The Creative Spark: Exploring Cannabis as a Tool for Visionaries

Although cannabis is oftentimes associated with lounging and relaxation, certain components

and stains of cannabis can cause a rapid increase in creativity. It’s used by musicians who are

composing the next genre-defining album, writers who enjoy both personal journaling and

writing the next great American novel, and generational directors like Jordan Peele who

admitted to frequently utilizing cannabis when writing and directing the Oscar-winning film Get

Out.

The sheer number of celebrities and personalities from all fields of pop culture who are getting

into the cannabis industry, from country music legend Willie Nelson to comedian Jim Belushi

and Snoop Dogg’s BFF Martha Stewart, is clear evidence that the usage of cannabis for

creative purposes has become much more mainstream. In fact, the consumption of cannabis for

creative and productive reasons transcends generations and decades.

Several years before Snoop Dogg released “Doggystyle” and the aforementioned country music

legend smoked a joint on top of the White House with someone who in Willie’s words “looked a

lot like Jimmy Carter’s son”, reggae music pioneer and social activist Bob Marley frequently

referenced the creative potential of cannabis in both his music and in several interviews. Marley

was famously featured on the cover of High Times in September 1976 and several of his

meaningfully iconic songs, including “Get Up, Stand Up” and “Kaya”, are filled with references to

cannabis consumption. To someone like Marley who practiced Rastafari for most of his life,

cannabis wasn’t just a creative booster, but also a deeply spiritual booster as well.

Even before the incredible yet tragically short life of Bob Marley, jazz music legend Louis

Armstrong had been using cannabis for musical reasons prior to the implementation of the very

prejudiced 1937 Tax Act, which effectively made cannabis illegal on the federal level.

Outside of a very diverse group of artists associated with the performing or visual arts, several

famous technology pioneers and inventors have admitted to using cannabis. Steve Jobs, the

computer and technology industrialist who founded the multi-billion dollar global company

Apple, once famously said “The best way I could describe the effect of the marijuana and

hashish is that it would make me relaxed and creative.” Surely, cannabis helped Jobs better

understand and further advance the functions and practicality of the groundbreaking, albeit

crazy expensive, technology that he was inventing. So for any consumers who use an iPhone or

a Mac laptop, you partially have cannabis to thank for those devices.

The terpene combinations in several different sativa strains, especially terpinolene and

limonene, can certainly boost both productivity and creativity. More than that however, certain

sativa strains can even cause the consumer to view their pending projects on a much deeper

and/or more complex level. Whether that be the plot of an upcoming novel and including

memorable dialogue and connections between characters, when certain instrumental sections

should be included in which parts of the song, or visualizing the thematic elements and

undertones of a painting that will eventually be in the MoMa.

Also, there have been numerous academic studies conducted by some of the most established

journals and institutions to determine the creativity boost that cannabis undoubtedly provides for

certain cannabis consumers. Within the academic journal Consciousness and Cognition, two

different studies confirmed that cannabis users who use less potent, low-THC have a notable

boost in “creativity and divergent thinking” tasks. In both studies that took place in 2012 and

2014 respectively, highly potent cannabis had the opposite effect o

n the participating subjects.

“Participants in the high-dose group displayed significantly worse performance on the divergent

thinking task compared to individuals in both the low-dose and placebo groups.” the study

summarized.

Earlier this year, cannabis news and research website mycannabis.com published a detailed

article compiling all the exact psychological and neurological ways that have been studied by

institutions such as Ivy League universities which relate to cannabis and creativity.

So overall, the creative opportunities with cannabis and the creative pathways and ideas that it

can conjure up are indeed numerous, usually with less potent strains as opposed to top shelf

strains. Although given that Willie Nelson is in his 90’s and just released his 154th album,

maybe there’s some creative merit behind highly potent strains for frequent consumers. With so

many acclaimed and genre-defining artists and producers across all types of media and

entertainment referencing cannabis as a creative aide, it’s safe to assume that your artistic side

could benefit greatly from this very biodiverse plant.