CELEBRITIES

Well-known influences

Black and white photo of a smiling man in a tuxedo holding a saxophone.

Jazz musician, arrested 1930, at the Cotton Club in Culver City, CA, for muggles. He wrote and performed many cannabis songs before being targeted by the FBN.

Armstrong, Louis

Group of five friends smiling at a social gathering, with one smoking a cigarette.

Eric Clapton was jamming with band members in 1968 when he, Neil Young, Jim Messina and Richie Furay were arrested for marijuana. Steven Stills escaped out a window and band manager Chris Sarns took the rap.

Buffalo Springfield

Black and white image of two men with surprised or excited expressions, one shirtless with a mustache and the other wearing glasses, a headband, and a sleeveless shirt.

Cheech & Chong duo made numerous movies and comedy albums about cannabis, gave an image of cannabis users as being dirty, obnoxious and not very bright, but also likable and not dangerous.

Chong, Tommy and Marin, Cheech

A black and white photo of a group of six men, some with long hair and beards, posing together in front of curtains. They appear relaxed and happy, with some smiling and making gestures.

San Francisco psychedelic jam band whose tours spread cannabis culture for decades and their Deadhead fans helped popularize 420 as a code for marijuana use.

Grateful Dead

A middle-aged man with light skin, short light brown hair, a scruffy beard, and blue eyes, wearing a cream-colored knit sweater, smiling gently against a plain white background.

Movie star, hemp advocate, did civil disobedience in Kentucky to bring attention to the value of industrial hemp.

Harrelson, Woody

Black and white photo of seven young adults with musical instruments, standing and sitting against a graffiti-covered wall.

Psychedelic San Francisco band most famous for “White Rabbit,” they released “Volunteers,” the first album to feature a marijuana leaf on its cover.

Jefferson Airplane

Portrait of a middle-aged man with light skin, gray hair, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and striped gray tie, standing outdoors with a colorful, blurred background.

Comedian who talked about cannabis regularly and normalized it by not being too weird about it, donated to Prop 19 (2010) and asked viewers to support it the day before it lost at the polls.

Maher, Bill

Black and white photo of a young man in a suit and tie, with wavy hair, outdoors, with sky and some distant structures in background.

Movie star, arrested for marijuana in a spectacular 1949 Hollywood bust but his career survived.

Mitchum, Robert