Kevin Smith Writes Films Stoned

I’m quite a latecomer to Kevin Smith and his body of work. I knew of him and of Jay and Silent Bob but hadn’t watched any of his films until I saw Dogma a few years ago. I’ve since seen Mallrats, Clerks, Clerks II, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And I have Chasing Amy crying out to me on the DVD rack.

The man is quite clearly both a genius and legend, but his movies have been of mixed quality to say the least. I really enjoyed Clerks and Clerks II, and Dogma is a work of art. But Mallrats is terrible, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike is average at best.

As his alter-ego Silent Bob, you assume Kevin Smith is a big stoner, but he recently told The New York Post that he actually wasn’t until Seth Rogen got him doing it regularly last summer. He’s now a three spliffs a day man, but Smith reckons the blunt is actually helping his creative juices flow the right way.

“I know you’re supposed to tell kids not to do drugs, but, kids, do it! Do weed! Don’t do the other stuff, but weed is good . . . What you want to do is what I did, build a movie empire and, at age 38, smoke it all away. Judd Apatow is way better at being Kevin Smith now than Kevin Smith ever was. So Judd Apatow should do it for a while, and I should figure out something else, and weed has been [bleeping] helpful with that.”

I’m a firm believer that what a person does in the privacy of their own house is up to them, within reasons. And smoking weed is certainly within those reasonable limits. And if it means Kevin Smith both writes and directs the brilliant films we all know he’s capable of doing then God bless cannabis.