I don't do weed anymore

Paul McCartney has revealed he has given up smoking marijuana after using the drug on and off for around four decades.

The 72-year-old said he made the decision because he didn't want to set a bad example for his five children and eight grandchildren.

The Beatles star said these days, he prefers a glass of wine or a 'nice margarita'.

He told the Daily Mirror: 'I don’t do it anymore. Why? The truth is I don’t really want to set an example to my kids and grandkids. It’s now a parent thing.

“Back then, I was just some guy around London having a ball, and the kids were little so I’d just try and keep it out of their faces”.

“The last time I smoked was a long time ago.”

McCartney was reportedly introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in the mid-sixties, a couple of years after The Beatles released its debut album.

It started his long and, occasionally tumultuous, relationship with the drug.

The musician was fined for cannabis possession in Sweden in 1972 and was charged with 'illegal cultivation' after police discovered the plant at his Scottish farm early the next year.

In 1980, he spent 10 days in jail in Japan after officials found marijuana in his luggage. On this occasion, he was released without charge. 

Despite his four children - Stella, 43, James, 37, Mary, 45, and adopted, daughter Heather, 52 - McCartney said he could not quit because cannabis was “such good stuff”.

But he reportedly temporarily gave up the drug during his second marriage in 2002 to Heather Mills, who gave him an ultimatum - her or the drugs.

They got divorced six years later, with Mills claiming during the proceedings that McCartney used cannabis as regularly as others drink cups of tea.

It is not the first time McCartney, who married third wife, Nancy Shevell, in October 2011, has made comments about giving up the illegal class B drug.

He told Rolling Stone magazine in 2012 he was considering stopping after raising his fifth child, Beatrice, who was born in 2003.

“I did a lot and it was enough,”he said in a candid interview.

“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.' 

Credit: MailOnline