Top 50 Most Influential Marijuana Consumers

The Marijuana Policy Project's list of the Top 50 Most Influential Marijuana Consumers is intended to identify individuals who have used marijuana and achieved high levels of success or influence. It was created using the criteria employed by Out Magazine to produce its "Power 50" list of LGBT Americans, including “power to influence cultural and social attitudes, political clout, individual wealth, and a person’s media profile.”

To qualify for MPP’s list, individuals must (1) be alive, (2) be a U.S. citizen, and (3) have consumed marijuana at least once in their life according to either their own account or that of a legitimate source. They do not need to currently consume marijuana or support marijuana policy reform.

This list was assembled and selected from a non-partisan position; placement on this list does not indicate endorsement or support from MPP or MPP Foundation.

1. Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT)

"I smoked marijuana twice — didn’t quite work for me. It’s not my thing, but it is the thing of a whole lot of people."

Source: Yahoo News

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

2. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA)

"the first time in a year and a half that I had a decent night’s sleep because the arthritis pain was gone..."

Source: The Washington Post

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

3. Sen. Ted Cruz (TX)

Cruz spokesperson: "When [Cruz] was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since."

Source: Daily Mail

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

4. Barack Obama

"When I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point."

Source: YouTube

Photo: Wikipedia

5. Clarence Thomas

"The White House said today that Judge Clarence Thomas, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, had smoked marijuana while in college."

Source: New York Times

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

6. Stephen Colbert

"First, [in high school], I smoked a lot of pot...and that’s how I got to know the people ‘half in’ the society of my high school and we waved at each other over the bong. Then I got to know people by making jokes."

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

7. Oprah Winfrey

"Uh … 1982. I hear it's gotten better." [In response to a question about when she last consumed marijuana.]

Source: New York Daily News

Photo: WhiteHouse.gov

8. Bill Clinton

"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two."

Source: NBC News

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

9. George Soros

"He said he had tried marijuana, enjoyed it, 'but it did not become a habit and I have not tasted it in many years.'"

Source: Reuters 2/6/97

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

10. Bill Gates

"As for drugs – well, Gates was certainly not unusual there. Marijuana was the pharmaceutical of choice…"

Source: Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry -- and Made Himself the Richest Man in America

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

11. Jon Stewart

"Do you know how many movies I wrote when I was high?"

Source: The Daily Show

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

12. Bill Maher

"Look, I have never made a secret of the fact that I have tried marijuana... About 50,000 times."

Source: YouTube

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

13. Gov. John Hickenlooper (CO)

"As I've already been open about in the past — and as I assume many would expect — I made personal choices when I was younger that I neither support nor condone for others and certainly wouldn't encourage through public policy."

Source: Denver Daily News

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

14. Roger Stone

"Only when I’m in the states where it’s legal."

Source: The Hill

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

15. Sen. Rand Paul (KY)

"Let’s just say I wasn’t a choir boy when I was in college and that I can recognize that kids make mistakes, and I can say that I made mistakes when I was a kid." [In response to a question about whether he ever consumed marijuana. Also, one of his college friends said, "Randy smoked pot."]

Source: The Hill

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

16. Rihanna

"Kush rolled, glass full...I prefer the better things!"

Source: Daily Mail

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

17. Rush Limbaugh

"Admitted to Playboy in 1993 that he smoked marijuana twice, inhaled, but didn’t like it."

Source: Politico

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

18. Jay Z

"I smoked some weed, and that’s how I finished 'Izzo.'"

Source: XXL Magazine

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

19. Jordan Peele

"The answer is a resounding yes." [When asked if he smokes as much weed as he implies on the show.]

Source: Reddit

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

20. LeBron James

"James also revealed he and his teammates smoked marijuana one night after getting access to a hotel room in Akron."

Source: ESPN

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

21. Eugene Monroe

"He prefers to say that he's "medicating" or "taking my medicine" or, most often, using or consuming cannabis."

Source: ESPN

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

22. Jim McMahon

"This medical marijuana has been a godsend. It relieves me of the pain — or thinking about it, anyway."

Source: Chicago Tribune

Photo: Chicago Sun Times

23. Gov. Charlie Baker (MA)

"At one of the gubernatorial debates, Baker said he had smoked marijuana in the past."

Source: boston.com

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

24. Jay Williams

"Our culture is progressive about a lot of things, but in some corners, marijuana is still vilified and misunderstood. I believe that marijuana, which many experts agree is less addictive and less prone to overdose than pain meds like OxyContin, must be an integral part of the conversation about how we treat pain in our everyday lives."

Source: The Players' Tribune

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

25. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"I use it to control the nausea which comes with the headaches."

Source: ABC News

Photo: Wikipedia

26. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (NY)

"I did experiment with marijuana when I was a youth."

Source: NY Daily News

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

27. Stephen King

"I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There’s some pretty good homegrown dope. I’m sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses. . . ."

Source: Civilized.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

28. Dave Grohl

I recently thought, "Oh, I’m going to start smoking pot again to cure insomnia. I’d put the kids to bed, go upstairs and smoke a bit of pot. But then I’d get stuck in front of the Kardashians on TV for 45 minutes. And it freaked me out. I was like, 'I’m never doing this ever again. It’s definitely not for me.'"

Source: Ultimate Classic Rock

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

29. Wiz Khalifa

"We all need weed sometimes."

Source: Twitter

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

30. Emma Stone

"We went to Disneyland. We ate pot brownies. It was literally heaven," Garfield said, winning the award for best birthday celebration ever. "How about Space Mountain three times in a row?"

Source: Maxim

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

31. George W. Bush

"I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

Source: New York Times

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

32. Whoopi Goldberg

"The vape pen has changed my life. No, I’m not exaggerating. In fact, her name is Sippy. Yes, she’s a she. And yes, I named her Sippy because I take tiny, little sips — sassy sips, even — from her. And with each sip comes relief — from pressure, pain, stress, discomfort."

Source: TIME

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

33. Neil deGrasse Tyson

"The last time I was like, in a cloud of it? That's how people spoke."

Source: The Washington Post

Photo: Wikipedia

34. Justin Timberlake

"The only thing pot does for me is it gets me to stop thinking. Sometimes I have a brain that needs to be turned off. Some people are just better high."

Source: Us Weekly

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

35. Dr. Dre

"Yeah." [In response to "So you actually smoked 'the chronic,' that particular strain?]

Source: GQ, 2007

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

36. Lady Gaga

"I take a puff and I'm me when I was 17 again in my white gogo boots looking for a job and there's something quite creative and liberating about that."

Source: Daily Mail

Photo: Wikipedia

37. Ted Turner

"Turner reportedly grew pot in his college dorm room."

Source: Civilized.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

38. Montel Williams

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Source:

Photo:

39. Aaron Sorkin

"From time to time, I would smoke pot. Granted — it's illegal."

Source: Fox News

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

40. Morgan Freeman

"My first wife got me into it many years ago. I have fibromyalgia pain in this arm, and the only thing that offers any relief is marijuana."

Source: Us Weekly

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

41. John Kerry

"Yes." [In response to the question, "Which of you are ready to admit to having used marijuana in the past?"]

Source: The New York Times

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

42. Michael Bloomberg

"You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

Source: New York Times

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

43. Snoop Dogg

"It makes me feel the way I need to feel."

Source: Esquire

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

44. Rick Steves

"I have used cannabis all over the world."

Source: LA Weekly

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

45. Jack Nicholson

"These days the hard drugs are gone, but he continues to smoke cannabis."

Source: Daily Telegraph

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

46. Susan Sarandon

"I’ve never worked high, and I’ve never filmed high. But I’ve read scripts high and gotten a different perspective."

Source: New York Post

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

47. Al Gore

"The next day, Gore told reporters that he had been an 'infrequent and rare' marijuana smoker, nothing more than a few times at Harvard, 'once or twice' while off duty in Vietnam and occasionally as a divinity student and journalist in Nashville."

Source: Newsweek

Photo: Wikimedia Commons