- Barack Obama: It is no secret that President Obama smoked cannabis as a adolescence. Pictures can be seen with him smoking joints and he is on record saying, “When I was a kid, I inhaled, frequently. That was the point.” If only he had done more to legalize cannabis so that others could enjoy it too! 

- George W. Bush: There are a lot of rumors going on about Junior, one rumor being that he was arrested for cocaine. This was never verified and is believed to be fake news. He does answer a few questions about drugs on a tape recorded from his biographer, Doug Wead. As far as cannabis goes, he once told his biographer, “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.” About cocaine, he had this to say, "The cocaine thing, let me tell you my strategy on that," Bush said on the tape. "Rather than saying NO ... I think it's time for someone to draw the line and look people in the eye and say, you know, 'I'm not going to participate in ugly rumors about me and blame my opponent,' and hold the line. Stand up for a system that will not allow this kind of crap to go on." 

- Bill Clinton: Old Slick Willie famously said, “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again,” when asked about his marijuana use. The late Christopher Hitchens, who attended Oxford with Clinton, said Bill had an affinity for pot brownies, so he may have been telling the truth.

- Jimmy Carter: Jimmy Carter says he’s never smoked pot, but his son Chip sure did. On the roof of the White House. With Willie Nelson. Still, Carter was the most progressive president on pot in the War on Drugs era, telling Congress, “I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana.” 

- John F. Kennedy: JFK used marijuana to deal with severe back pain, according to a few written accounts, including “John F. Kennedy: A Biography”, which described this White House scene: “On the evening of July 16, 1962, according to [Washington Post executive] Jim Truitt, Kennedy and Mary Meyer smoked marijuana together. … The president smoked three of the six joints Mary brought to him. At first he felt no effects. Then he closed his eyes and refused a fourth joint. ‘Suppose the Russians did something now,’ he said.” 

- Abraham Lincoln: We have probably all read Old Abe’s famous quote, “a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.” The only problem is Hohner didn’t make harmonicas until two years after the alleged quote and didn’t export them to America from Germany until 1868, four years after Abe’s assassination. Also, that oft-cited “Prohibition... goes beyond the bound of reason…” Lincoln quote? It’s a fake, written by a former mayor of Atlanta in 1922 to court black voters to oppose alcohol prohibition. That doesn’t necessarily mean Lincoln didn’t partake; we just have no proof that he did. 

- Franklin Pierce: Pierce was a military man who enjoyed smoking cannabis with the troops while fighting in the Mexican-American War. In a letter to his family, Pierce wrote that marijuana smoking was “about the only good thing” about the war. 

- Zachary Taylor: Taylor was a general in the Mexican-American was and also smoked marijuana with the troops.

- Andrew Jackson: Yet another General whose letters referred to smoking marijuana with the troops. 

- James Monroe: James Monroe really got down! He openly smoked hashish while Ambassador to France and continued smoking it until his death at age 73. 

- James Madison: The “Father of the Constitution” claimed that hemp gave him the insight to create a new democratic nation. 

- Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson, one of the most famous presidents of all time, was Ambassador to France during the hashish era. He also grew is own hemp and even smuggled seeds from China to America. 

- George Washington: The father of our country was an avid cannabis user who took detailed notes, “Sowed hemp at muddy hole by swamp” away from the hemp he grew for fiber. “Began to separate the male from female plants at do [sic --rather too late” and “Pulling up the (male) hemp. Was too late for the blossom hemp by three weeks or a month” indicates he was going for female plants with higher THC content. There is also indication he used hemp preparations to deal with his toothaches.

Bryce Sampson

A caffeine dependent life form.