Meet Tony Greenhand, the world’s greatest joint roller. Like many of today’s millennial celebrities, he’s famous through Instagram. His motto? “A follower earned for every jay burned.” So, far he’s up to 263,000 followers — and as for all those jays? He consumes about 20 joints (rolled with 1.5 grams of bud and .3 grams of concentrate) every day, in addition to five blunts (three to nine grams each), numerous dabs, and six cups of coffee.
The Oregon-based master of “smokeable art” rolls joints and blunts in all kinds of shapes and colors, taking the form of Mike Tyson, Harambe, Pikachu, a menorah, ice cream cones, and even a cannabis leaf. What more, these works of art all fully function as regular joints. There’s enough weed in some of them to get hundreds of people high. One 4.2 pound watermelon joint for instance contained nearly $10,000 worth of cannabis.
Despite all that skill and fame, Greenhand himself takes the humble form of a 27-year-old, long-haired stoner who’d dropped out of high school, after being told he wouldn’t amount to anything — he’s since proven all the naysayers wrong. He’s enmeshed with major talent agencies, is filming his artistic process for a reality show, and deals his art for thousands of dollars each.
He began by growing weed as a teenager and began posting photos of his work about five years ago. He says he never intended to do creative joint rolling professionally, but that people just wanted him to do it. Then suddenly it became a job. Initially, however, he didn’t even want to get paid for his joints, and instead traded them for weed.
By now, his toolkit consists of an x-acto knife, hair cutting scissors, a grinder or food processor, slim skewers, cigar glues, natural dyes, and of course, rolling papers. He’s served as an inspiration to other artisan joint rollers out there, and has even been a guiding force behind the National Joint League. For Greenhand, rolling joints for others goes hand in hand with cannabis culture altogether, providing bud and skills that not everyone has. Even the master, himself, took a while to master rolling a basic joint, spending hours on it before he moved on to more complex creations. Rolling joints can be hard, especially for those with less dexterity than Greenhand. Still, he now has an apprentice, and shares his art and his talent with his community, both in person and of course on Instagram.
