Willie Nelson has been one of the world’s most famous marijuana advocates for decades, and now that the drug is becoming increasingly legal across the country, he’s officially getting into the business.
The 81-year-old announced this week he’s launching his own brand of marijuana and stores. He’ll open a series of shops that will offer his own strain — called Willie’s Reserve, naturally — and others that meet his high standards.
“It will be like when you walk into a Whole Foods store,” a spokesman for the brand told the Daily Beast. “Whole Foods has their 365 brand, or you can buy Stony Brook, or you can buy Horizon… It’ll all fall under that umbrella of ‘here’s our core beliefs, and here’s our mission statement,’ and they will be a part of that, to be a part of us.”
While he’s finding a way to profit off of weed, it’s far from his first experience with the drug. Nelson has been arrested for possession multiple times, created the TeaPot Party and even wrote a memoir titled “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.”
He isn’t the first celeb to get into the growing green business either. Cypress Hill’s B Real said in February that he’s opening his own medical marijuana dispensary, and Bob Marley’s estate announced his face will represent the first global brand of marijuana, Marley Natural.
Willie’s marijuana brand is expected to be available for purchase in pot-friendly states like Colorado, Alaska and Washington in 2016.
