Jim Belushi: ‘If my brother John was a pot head, he’d still be here today’

By Anisha Dhiman
Source: thegrowthop.com

Actor-comedian talks about why he became a cannabis farmer

Jim Belushi, founder of Belushi's Farm. Belushi's Farm

As actor-comedian Jim Belushi turned a year older, he took to Twitter to share his deepest regret.

“If my brother John was a pot head, he’d still be here today,” he tweeted earlier this week.

Jim’s older brother, John was a famed comedian and one of the founding stars of Saturday Night Live. He was known for his roles in National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers(1980). But all was not well.

Depression and stress were starting to take a toll as he tried to get his career back on track following tepid response to his roles in Continental Divide (1981) and Neighbors (1981). A few months prior to his death, he was described as “a time bomb, a waste site, a mess. Sweaty, flabby, edgy, pale, disheveled, worn to a stump at 33,” by author Shawn Levy in his book The Castle on Sunset.

On March 5, 1982, the 33-year-old died due to an accidental overdose of “speedball”, a combination of cocaine and heroin.

John’s death led to the collapse of the family, and it was a while before Jim came upon cannabis farming as a coping mechanism. “That is why I became a cannabis farmer. To spread this medicine to people who need it. No family should have to go through the trauma of losing a loved one to opioids,” tweeted the 66-year-old who founded Belushi’s Farm in 2015.

Located in Oregon, the 93-acre farm is where cannabis is cultivated and sold. In September 2019, Jim, along with Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi’s widow Judy Belushi Pisano, announced the official release of a Blues Brothers cannabis label.

Although cultivating cannabis is not just business for him. “Why am I doing this? I don’t know. I kind of stumbled into it, but it’s leading me to an understanding of my own brother’s death, the trouble that it caused in my family, the collapse of my family,” Belushi told Cannabis Business Times. “And ever since I’ve been working with this cannabis, I’ve come a long way in healing all of that.”