. “I hate attributing somebody’s poor decision-making to something else other than them. And look, I am no shining example of anything. All I’m saying is that motivation, or lack of motivation, certainly for me, has nothing to do with marijuana and everything to do with what the rest of my f**king life looks like, which is probably the case for most people.”
