Willie Nelson weed interview is filled with useful advice for novice potheads and weekend warriors like and Maureen Dowd.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a piece in June about how she got paranoid when she snacked on a caramel-chocolate candy bar that was laced with pot in Denver.

"I barely made it from my desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours," she wrote.

But Willie Nelson, who is a veteran stoner, insists he  hasn't "seen any side effects" from smoking pot.

Nelson is a music legend who has recorder more than 100 records. His memoir is called "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road." He was talking about the book with Rolling Stone magazine. The same magazine Nelson told that he smoked pot on the roof of the White House while visiting President Jimmy Carter, when he expanded on the verdant herb.

Nelson told Rolling Stone outright that  "Weed is good for you. Jesus said one time that it's not what you put in your mouth, it's what comes out of your mouth. I saw the other day that [medical] weed is legal in Israel - there's an old-folks home there, and all these old men were walking around with bongs and shit. Fuck! They got it figured out before we did!'

And as far as Maureen Dowd is concerned, Willie Nelson laughed "Oh yeah, she OD'd somewhere. Like a lot of people who do it, [you think] 'Oh, marijuana, I'll try some, not realizing that this hard candy may be stronger than that hard candy.' Now she knows. Maybe she'll read the label now."

Nelson did invite Dowd to toke with him "anytime." The "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" singer empathizes with the columnist because sometimes you get a little too much heavy a dose in cookies.

"I have eaten too much, and if you have, you know the feeling. It's not a good feeling.  It won't kill you, but it'll make you feel you're dying. You gotta be careful what you eat, whatever it is - unless you make it yourself and know how potent they are."

Nelson has been busted on the road a few times and his stash has been taken. Do those busts take their toll "Oh yeah, I've run out. But usually somebody will bring us some weed. Never have to buy any. Somebody just gives you all you can smoke. We played up in Northern California last year, up there where all the good weed grows. I think when we left the concert, there were probably eight or 10 pounds of weed on the stage." Really? "Yeah, because that's where they grow it all. All the great growers in that area, they're proud of their weed over there."

Nelson was busted in Waco, Texas, when the cops found a joint on him when he was crashing after a poker game in his Mercedes. He was also busted in 2006 in Louisiana with a pound and a half of pot that was going to get him through Texas Governor Ann Richards' funeral.

Nelson is political about it. He is a long supporter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) "because I knew the truth about it. And I knew it won't kill you unless you drop a bale of it on you or something."

"There are a lot of ignorant people who don't know that have been told it's a drug, and it smoke and you're going to hell. A lot of the right-wing religious fanatics are the ones who are the most against it, just like they're against telling women what to do with their bodies. A bunch of old, ignorant white people that are dying off. And the big deal about weed or gays or any of that, it's going away. It's not a big deal no more to most people."