Christian pastor Joel Webbon has found a new battlefield in the culture wars, and it is apparently… weed—with nicotine cast in the role of its unlikely moral opposite.
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In a video posted on X, he claims marijuana doesn’t just alter mood or motivation—it alters masculinity itself. In his words, cannabis use doesn’t just make men relaxed. It makes them something else entirely.
He says marijuana “makes you less masculine, more feminine, soft, gay, at least spiritually gay”, before arguing it leaves men unfocused and unambitious.
“Marijuana causes you not to focus, not to lock in, not to be ambitious. It makes you cloudy, fuzzy, lazy, unambitious.”
Does the Bible permit Christians to use Nicotine? pic.twitter.com/WJoU48Div0
— Joel Webbon (@JoelWebbon) May 30, 2026
It’s a sweeping list of accusations for a plant that mostly gets blamed for snack choices and forgetting why you walked into a room.
Enter nicotine, stage left, as a misunderstood hero
From there, the argument shifts into something even more unexpected: a full rehabilitation campaign for nicotine. Webbon dismisses mainstream anti-smoking messaging as something closer to psychological manipulation than public health.
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“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.
Instead, he suggests cancer comes from pesticides or chemicals sprayed on tobacco plants, not smoking itself. He also claims governments have a “vested interest” in discouraging tobacco because it produces men who are “harder to control” and “harder to manipulate”.
At this point, nicotine is no longer a substance. It is basically being pitched as a personality upgrade with a side of geopolitical rebellion. To back his claims, he flashes screenshots of what appear to be studies into nicotine—presented at high speed, like someone trying to win an argument before anyone has time to Google anything.
Slogans, but make it civilizational
Then comes the slogan era of the video.
“Hard times create nicotine men.”
On the other side of history are “weed boys”, who he says “ruin the world”. It’s the kind of phrasing that sounds like it was designed on a gym wall poster that never made it past the concept stage.
He also argues nicotine “built the country” and could “restore the country”, folding tobacco into a larger story about masculinity, discipline, and national identity—as if a cigarette break is now a political philosophy.
The internet, predictably, did not treat this as a TED Talk. Much of the reaction has focused on the idea that nicotine addiction is being rebranded as rugged masculinity, while cannabis is cast as a kind of moral downgrade. Others pointed out that the pitch sits somewhere between a 1950s cigarette ad and a very confident misunderstanding of public health.
Who Joel Webbon is (and why this keeps happening)
Joel Webbon is a US-based far-right Christian pastor known for inflammatory commentary and Christian nationalist rhetoric. His content sits inside a wider online ecosystem where short clips, slogans, and outrage tend to travel further than sermons ever did.
He has frequently drawn criticism for remarks targeting LGBTQIA+ people. In past discussions, he argued that the death penalty could serve as a deterrent to homosexuality, calling it the “maximum penalty”. He also endorsed a claim that 17% of gay men regularly eat feces. He has blamed Jewish people for making America “a very gay nation” and linked Jewish influence to transgender rights and broader social change.
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon fumes about Pride Month: “Don’t forget, the key characteristic of the gay community is butt sex. It’s feces. It’s AIDS. It’s disease.” https://t.co/SNnfCbznlw pic.twitter.com/iCj7s2f4Q3
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) June 20, 2024
His wider catalogue of commentary includes praise of Confederate slaveholders over civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., alongside recurring Christian nationalist themes and conspiracy-leaning interpretations of social change.
Where this lands
Now nicotine and cannabis have been added to that worldview, where substances are not substances at all, but moral shortcuts—assigned to categories of masculinity, discipline, and national survival.
At some point, the argument stops sounding like social commentary and starts sounding like someone trying to rebuild a civilization using a very confused wellness brochure and a lot of confidence.