GONE TO POT
Jimmy Carter reveals one of his sons smoked pot with Willie Nelson on White House roof during his presidency
EX-PRESIDENT Jimmy Carter confirmed Willie Nelson smoked marijuana on the White House roof while he was in office – and he revealed one of his sons joined in.
Nelson, a country music legend who's also been as "America’s most famous stoner," first aired the story in his 1988 autobiography.
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Nelson recalled enjoying a beer and "a fat Austin Torpedo" on the roof of the White House while taking in the view of Washington D.C. at night.
But he was always coy about who let him up on the roof, sometimes speaking of a "friend" who "happened to be a White House insider."
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The former tenant himself spilled the beans in a new documentary, “Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President." The doc explores Carter's relationship with musicians including Nelson and the Allman Brothers Band.
Hanging out with musicians with a bad-boy image was just one way in which Carter's presidency broke with tradition. He also favored the decriminalization of cannabis.
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Just nine years before the Willie Nelson incident, then-President Richard Nixon had declared what would soon become known as the "war on drugs" in a White House press conference.
In 1980, despite Carter's efforts, marijuana remained a Schedule I drug, and hundreds of thousands were in jail for drug offenses.
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Nelson was likely tight-lipped about the anecdote because he didn't want to get the former president or his son in political hot water.
But with decades having gone by, the oldest living ex-president let the secret out himself.
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"When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me," Carter told the filmmakers.
"He says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants in the White House."
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"That is not exactly true — it actually was one of my sons, which he didn't want to categorize as a pot-smoker like him."
James Earl "Chip" Carter III an inquisitive GQ reporter who had figured it out in 2015 that Nelson had sworn him to secrecy.
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But he too opened up to the filmmakers, telling them that he offered to show Nelson around the presidential residence after a jam session on Sept. 13, 1980 – exactly 40 years ago on Sunday.
“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," the younger Carter said.
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“If you know Washington, the White House is the hub of the spokes, the way it was designed. 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.”
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