Jim Belushi and his buds / Tyler Maddox
The iconic actor and blues man talks about life on the farm and how cannabis has given him greater purpose.
WORDS Lauren Buzzeo
You might know him as Brother Zee, a member of the infamous Blues Brothers. Or as a cast member of Second City or SNL. Or maybe even just Jim, thanks to 182 episodes over eight seasons of According to Jim. After all, Jim Belushi is a renowned actor, executive producer, music composer, director, book author and Broadway star.
But whatever famous reference you may have, it’s a fraction of the human that Jim Belushi makes. As with all great performers, there’s so much more to the man than could ever meet the eye—lives lived, loves lost, experiences had, all of which have shaped who he is and where he stands today.
And where he stands, and what he strongly stands for, is grounded in the dirt of Southern Oregon, where he owns and operates Belushi’s Farm. What started with just 48 plants as a part of the state’s medical marijuana program in 2015 is today a sprawling and spiritual 93-acre property, with 1,800 feet of Rogue River waterfront and countless cannabis plants cultivated annually. The farm is also the setting for Growing Belushi, a show on The Discovery Channel that chronicles the life and business behind a legal cannabis-growing operation.
But to Belushi, this is all far more than business. After the tragic loss of his brother John to an opioid overdose, and his own journey to learn and heal through cannabis cultivation, he has become the remarkably passionate cannabis advocate he is today.
Further, to continue pushing the needle on acceptance and accessibility, Belushi launched an infused beverage designed to be enjoyed by all. A collaboration between Belushi’s Farm and HighBridge Premium, the new lineup of Majical Ice Teaz offers a range of delta-9 THC dosages from 5–10mg within thoughtful flavor profiles that harken to Belushi’s Chicago heritage, including the Earl of Blues, an earl grey tea with bergamot and clove; Chai-cago, a combination of chai and black tea with star anise; and Raspberry Calmer, with black tea, raspberry, lemonade and mint.
Here, we connect with Belushi to talk all about his higher life of greens greatness, including how he got here and where he’s going.
On the grounds at Belushi’s Farm in Oregon / Tyler Maddox
How and why did you originally come into the world of cannabis?
I’m an improvisational actor, and there’s an exercise called heighten and explore. You find something and you go explore it. I had this place in Oregon, and the farm came up for sale, and I bought it. So I’m like, wow, I got 93 acres on the river, and I didn’t know what to do with it. And Dan Aykroyd said, “Uh, Jimmy, Oregon is a legal state now—you should grow some cannabis.” And I just kept exploring it and heightening it, and now I’ve got four greenhouses and I’m in 16 states now. So I just keep following where it leads me. This is a feminine plant, and if you follow the feminine energy, it’ll take you to where you’re supposed to be. I believe that in the spiritual world and the mystic world, this plant has led me to great discoveries of myself and the world around me.
So it started that way and, oddly, it started with a commercial point of view. Like, it got kind of caught up in the green rush. But, and I’ve told this story before, we were delivering some weed to a dispensary and I was doing a personal appearance. There was a guy in line that just stared at me, and I stopped and looked at him. Long stringy hair, beard, goatee, thin, very blue eyes, little. And I said, “Are you alright?” And he said, “I was a medic in Iraq and I saw things that happened to the human body that nobody should ever witness in their lives. When I came back, the VA said I had triple PTSD and gave me a bottle of 600 Oxycontin. And I couldn’t talk to my wife, my children. I couldn’t sleep. And I went to cannabis, and your strain, your Black Diamond OG, is the only strain that I could talk to my wife, talk to my children and I could sleep.”
And he started tearing up, and he hugged me. And I said, “Man, I didn’t make this stuff!” He said, “No, but you’re a steward.”
And that was the paradigm shift for me. I turned to my cousin Chris and I said, “This is bigger than making money on pounds, buddy.” This is a real medicine here. And that day, every dispensary we went to, I heard stories from veterans, a woman who had like 80 bones busted in her body that got off of opiates, you know, story after story after story about how cannabis has helped people. And that’s when I realized… Dan [Aykroyd] said if John was a pothead, he’d be alive today. So, it changed from a business to a purpose, and it’s been very fulfilling and satisfying.
Jim Belushi knows the grow / Tyler Maddox
So it’s safe to say that your purpose has been strongly shaped by your personal and professional experiences.
I thought about it just recently. Look, there’s certain materials, medicines—there’s ayahuasca, there’s San Pedro, there’s mescaline, there’s psilocybin, there’s LSD. These are all medicines that expand your consciousness. Then there’s cocaine, there’s heroin, there’s downers, there’s speed, there’s alcohol, which turn you in, in a kind of narcissistic, self-indulgent way. Those other ones expand your consciousness, and all those things have expanded my consciousness and so I’m just following it.
It makes you reevaluate your purposes in life. How you deal with people, how you deal with everything—you reexamine it with a kinder eye, a gentler eye. More empathy and more compassion, it just opens you up. So I’m thinking, well, what has been my purpose all these years? As an actor, my purpose is to make people feel good, right? Make them laugh and release endorphins, they feel good. Everybody needs to laugh, everybody needs to be entertained—even if it’s drama, they get to escape, they get to feel good, you know what I mean?
So, cannabis—I’m right on purpose. It makes people feel good. Whether you are suffering from PTSD and it takes the edge off; whether you were in an Alzheimer’s fit of rage and you give your father an edible and it calms him down; whether it is you’re going to a concert and you’re smoking a joint and you enjoy the music. The medicine of cannabis is not only for back aches and sleep and anxiousness and hopelessness and PTSD and cancer. It also enhances the food we eat, the touch of your lover’s skin, it makes you feel good. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good.
“I feel if you show people what it’s made of, how it’s grown, what is used, the care and love around manufacturing this product, they’ll feel safer and they’ll experiment.”
What made you want to enter the world of infused beverages?
What brought me into this space was this girl I see, she loves a five milligram tea or drink every night after work. And when this opportunity with Highbridge came along, I went, okay, I think it’s time. I think it’s time for that girl to be able to go to the store and pick up a six pack of five or 10 milligram drink, a nice iced tea in the summer time, sitting by the pool, feeling good, not getting blasted, just feeling good.
And it’s an alternative to alcohol. Having that glass or two of wine after work—it’s a little bit different having a low-dose, sessionable infused beverage instead, still being able to function. That’s the main thing, and that’s the main thing with cannabis for me.
We’re launching with these three drinks, and there’s lots of room for expansion. We’ll see how successful it is and if it works; it’s a high-end drink which I feel proud of. And these guys really care.
Tell me some of the hopes and dreams you had in making your first infused beverage.
I thought there was a good blend in the tea as opposed to trying to create an alcohol or beer proxy—I liked the idea of iced tea. It’s cold, it’s fresh, it’s easy. We went through this for about nine months. These guys kept making flavors for me, and we kept talking about flavors and sending me examples and we finally came up with very premium, high-quality flavoring. And you don’t taste any of the THC in it and it doesn’t separate. It’s a great emulsion and the sourcing of the material is excellent.
There’s more in it than a little THC. There’s are some terpene values in it, which is important to me in everything, even the vape pens that we put out. I’m not doing any distillate—I don’t want distillate gummies, I don’t want distillate pens. I know it’s cheap and people smoke them, I don’t give a shit. We want a full spectrum. I come from the Rick Simpson kind of point of view, and that is the whole plant is what’s giving you the effect. Everything in combination with each other. In our world, we’re like, oh, we found something cool and we separate everything, you know. So the more full spectrum it is, the better I feel. You want these terpenes, and there’s so many of them and it’s so exciting to find out what terpenes are doing for you, you know?
Same for cannabinoids. So let’s look at these gummies, let’s look at this drink, let’s create something that’s got a one-to-one-to-one ratio in it, a little CBD, a little CBN. Let’s help people, because that’s really the end.
How do you try to contribute to fostering a better understanding of the benefits of cannabis and acceptance towards consumption?
I created the show Growing Belushi, which is literally I do cannabis 101: these are terpenes, this is THC, this is CBD, this is how you smoke a pen. I feel if you show people what it’s made of, how it’s grown, what is used, the care and love around manufacturing this product, they’ll feel safer and they’ll experiment. And so we show how to grow, we show what we use, we show the products we use.
Jim gets Majical / Photo courtesy Belushi’s Farm
By the time you get a bud from my farm, it’s been touched 40 times—it’s a hand-crafted product of care and love. I mean, I play music for them. Plants respond to vibration and sound, so we play Teddy Pendergrass sexy music for the girls in the morning, then we play a little reggae in the afternoon and maybe a little funk and blues at the end of the day. And then, two weeks before I harvest, I play gospel music because I want them to know that they’re going to the light to heal.
You’ve found such a wonderful way to use your platform and share this information because you are actually involved in the farm. You are a grower. This isn’t just a celebrity named product, right?
Yeah, I’m a grower. I’m believing it. I’m growing it. My fingernails, I gotta scrub the goddamn dirt out of my nails, but I love it. I love seeing all those roots and how they grow and they suck up the nutrients that we give them.
What excites you most about the future for cannabis culture?
Well, the only thing that’s exciting to me right now is the possibility of getting off Schedule I [of the Controlled Substances Act]. That happens, then the world of cannabis will be what it could be. It’ll change everything. It will change banking, but it’ll also bring in big corporations, and they’ll be willing to buy in, pharma and all that stuff. So you know, there’s a little bit of cautiousness there—you don’t want to give away the secrets. But, you know, there’s nothing you can do to stomp on the beauty that these girls, these plants, this feminine energy, is going to deliver.
This article was published in the Fall 2024 issue of Full Pour. Don’t own it? Pick one up today!