Michael Douglas Sold Nearly 200 Pounds of Weed to Afford College Tuition After Dad Kirk Douglas Left Him With Only $10K: 'You're on Your Own'

Michael Douglas sold nearly 200 pounds of marijuana to pay for college after his famous father, Kirk Douglas, gave him $10,000 and told him he was on his own.

The Fatal Attraction star revealed the wild scheme in his new memoir, One Helluva Ride.

Michael recalled telling his father he was "ready to go back to school" at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kirk felt "elated" but expected his son to "apply myself this time."

"When I turned twenty-one at the beginning of my sophomore year, [my father] said, 'Okay, son, I'm going to give you $10,000 as a trust fund, and from here on in, you're on your own,'" he wrote. "I said, 'Dad, I appreciate that, but I've got school tuition and costs.'"

Michael said Kirk responded, "I don't care. That's it. You're on your own. I don't want to know about it."

To cover tuition, Michael found an unconventional way to finance his education.

He realized two Italian leather suitcases his father had gifted him could hold 97 pounds of marijuana.

Michael eventually confessed after learning that Kirk "was holding up my self-sufficiency as an example to my brothers."

"I had to come clean. 'Do you remember when at Christmas you brought me two beautiful, soft, leather Italian suitcases?' I asked him. He remembered. 'Well, Dad, I found out that each of those suitcases could hold twenty-two kilos of marijuana,'" the actor wrote.

Michael continued, "When I went back east to visit Mom for Christmas, I would fill those suitcases with forty-four kilos of grass, which I could buy for seventy-five dollars a kilo in California and sell for five hundred in New York."

Kirk responded to the drug smuggling, saying, "'I'm glad you didn't get caught, and I'm glad you're not still doing it. Don't tell your brothers.'"

Michael said the scheme worked because "it was the days before drug-sniffing dogs."

He completed the operation twice, transporting 88 kilograms — just over 194 pounds — in total.

Buying the marijuana for $75 per kilogram and selling it for $500 meant he brought in approximately $44,000 in sales, with reported profits of around $37,400 before other expenses.

The actor said he checked the bags and "never had a problem" at the airport.

"In New York, I sold the grass to a guy whom I did not know much about, nor did I want to," he wrote.

Michael acknowledged the controversy surrounding his role in the drug trade.

"I could feel guilty about my part in distributing drugs, but it was the late sixties to early seventies," he wrote. "No one needed my help finding their way to drugs."

The Romancing the Stone actor added, "And that was how I paid for my last two years of college and graduated with no student loans and no debt."

Michael made it clear he wasn't suggesting students follow his example today.

"I'm not recommending this approach. It clearly would have been more responsible (and legal) to apply for a student loan, but that never occurred to me," the actor shared.