Melissa Etheridge smokes weed with her kids

18 April 2017

Melissa Etheridge gets high with her children.

Melissa Etheridge

The 55-year-old singer thinks smoking marijuana with her daughter Bailey, 20, and 18-year-old son Beckett - who she has with former partner Julie Cypher - has brought them closer together and she'd far rather share an illicit cigarette with her brood than an alcoholic drink.

Melissa - who also has 10-year-old twins 10-year-old Johnnie and Miller with ex-partner Tammy Lynn Michaels - reflected to Yahoo!'s 'Weed & the American Family': "I have smoked with my older two. It was funny at first, and then they realised, it's a very natural, end-of-the-day [thing] ... And it brings you much closer. I'd much rather have a smoke with my grown kids than a drink -- oh, God, no."

And the I'm the Only One' singer also described cannabis as the "best marital aid" as it helps her and her wife Linda Wallem lose their inhibitions.

She said: "Cannabis is the best marital aid. When it's date night ... It takes down your inhibition; your sexual desires are enhanced. We take a bath every night and smoke and talk and wind down and sleep a very, very good night sleep -- and sleep is extremely important."

And after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, Melissa turned to the drug for pain relief too.

She said: "I asked many of my friends [who had gone through chemo], 'What's the experience? What are you doing?' And my friend David Crosby, he was the first one who said, 'You know, Melissa, you have to do medicinal marijuana. You have to [try] cannabis. That's the way to do it. It's too hard otherwise.'

"It was a wake-up call for me. When I used it as medicine, it became so clear to me that it has been maligned and misunderstood, and I really wanted to help people who are suffering. I mean, going through chemotherapy is suffering ... and cannabis helps so many parts of just that...

"It wasn't about being high. It was just being to a place where I could communicate with my children, to where I could get up, to where I could eat. It was great medicine."