--- title: Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: "You Want to Take a Hit, Man?" description: An apparent Denver pot enthusiast got a solid laugh out of President Obama canonical: https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-09T16:09:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:11:31.502Z og:title: Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: "You Want to Take a Hit, Man?" og:description: An apparent Denver pot enthusiast got a solid laugh out of President Obama og:url: https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: "You Want to Take a Hit, Man?" twitter:description: An apparent Denver pot enthusiast got a solid laugh out of President Obama twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: 'You Want to Take a Hit, Man?' by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jul 9, 2014 4:09 PM UTC by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jul 9, 2014 4:09 PM UTC President Barack Obama certainly got down with the locals on a recent trip to Denver, but not too down. The President’s visit to the country’s first legal-weed state included [drinking beer and playing pool](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/us-usa-obama-pool-idUSKBN0FE08Z20140709) in a local bar with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. He shook hands with a [guy in a horse mask](http://time.com/2969337/obama-horse-head/) and had pizza with local Coloradans. But based on the video evidence, it doesn’t look like he smoked marijuana with his admirers. A local man who goes by “Manton89” on Instagram filmed himself calling out to Obama, “you want to take a hit, man?” in the midst of a crowd. The President gave a hearty laugh before continuing to walk on. Who is this bold guy? From his Instagram, it looks like he’s a fan of shooting nature videos and does a gnarly Steve Irwin accent. And he is also ecstatic that he got a laugh out of the President: “He loved my s\*\*t! I got a shot of that smile! Made ‘merica proud! #merica #obama #politics #golf #natgeo #mattgeo” said Manton89 in his next Instagram post. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/"},"headline":"Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: 'You Want to Take a Hit, Man?'","datePublished":"2014-07-09T16:09:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:11:31.502Z","description":"An apparent Denver pot enthusiast got a solid laugh out of President Obama","url":"https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/","keywords":["Newsfeed","U.S."],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2969877/denver-obama-pot/","name":"Denver Smoker to Laughing Obama: 'You Want to Take a Hit, Man?'"}}]}] ```