Weed at the White House and out-smoking Snoop: Willie Nelson is the ultimate pothead
“You remember why you started smoking, to stop them crazy fucking dreams. Those crazy dreams that you never really get used to.” – Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson is recognisable in an instant. As the gnarly Coen brothers character of country, he developed a reputation for himself in the 1960s. He strode around as a notable member of the outlaw country music scene in Nashville, Tennessee – a sub-genre of country music that actively protested against the mainstream sound.
The outlaw yearned for something more honest and earnest. The out-and-proud pothead Willie Nelson was both of those things. With a candid act neatly honed (or in no need of honing), he acquired a bunch of residencies that propelled his career forward while he also worked as a radio disc jockey.
This was a vital dual life for Nelson. The hard work relaxed him. And the music he was constantly exposed to fed into his rounded sound. So, he learned the ropes and first found success as a songwriter and broke through commercially with a string of records: Make Way for Willie Nelson and The Party’s Over in the mid-1960s, after three uncharted early records. But then the mid-70s really heralded a boom for the prolific strummer.
Nelson remains one of the most active songwriters to have ever existed; he has continued to release one to two albums a year since his 1962 debut, …And I then I Wrote. Some may liken this sustained productivity to Willie Nelson’s habitual – bordering on ritual – consumption of marijuana. A toke (or two) a day certainly seems to keep him regular.
Most of, if not all, of Nelson’s head-turning stories, usually involve the devil’s lettuce. For example, Nelson once out-smoked Snoop Dogg in Amsterdam and lived to tell the tale. Smoke is said to come out of his ears when he snores. But above all, there’s one classic tale that embodies the ‘outlaw’ spirit of Nelson like no other.
In a tell-all interview, the country crooner did with Chris Heath of GQ back in 2015, Nelson finally confirmed that not only did he smoke weed at the White House, but he also confirmed the person who he smoked with.
In a surprising plot twist, it wasn’t even the ‘Beer for My Horses’ singer who spilled the beans on his extracurricular activities at the presidential headquarters in 1980. For years, the country outlaw and king of the hippies played coy as to whether the story was true or not and if so, who exactly it was that smoked him up.
Did Willie Nelson smoke weed at the White House? Who did he smoke with? What other celebrities got away with smoking weed at the White House before? How exactly did he smoke weed at the White? Well, the herbal history of Washington begins with good old Willie.
Did Willie Nelson really smoke weed at the White House?
In the words of the country artist himself, in his autobiography, Willie: An Autobiography, in 1988 he wrote: “Sitting on the roof of the White House in Washington, DC late last night with a beer in one hand and a fat Austin Torpedo in the other.” A peak was reached in his life.
With his ponytails swaying in the breeze, he added: “My companion on the roof was pointing out to me the sights and layout of how the streets run in Washington… I let the weed cover me with a pleasing cloud… I guess the roof of the White House is the safest place to smoke dope.”
There you have it, Willie Nelson did indeed smoke weed on the rooftop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And to be frank, it sounds fucking sensational. Throw in a slice of pepperoni and somehting to sip and you’ve got yourself the view of a lifetime.
So, who the hell did Willie Nelson smoke weed with at the White House?
The story goes that Nelson smoked weed on the rooftop of the White House with one of President Jimmy Carter’s sons. Jimmy Carter himself, appropriately known as the ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ president, confirmed the story in Mary Wharton’s documentary. The ex-president said, “Nelson says that his companion was one of the servants at the White House. Actually, it was one of my sons.”
While it is an infamous story, Nelson does not talk about it all that often. “Well, I don’t really go around bragging about that. It happened, and it’s something that I don’t deny, you know, but I don’t bring it up all the time,” he said with the air of a man who is sick of being asked to regale it in every bar he’s ever boozed in.
President Carter’s son, Chip Carter, the man who smoked weed with the country-outlaw, confirmed the story as well: “We just kept going up ’til we got to the roof, where we leaned against the flagpole at the top of the place and lit one up.’ If you know Washington, the White House is the hub of the spokes – the way it was designed,” he said. What a legend.
“Most of the avenues run into the White House. You could sit up and could see all the traffic coming right at you. It’s a nice place up there,” he confirmed, according to The Los Angeles Times. Or rather, it was a nice place to be in the early ‘80s.
How did Willie Nelson pull off the famous White House puff?
Simply put, Nelson was good friends with former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away in 2024 and was quickly celebrated as the best man to be President in US history. During his time in office, Nelson performed for him several times.
During an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN, Nelson recalled how he initially met Jimmy Carter and their friendship blossomed. “Well, we ran into each other when he was running for president, maybe before that,” he said, “I don’t know because he’s been coming out to my shows for years – him and Rosalyn – and they always sing the gospel songs with me.”
Adding, “So I’m not sure how long it’s been, but it’s been quite a while.”
After that, he ended up visiting the former President at the White House frequently. “Jim and I would jog together, we would hang out. His son and I would hang out together at the White House. We had a lot of fun,” Nelson added to Cooper.
When asked about how the pot-smoking incident unfolded, Nelson explained: “I don’t know. Chip and I are buddies too. He was showing me around the White House. We went into the basement and they had a bowling alley down there. We went into the Lincoln bedroom and all that good stuff.” Like all the best stories, the details are a blur. Or so it seemed.
Eventually, Chip Carter came forward and confirmed that it was, in fact, he who offered Nelson the joint. Liberated by this admission, according to the country singer, Chip Carter said, “Think it’s time to burn one, Willie, if you don’t object.”
Nelson replied, “Think it’s cool?” To which Carter then said, “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be offering.” What a touch of class.
What other musicians have smoked weed at the White House?
A fellow proponent of marijuana and famous rapper, Snoop Dogg allegedly smoked weed in the bathroom of the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, the rapper was asked to confirm this alleged incident after he hinted at it on his Youtube channel GGN: The Double G News Network.
Snoop Dogg replied, “I said to the CIA ‘Look when I do a number two, I usually use a cigarette, or light something to get the aroma right’ and they told me, ‘Well, you know what, you can light a piece of napkin,’ and the napkin was this,” Snoop Dogg answered Kimmel as he lit up and smoked what looked like a joint.
Luckily, President Obama was not present at the White House at the time, which feels a bit like the cheap victory of misbehaving when the teacher is out of the classroom. And that’s not the only way that Snoop’s famed ‘sticky icky’ antics have been overshadowed by Nelson.
When Willie out-smoked Snoop
Unsurprisingly so, they both somehow ended up in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, at the same time once – some might say their natural habitat. It didn’t take long for them to decide to see who could out-smoke who.
It was Nelson who not only out-lasted Snoop Dogg. His tactic was apparently to deploy four different smoking methods, and this potent combination bewildered the rapper, who wasn’t used to such a combustible variety. Considering the players involved, it’s a marvel that Amsterdam didn’t suffer a weed shortage that fabled weekend.
“I’ll try any of them,” Willie Nelson said to GQ, adding, “Whatever way you can smoke it or take it, I’m for it.” Alas, how prevalent is this liberated attitude in the US?
Which US Presidents are known to have smoked weed?
Well, a good measure is surely to see which leaders have partaken in the toking on lettuce. Former President, Barack Obama said, “We should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing.” He even went on to say that he smoked it in his youth.
He’s not the first, though. It may surprise some to know that weed smoking has been around for a long time. To put things in perspective, a Chinese Empress, Dowager Cixi, who died in 1861, was found buried with a few of her favourite marijuana pipes.
Even more surprisingly, some of the American founding fathers who went on to become the Presidents of the United States were alleged weed smokers. The United States’ very first President, George Washington, was supposedly a user of marijuana. He grew hemp as well, and wrote in his diary: “Began to separate the male from female plants rather too late… Pulling up the (male) hemp. Was too late for the blossom hemp by three weeks or a month.”
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were also proponents of hemp, and as a result, were avid hemp farmers. Among other Presidents who were known to smoke weed on occasion, were John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and George W Bush. How many of them climbed on the roof with an outlaw country star is another matter, but surely it is a feat that means Willie has completed the marijuana challenge, should such a thing exist.
