Any fans familiar with At The Drive-In or The Mars Volta wouldn't be shocked to learn that frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala is a massive pothead. Or, I guess I should say was a massive pothead, because he's quit the drug now, and for good reason.
In a new essay posted for Vulture's Stoner Week, Bixler-Zavala revealed he was spending a grand a week on the pot!
I was a total monster. I was spending $1,000 a week on weed, and everyone I was in the band with at the time smoked as much as I did. There's so much stupid behavior caused by weed, but I always had that cliché: I needed it for creativity. I've come to realize that at the end of the day, it's only you yourself that creativity comes from. It doesn't come from weed. In this day and age, the stuff people are smoking is not necessarily even naturally grown from the ground, anyway; it's basically been altered to fuck you up and fuck you up royally. I don't even know how some people are functional after smoking this stuff. And it's so easy to get now, you can go to stores and buy it. I feel bad because I was always going into the stores to buy and I'd actually see AIDS patients and cancer patients there — and here I am buying in bulk but I didn't really need it. I just thought I did. I was using it to form this stoned bubble that helped me justify not wanting to interact with people.
So I'm assuming that Bixler-Zavala was procuring the weed via legal means, since he specifies that he would see AIDS and cancer patients at the dispensaries where he purchased the weed. So, based on that assumption, just how much is $1,000 worth of weed? So if we look at a random dispensary in Los Angeles, the average price of a decent ounce of weed seems to be about $230 (side note: God damn, weed is expensive in NYC). That means that Bixler-Zavala was smoking 4.3 ounces of weed a week.
Four point three ounces of weed A WEEK! For reference, here is a photo of HALF an ounce of weed:
So, our buddy Cedric claims he would smoke 8 and a half of these portions a week? (Update: Cedric clarified he likely smoked two ounces a week.) Doesn't that almost seem impossible? Maybe weed was a bit more expensive a few years ago, so let's say it's 3 ounces. Still an insane amount of weed. He'd have to be going through the equivalent of a pack of a cigarettes a day, like 20 joints a day, to be able to get through that much.
Maybe it's for the best that he stopped then!
Bixler-Zavala says he's a much happier guy now that he's not smoking, and has the ability to socialize more…
Personally — and not just musically — there are benefits to not smoking anymore. I’m better off socially. I talk to fans. I'm cool with taking pictures. I'll sign whatever they want me to sign. That wasn't me when I was smoking weed. There's some stoners out there who can appreciate their audience and actually function when they're high. I couldn't. Now I can look at my audience and be like, Jesus Christ, thank you so much. It's a nice thing to be clearheaded and make music.
Good for you, dude! Now, please pass me the light!
Update: We tweeted Cedric for clarification and he confirmed that he smoked close to four ounces a week:
https://twitter.com/cedricbixler_/status/615958100663599105
Second update: Looks like it was only two ounces a week… only!.
https://twitter.com/cedricbixler_/status/615973573325230081
By the way, the screenshots up top are from an old video of The Mars Volta and System of a Down talking about how much they love to smoke.
