{"id":495961,"date":"2026-10-14T16:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/495961\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T16:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:14:14","slug":"no-one-can-smoke-that-much-pot-who-is-the-viral-joint-smoking-muni-bus-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/495961\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No one can smoke that much pot\u2019: Who is the viral joint-smoking Muni bus driver?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shirtless, joint in mouth, and in the driver\u2019s seat of a sketchy San Francisco Muni bus, Cam McKeel took the internet by storm in a viral video that shows him steering what appears to be an SFMTA city bus around Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The video, which was posted Oct. 7, has 6.8 million views on Instagram. It depicts a man whipping a bus around a corner and flashing a casual peace sign out the busted-out windshield as the \u201cNot in service\u201d light flashes overhead.<\/p>\n

Commenters responded to the 20-second clip with wonder, amazement, and laughing-crying emojis. To some, McKeel\u2019s swagger exemplified the caption that \u201cOakland is like a GTA server.\u201d Others had pressing questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow tf did he get a City bus to the Town?\u201d one asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, we have answers. Last year, The Standard sat down with McKeel to understand how he obtained his fleet of muni buses. (There is more than one).\u00a0<\/p>\n

We were unable to locate McKeel for a fresh interview in the wake of his newfound internet fame (calls went unanswered, and a search in Oakland proved fruitless), but here is what we know about the weed-growing former physician\u2019s assistant cosplaying as a bus driver.<\/p>\n

Who is this guy?<\/p>\n

Originally from North Carolina, McKeel left a checkered past to chase a hot-boxed dream of freedom in California nearly two decades ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The onetime physician\u2019s assistant lost his medical license indefinitely in 2007 after he was accused of stealing prescription pills, driving under the influence, and strangling a woman, according to the North Carolina Medical Board (opens in new tab)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McKeel denied the allegations in an interview with the Standard.<\/p>\n

Soon after he ended up homeless in the Bay Area. He started growing cannabis, which again landed him in trouble with the law (opens in new tab)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Chronicle reported that McKeel and his friends were using a collection of Muni buses to grow cannabis. The operation caught the ire of local officials, who accused him of\u00a0 growing for profit rather than for personal use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can smoke that much pot,\u201d alleged Joe DeVries, who at the time was an assistant to Oakland\u2019s city administrator\u2019s office. \u201cHe did it without getting permission from the city, without getting permission from the owner. No, that is not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AMcKeel at the bus encampment in 2019. | Source: Gabrielle Lurie\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McKeel contended that he actually could smoke that much weed. \u201cI smoke a lot of weed. As much as I can, as often as I can, as soon as I wake up, before I go to bed,\u201d he told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the coolest things I\u2019ve ever done in my life. I\u2019m not a bad guy,\u201d McKeel said. \u201cThe alternative is me on the sidewalk asking somebody for weed, and here I\u2019m not asking anybody for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKeel did move his encampment grow operation and eventually stopped growing weed altogether. When The Standard caught up with him in January 2025, there were no cannabis plants in or around his bus, although he admitted to still smoking the plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How the hell did he get a bus?<\/p>\n

Obviously, the first question is how and why he got a bus in the first place. When it was posed to McKeel, he turned philosophical. The bus affords him a degree of freedom unattainable from a regular car or van, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the sense of liberation that comes with living an unbridled lifestyle out of a vehicle once responsible for ferrying people to their nine-to-five jobs.<\/p>\n

And plus, it\u2019s just so spacious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to pay for an apartment when I can get one of these,\u201d McKeel said. \u201cI\u2019m just done with humans. I\u2019m done with this whole financial structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKeel said he purchases buses on the cheap at auctions held in Sacramento, which periodically offers out-of-commission vehicles to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n

\"ASource: Gabrielle Lurie\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Case in point, an auction over the weekend saw a 40-foot New Flyer Xcelsior Passenger Bus \u2014 complete with a plastered AI startup ad \u2014 on offer. The fine print warned that the bus was \u201cnon-operational\u201d and needed service for an \u201cemissions recall.\u201d It sold for $4,600.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The perks of living in a bus end when it inevitably breaks down. Last year, McKeel was living in two Muni buses he had parked next to each other near Campbell and 24th streets in Oakland. Neither bus had worked in more than a year. After hundreds of thousands of miles transporting San Franciscans, the buses had made their last stop \u2014 and so had McKeel, it seemed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI signed off. I quit,\u201d McKeel said. \u201cI\u2019m just waiting to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKeel said if the government gave him the money to get a bus going for longer than a few months, he would lower California\u2019s homeless population by one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFill the tank and give me a fresh battery,\u201d McKeel said. \u201cI will leave the fucking state right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least based on the recent video, it appears that promise did not have wheels.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shirtless, joint in mouth, and in the driver\u2019s seat of a sketchy San Francisco Muni bus, Cam McKeel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[37854,1493,101,103,102,104,106,105,5449],"class_list":["post-495961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-crisis-in-streets","tag-homelessness","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfmta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}