Jelly Roll shared that using marijuana has helped him stay away from harder drugs.
“I get in trouble for this, all the time, but my stance on marijuana will always be the same,” the country singer, 39, said in an interview with Taste of Country published on Friday, May 24. “I believe marijuana has helped me in so many regards, with my anxiety. This is a hot-button topic, but, truly, marijuana has kept me sober.”
Jelly Roll (real name Jason DeFord) has been candid about his struggles with addiction and substance abuse over the years. The musician confessed that if weed wasn’t around, he doesn’t know if he would be able to refrain.
“I think a world without weed, Jelly Roll’s drinking codeine and popping Xanax and snorting cocaine again,” he said to the outlet. “But a world with weed, I’ll be alright.”
Jelly Roll admitted that he knows that everyone’s path toward sobriety is different and he’s known many people who refuse all substances. However, that path wasn’t the one for him.
“I know that I have friends that don’t do that. I have friends that are in the program that are totally against any kind of mind-altering anything. I respect that,” he explained. “I have so much respect for those people. That’s just not how my sobriety worked out.”
Before becoming one of the biggest names in country music, Jelly Roll was incarcerated for drug dealing. While behind bars, he learned he had become a father to daughter Bailee Ann, now 16. After learning about his little girl, Jelly Roll put in the work to get on the right path. He got his GED and was released by the time Bailee turned 2.
“I’ve never had nothing in life that urged me in the moment to know that I had to do something different,” Jelly Roll said to Billboard in June 2023 about the impact Bailey had on his life. “I have to figure this out right now.”
Since then, Jelly Roll has advocated to help others stay away from deadly drugs. In January, the artist spoke in front of the U.S. Senate to voice his support for the bipartisan Fend Off Fentanyl Act.
“I was a part of the problem. I am here now standing as a man that wants to be a part of the solution,” he said in his emotional speech. “I brought my community down. I hurt people. I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they’re mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl and they’re killing the people we love.”
