America's stoner-in-chief, Tommy Chong, announced over the weekend that he has prostate cancer — and that he believes the disease took hold when he was in federal prison 8 years ago for distributing his namesake bongs to a conservative state.

The longtime Angeleno and father of actress Rae Dawn Chong says that … wait for it … wait for it … he's using marijuana as medicine to treat his cancer symptoms.

Well, more specifically, he tweeted:

Chong told CNN, of course, that legalizing it would help people like him and thus would mean “a lot more to me than just being able to smoke a joint without being arrested.”

He says he was drug free in prison and for three years total. Thus:

… I know it [the cancer] had nothing to do with cannabis. Cannabis is a cure.

Weed will get you in trouble. And it could get you out of it. Circle of life.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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