Alex Lifeson quit cannabis at 72 while preparing for Rush’s return to the road, saying he wanted better focus, discipline, memory, and mental sharpness. After decades of openly enjoying weed, he says the change has been unexpectedly positive—even if he initially hoped it wouldn’t be.
At 72, after decades of having a pretty open relationship with weed, Alex Lifeson decided to quit. It wasn’t a sudden moral awakening or a newfound problem with cannabis. The Rush guitarist simply wanted his brain—and his playing—as sharp as possible, according to Rolling Stone.
The decision came while Lifeson was preparing for Fifty Something, Rush’s first tour since 2015 and the band’s long-awaited return to the road following the death of legendary drummer Neil Peart in 2020. Lifeson is touring alongside longtime bandmate Geddy Lee and German drummer Anika Nilles, who took on one of rock music’s most daunting roles.
And, as he put it, getting ready meant taking a hard look at some long-standing habits.
“I thought, this is interfering with the way my brain should be working, and the kind of focus and discipline that all of a sudden I really wanted to have in my life,” Lifeson told Rolling Stone in a recent interview.
So he cleared out his stash.
Lifeson Says Quitting Weed Improved His Memory
This wasn’t exactly a casual tolerance break.
In the interview, Lifeson said he went through his home collecting jars of weed, pipes and other smoking gear and tossing everything into a garbage bag. When he came across a container of pre-rolls in his studio, he briefly considered keeping them before deciding that it would defeat the purpose. By the end, he said, the bag was full of pipes, bongs and weed.
That’s notable considering Lifeson has never exactly been shy about his affection for cannabis. In previous interviews, he has described weed as part of his creative process, particularly in the studio, while acknowledging that being high didn’t always make him the most technically precise player.
But this time, the equation was different. Returning to Rush after more than a decade away from touring meant rebuilding stamina, relearning material, sharpening muscle memory, and mentally preparing to play some notoriously demanding music night after night.
And Lifeson says he noticed a difference.
“I’m so much clearer. I don’t procrastinate like I used to. My memory is so much better,” he said. “It’s all the stuff that they tell you about cannabis. I never believed it.”
The funniest part might be that he apparently wasn’t hoping sobriety would stick.
“It’s really been a positive experience,” Lifeson said. “I didn’t expect it, and I was hoping it wouldn’t be.”
Fair enough.
About That ‘30 Days’ THC Claim
Lifeson also said that “THC stays in your system for typically 30 days,” explaining that once he reached the end of that first month, he started thinking bigger.
“Oh my God, maybe I’ll just try it for two years then, for the whole tour,” he recalled.
That 30-day figure, however, is better understood as a rough reference rather than a biological countdown clock.
How long THC or its metabolites remain detectable depends on a long list of factors, including frequency of use, dose, metabolism, body composition, the type of test used, and the test’s detection threshold. Research shows substantial variation, particularly between occasional and frequent users.
So Lifeson’s timeline shouldn’t be treated as medical guidance. What matters here is what he noticed after several weeks without weed: better focus, less procrastination and, in his view, a sharper memory.
Rush Is Back, but Nobody Is Pretending It’s 1981
The timing makes the whole lifestyle change more interesting. Rush kicked off Fifty Something in June 2026 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, the same venue where Lee, Lifeson and Peart played their final concert together in 2015.
The new version of the band has an understandably delicate task. Lee and Lifeson are returning to music that shaped most of their lives without pretending that one of the three people at its heart isn’t gone. The tour is already stretching well beyond North America, with South American and European dates scheduled into 2027.
For Lifeson, getting ready for that chapter apparently meant more than plugging his guitar back in. It meant figuring out which parts of his old routine still worked for him at 72—and which ones didn’t.
There’s no anti-weed manifesto in his comments, and he doesn’t seem particularly interested in turning his own experience into advice for anyone else. If anything, his comments are more personal than prescriptive.
After spending much of his life enjoying cannabis, Alex Lifeson tried life without it and was mildly annoyed to discover he kind of loves it too.
Cover photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
