Bruce Lee, the greatest mixed martial arts icon of all time, was a worldwide sensation for good reason: the guy kicked some serious ass. Lee founded Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid fighting philosophy combining different fighting disciplines, and kickstarted the kung fu craze in the 1970s. (His nickname was fittingly “Kung Fu Jesus.”) He blew people’s minds by doing two-finger push-ups and clobbering men twice his size. But what many don’t know is that Lee was a big-time cannabis and hashish partaker.

Like many partakers, Lee began using cannabis to help with pain and healing. Due to a gruesome back injury in 1969 when he was just 28 years old, doctors told him he’d never walk normally again. After coming up with his own cannabis routine, Lee was not only walking again, but had his biggest box office hit, Enter the Dragon. Lee owed his introduction to cannabis to an unlikely source: the actor Steve McQueen. In the late 60s, Lee was training McQueen for a role when the actor pulled out a thinly rolled J and said, “Here, Bruce, this is marijuana." After one puff, Lee was seduced.

However, Lee didn’t like to smoke cannabis—he liked to ingest it. Concerned for his lungs, he made hash brownies. By 1970, Lee had an assistant whose full-time job was to procure potent hashish and cannabis from the dewy hills of Nepal via China and into Hong Kong, which, if caught, could mean life in prison and/or the death penalty. (Some things never change!)

The magical plant reliably calmed his notoriously odorous temper. Lee also discovered that chewing on the cannabis root relaxed his muscles before a fight. In a treasure trove of handwritten letters unearthed decades after his death, Lee explains that ingesting hashish and cannabis “raised his consciousness.” According to Enter the Dragon co-star Bob Wall, Lee would require a few weed brownies a day before he would calm down “into a normal person.” And once at a house party, he went around to all the guests to pass them their own individual blunts. When someone pointed out that this was overkill, as most people would only need one or two hits before passing it to the next person, Lee responded, “No need to share. I want everyone to have their own ‘Holy Stuff.’”

In various letters to friends, he wrote: “Stoned as hell, but am working on the up-coming character... I need coke (in large amount)... acid (in fair amount)... and hash or grass, along with a dose of psilocybin.“ The wealth of letters reveals a side to Lee that the public knew nothing about.

Bruce Lee’s unexpected death on July 20, 1973, amidst filming for the cult classic Game of Death, sent shock waves across the world. At the time, doctors cited a fluid build-up in Lee’s brain as the official cause of death. The South China Morning Post reported that traces of cannabis were found in Lee’s system, and took the opportunity to scapegoat cannabis use as a factor in Lee’s death. But of course, no causal link between cannabis and cerebral edema has ever been documented.