Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson (b. April 29, 1933, Abbott, Texas), country-music icon and one of the most prominent mainstream advocates for cannabis legalization in American history. Longtime co-chair of the NORML advisory board. Following a November 26, 2010 arrest at a Sierra Blanca, Texas border checkpoint, Nelson founded the Teapot Party in 2010 under the motto "Tax it, regulate it, legalize it." In 2015 he launched Willie's Reserve, a cannabis brand financed by New York private-equity firm Tuatara Capital, with products initially sold through licensed producers in Colorado and Washington; the brand emphasizes small-farmer sourcing, echoing Nelson's co-founding of Farm Aid (1985). Nelson has been arrested for cannabis possession multiple times (1974, 1994, 2006, 2010) and famously smoked on the roof of the White House in 1978. His Luck, Texas ranch hosts the annual Luck Reunion festival. His longevity, rural-populist persona, and public habitual use have been credited with softening Red-State resistance to cannabis reform — a rare bridge between Southern conservative and countercultural constituencies in American reform politics.