On a rainy night in November of 1930, the trumpet-wielding jazz icon Louis Armstrong was arrested outside the Cotton Club in Culver City, along with his drummer, Vic Berton, for smoking the “gage.” Pops, as he was affectionately known, and Berton were out front smoking a J, laughing, and feeling good, when two detectives sprang out of the shadows and said, “We’ll take the roach, boys.” Pops knew something was fishy. Turns out the detectives were fans of the trumpeter and confided in Pops that the arrest was prompted by a rival bandleader who was jealous of his genius. Although he spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail, it only served to cement his love of the plant.

Unbeknownst to his fans, Armstrong had been partaking for years. The crooner first tried cannabis in Chicago when he was 26 years old, and enjoyed the effects. He said: “I had myself a ball… why is it classified as a narcotic?!”

He felt that anything that clearly had positive effects on your health and mental state didn’t deserve to be lumped into a category with heavy drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

However, the LA bust plagued him the rest of his life. He was a marked man and had to be extra careful about when and where he would partake. In 1954, his wife, Lucille, was arrested in Honolulu when police found a joint on her. It was widely speculated to be Pops’ stash.

He told his panicked manager: “I don’t intend to ever stop smoking it, not as long as it grows. And there is no one on this earth that can ever stop it all from growing. No one but Jesus, and he wouldn’t dare. Because he feels the same way that I do about it.”

In another strange incident, Armstrong was touring Japan in the 50s as a Goodwill Ambassador when he ran into Vice President Nixon at the airport, who was a big fan of the bandleader. Armstrong explained to “Tricky Dick” that he had just finished his tour and was headed towards customs. Nixon scoffed and grabbed Pops’ suitcase, saying, “Ambassadors don’t have to go through customs!” In a delicious irony, the jazz legend’s suitcase was filled with nearly three pounds of cannabis, which was carried by Vice President Richard Nixon through the airport, bypassing customs entirely. Tricky Dick unknowingly smuggled cannabis into the United States for Louis Armstrong!

It makes perfect sense that Pops was an early partaker, as he was raised by a mother who believed in natural remedies. He said, “Weed relaxes me, makes me forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you’re with another smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship. I smoked it a long time… gage ain’t nothing but medicine.”