Morgan Freeman calls for marijuana to be 'legalised across the board'

'I’ll eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it!'

The actor says his relationship with cannabis began “many years ago” when his first wife introduced him to it (AFP)

Morgan Freeman has called for cannabis to be legalised “across the board”, claiming it helps him with pain management and has many other “useful uses”.

Freeman, 77, enthused about marijuana in an interview with The Daily Beast, where he praised more recent calls for it to be legalised for focusing on its medicinal value.

"This movement is really a long time coming, and it’s getting legs - longer legs," he said.

“Now, the thrust is understanding that alcohol has no real medicinal use. Maybe if you have one drink it’ll quiet you down, but two or three and you’re f***ed.”

The actor says his relationship with cannabis began “many years ago”. Asked how he would consume it, he replied: “However it comes! I’ll eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it!”

Freeman said cannabis is the only thing that can help him manage fibromyalgia pain in his arm after it was shattered in a car crash in 1977. “They’re talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they’ve discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life,” he added. “That right there, to me, says, ‘Legalise it across the board!’”

Freeman’s reasoning for legalising the drug were much more coherent than the arguments put forward in March by one US politician. David Simpson, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, who is backed by the Tea Party, introduced a bill calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis on the basis that it was created by God, and “God did not make a mistake”.