ScHoolboy Q says he’s done smoking weed and, according to him, the decision came after years of heavy use, a sense that the habit had stopped doing anything for him, and a desire to set an example for his children. Still, he recognized its health benefits —distinguishing it from habits like alcohol— and how it works for some people… just not him at the moment.
The TDE rapper opened up about the decision during an appearance on the Par 3 Podcast with J.R. Smith and Stephen Malbon, where he explained that quitting was not just about health or discipline in the abstract. It was personal. More specifically, it was about his daughters and old habits leading nowhere.
“Me, personally, I feel like I got everything I got out of it,” he said, according to KBXT. “I’ve been smoking so much, and smoking, like, 20 times a day. At some point, it ain’t really doing nothing. You just got this oral fixation. You’re just constantly doing it. … But it was mainly for my daughters, my kids. Just to let them know you can do anything.”
Smoking 20 times a day sounds like a lot—at least to him. But the deeper point Q seemed to make was that weed had shifted from something he chose to do to something he was simply doing on autopilot. Not necessarily because he was getting more out of it, but because the motion itself had become part of the day.
For someone whose public image and personal story have long been tied to weed, this is a big U-turn. Q built part of his persona around smoking. But in this interview, he described a moment when the routine stopped feeling useful.
His Kids Were the Main Reason
The clearest reason ScHoolboy Q gave for quitting was his children. In the clips, Q said he wanted to lead by example, especially for his oldest daughter, who is almost 17 and has been facing her own challenges. He described trying to teach her resilience, but realizing that advice lands differently when it is backed by action.
“It was just, like, me constantly telling her you can do anything. Like, don’t even trip,” he said… but felt that wasn’t enough.
Q spoke about his daughter going through “ups and downs” and hitting adversity in her life, which made him think about the way he was showing up as a father. The message was not just “listen to me,” but more “watch me do something hard, too.”
The hard thing was not just any other life challenge; it was quitting weed. It was his way of showing her that he could also do those hard things, like stopping something she knew he had done all his life. “Watch this. I ain’t doing it no more.”
Q was trying to stop smoking for himself, yes, but he was also trying to make a point his daughter could actually witness: that discipline is possible, even when the habit is old, familiar, and deeply embedded in your identity.
“Now it’s like, ‘Now what you got? Give me something back,” he continued. “I’m doing it. We gon’ do this s*** together.”
Part of what makes Q’s decision interesting is that he has spoken very differently about weed in the past. Back in 2016, he didn’t describe cannabis as a problem in his life, but as something that may have helped keep him alive.
“I’d probably be dead if I didn’t pick up weed,” he said at the time, explaining that before smoking, he was “a hyper person” who was always outside, always moving, and coming from “a life of gang bangin’.” For Q, staying out too much meant a greater chance of getting pulled into the wrong situation. Weed, in that chapter of his life, did the opposite: it kept him home, calm, and away from trouble.
“Because I’m a big weed head, I’m not even trying to go nowhere else outside my vicinity,” he said. “I’m high and feeling good, and I’m not even gonna get into any trouble.”
At one point, weed gave him something he needed: stillness, distance from the street, a reason not to be out every night. But years later, by his own account, smoking “20 times a day” was no longer serving that purpose. It had become constant, automatic, and less connected to any clear effect. It sounded more like a loop he wanted to break.
In other words, cannabis may have once helped him survive a dangerous environment. But eventually, Q seems to have reached a point where the same habit no longer matched the person he is now. He told the podcast he has not gone back since quitting, though the exact timeline remains unclear.
He Still Acknowledges Cannabis Can Help Some People
Even after quitting, Q didn’t frame it as a blanket anti-weed message: “I got so much out of it, and I do,” he said. “I’m not gonna sit here and be like, ‘No, don’t smoke weed!’ ‘Cause it’s not alcohol, bro. It’s not. So I’m not gonna do that.”
He acknowledged that cannabis can help some people, while making clear that his own pattern had become the issue: “I will say that it does have health benefits for certain people, but the way I was using it? No.”
His point, then, was more personal than universal. Medical cannabis and cannabinoid-based medicines do have recognized therapeutic uses in specific contexts, so Q was not saying weed is bad for every parent, artist, or person trying to get their life together. He was saying something narrower: for him, at that level, it had stopped working. And quitting became a way to show his daughters that even something deeply familiar can be left behind when it no longer fits the life you are trying to build.
Photo by Cal Laird, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
