Nine Authors Who Smoked Weed

2. Hunter S. Thompson

We’d be more surprised if Hunter S. Thompson didn’t indulge in a little ganja every now and again. Thompson is best known as a ’60s and ’70s counter-culture icon who wrote Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.

More than anything. Thompson is best known for pairing journalism and debauchery, which usually meant drug use.

In 1977, High Times was lucky enough to interview Hunter Thompson. The journalist asked him about doing cocaine with Jimmy Carter’s campaign.

Thompson describes these staffers, “we were talking about a few people from almost everybody’s staff. Across the board … Not junkies or freaks, but people who were just as comfortable with drugs like weed, booze or coke as we are—and we’re not weird, are we?”

Thompson goes on to describe his favorite drug experience: “driving around the Bay Area on a good summer night—big motorcycle, head full of acid—wearing nothing but a T-shirt.”

If anything, it sounds like a little green therapy would have been necessary for a character like Hunter Thompson.