Born 60 years apart on Aug. 4, Louis Armstrong and Barack Obama are two of the most famous African Americans. While Obama admitted to using marijuana and supports decriminalization, Armstrong was a lifelong "gage" smoker who was busted in 1931 and encouraged Pres. Dwight Eisenhower to change the pot laws.

The New Orleans-born trumpeter first smoked gage or "shuzzit" in his early 20s when he lived in Chicago. "We did call ourselves vipers," Armstrong explained in Max Jones and John Chilton's Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971, "which could have been anybody from all walks of life that smoked and respected gage. That was our cute little name for marijuana, and it was a misdemeanor in those days. Much different from the pressure and charges the law lays on a guy who smokes pot - a later name for the same thing... We always looked at pot as a sort of medicine, a cheap drunk and with much better thoughts than one that's full of liquor."

By 1931, word had gone around that Armstrong was a regular reefer smoker. One day, when Armstrong was taking a smoke break outside a Los Angeles club, two cops or "dicks" arrested him, making Armstrong the first celebrity to be busted for marijuana.

"I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail," he recalled. At his trial, "The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set. and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me!"

In the '50s, Armstrong joined the civil rights movement. He canceled a State Department tour of the Soviet Union, stating, "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell."

In a letter, Armstrong also famously called on Pres. Eisenhower to legalize marijuana.

"It makes you feel good, man," Armstrong said about marijuana, "[it] makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you're with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship."

One of America's most beloved entertainers, Armstrong was a founding father of jazz, starting in the ragtime and Dixieland eras and graduating to big bands. Among his most famous songs are "West End Blues," WATCH THE CLIP BELOW "What a Wonderful World, "Hello Dolly and "Muggles" (another of his names for marijuana).

Armstrong died on July 6, 1971.

For more about the life and times of Louis Armstrong, visit the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, New York.



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Comments (3)

3 Friday, 07 August 2009 17:35

bloomdude

According to California NORML, marijuana was originally prohibited by the state in 1913

2 Friday, 07 August 2009 16:52

Peter

that makes no sense... herb wasnt illegal until 1937?

1 Wednesday, 05 August 2009 21:18

DJk

THAT's why Satchmo sounds so good when I'm high. It's been a LONG time....but I remember it well.

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