by Steve Bloom, Celeb Stoner

No, that’s not a joint Paul McCartney is toking on the cover of Rolling Stone. From a distance, it looks like he’s smoking something, but upon closer inspection you realize it’s a harmonica.

According to the interview, McCartney doesn’t use marijuana anymore. “I smoked my share,” he says. “When you’re bringing up a youngster [eight-year-old Beatrice), your sense of responsibility does kick in, if you’re lucky, at some point. Enough’s enough – you just don’t seem to think it’s necessary.”

McCartney has quit pot before. His previous wife Heather Mills didn’t approve and apparently Wife #3 (Nancy Shevell, whom he married in October) doesn’t either. But, of course, that’s his prerogative.

More important is McCartney’s stance on legalizing it. “Well, I certainly requested it a bunch off times,” he explains. “I feel like I’ve done my bit. I am a bit surprised that it’s not legalized. You know the argument that if booze is legal, why not that? I’m not going to be the judge of how to deal with it, somebody else can figure that out.”

In 1990, I asked McCartney at a press conference held at Madison Square Garden if he supported the legalization of marijuana. He didn’t flinch. “I favor the decriminalization of it. I think you’ve got too many people who get into it innocently and become criminals,” the former Beatle declared. “People will say Scotch and stuff is legal and pot isn’t. I think at that point there probably is a good argument for decriminalization.”

McCartney, who’s been arrested for marijuana possession four times (most famously in Japan in 1980), clearly knows about what he speaks. He’s been on the record opposing pot prohibition for years. That’s all that matters, not if he currently lights up after dinner.