Tom Petty Passes Away at 66 Years of Age

photo by musicisentropy

Update: Tom Petty passed away Monday, October 2 at 8:40 p.m. “surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends,” according to a statement by his manager Tony Dimitriades.

On Monday afternoon, singer-songwriter Tom Petty was declared dead by CBS, sending shockwaves throughout the world of popular music. Following this announcement, the Los Angeles Police Department rescinded its statement to CBS about Tom Petty’s death. He leaves behind an unforgettable catalogue of timeless music, which has always included his love and support for cannabis.

On Sunday night the musician was found unconscious after a full cardiac arrest. EMTs rushed to his home in Malibu, and were able to initially detect a pulse. They immediately took the 66-year-old to the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital.

CBS News prematurely confirmed that Petty had died from local police. “JUST IN: Rocker Tom Petty is dead at 66, Los Angeles Police Department confirms to CBS News,” CBS News tweeted.

Tom Petty was never afraid to inject cannabis allusions into his music. “I’ve had a pipeline of marijuana since 1967,” he recently told Men’s Journal. Petty dropped hard drugs in the ’90s, but continued to consume cannabis in varying degrees. Many have speculated that the song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” was about cannabis, while other songs include more direct references to cannabis, including the song “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” “But let me get to the point, let’s roll another joint, and turn the radio loud, I’m too alone to be proud! You don’t know how it feels,” he sang in 1994.

In the medical era of cannabis, for Petty, consumption was everyday business. “I don’t have a prescription card, but I’m certain I’ve smoked some medical marijuana, yeah,” Petty told Rolling Stone in 2013. “It’s everywhere. I don’t smoke as much pot as I did at one point in my life. But I think the cat’s out of the bag, and it’s gonna be legalized.”

It’s hard to imaging rock n’ roll without Tom Petty—his absence will undoubtedly scar the music industry and the cannabis industry.