Christian pastor Joel Webbon has sparked backlash after claiming that smoking marijuana makes men “spiritually gay” and urging Christian men to embrace tobacco and nicotine as a path back to “masculinity”.
In a video posted to X, Webbon links cannabis use to gender stereotypes and repeatedly uses “gay” as an insult.
He claims marijuana “makes you less masculine, more feminine, soft, gay, at least spiritually gay”, before arguing that cannabis leaves men unfocused and lacking ambition.
“Marijuana causes you not to focus, not to lock in, not to be ambitious. It makes you cloudy, fuzzy, lazy, unambitious,” he says.
Webbon also dismisses public health messaging about smoking, describing anti-smoking efforts as a conspiracy.
“I think you know one of the biggest propaganda psyops that we’ve experienced in the last 50 to 60 years is the war against tobacco and nicotine, that tobacco and nicotine are the worst thing in the world, and they’ll kill you and give you cancer. I don’t believe that,” he says.
He goes on to claim that pesticides or chemicals sprayed on tobacco plants are responsible for cancer, rather than smoking itself.
Webbon then suggests the government has a “vested interest” in discouraging tobacco use because it would otherwise create men who are “harder to control” and “harder to manipulate”.
Throughout the video, he quickly displays screenshots of what appear to be studies about nicotine in an attempt to support his argument.
He also claims marijuana legalisation has expanded because cannabis supposedly makes men less masculine and less ambitious.
“Nicotine men” and “weed boys”
Webbon frames his message around a slogan linking substances to masculinity.
“Hard times create nicotine men,” he says.
He contrasts this with what he calls “weed boys”, adding that they “ruin the world”.
Webbon also presents nicotine use as something that “built the country” and could “restore the country”, tying tobacco and nicotine to a wider culture-war message about how men should behave.
Who is Joel Webbon?
Webbon is a US-based far-right Christian pastor known for inflammatory online commentary around culture-war issues.
He is associated with Christian nationalist politics and rhetoric that often frames social change through ideas of “masculinity” and “degeneracy”.
He is part of a wider ecosystem of MAGA-aligned religious influencers who use social media clips to reach audiences beyond traditional church settings. Webbon has frequently been criticised for extremist comments and conspiratorial claims about minority groups and social change.
Commenters responding to the video criticised Webbon for linking Christianity to addiction, while others questioned whether he was being paid to promote tobacco after he praised a specific brand.
The clip has drawn wider condemnation for using “gay” as a slur and for promoting tobacco and nicotine while dismissing well-established public health warnings about smoking.
