Tony Greenhand makes smokable art in the shape of Pokemon, comic figures, life-size gold necklaces, and guns. With almost 400k followers on Instagram and his own TV show, Tony is a real-life weed celebrity. But his joints haven’t always been so elaborate.
“The first joint I ever rolled was a disgrace. It was all wet and goopy. So I bought an ounce of weed and rolled for an entire weekend at a house party until I got good at it.”
That was over 15 years ago.
Today, Tony Greenhand rolls the most intricate and detailed joints on the planet.
Tony’s artwork can take the shape of a 24k smokable necklace or a 2-ounce Samurai with sheathing swords; there’s almost no task too big, challenging, or outright crazy for Tony to handle.
“I once tried to roll a 42-pound Statue of Liberty joint,” he recalls. “It was 9ft tall and stood on a custom metal frame with a fan at the base.”
Unfortunately, Tony never made it to the festival he’d built the joint for and ended up taking it apart and turning the flower into oil.
“I couldn’t find another venue that would let me smoke out a crowd with a 42-pound joint. People debated that it was a fire hazard or might be enough to kill someone,” he laughs.
There’s something about Tony’s big, hearty laugh that immediately makes you drop your guard. Although we’d never met, I felt like I was having a conversation with one of my high-school smoking buddies.
In 2016, Tony created his infamous world-record-winning 4.2-pound watermelon joint..
“I can’t remember that entire year due to that thing,” Tony laughs again. “We roasted marshmallows over it, which to this day is probably one of my favorite joint experiences,” he says.
Some of his other most recognized pieces include Mike Tyson, The Kraken, and an AK47. One of his latest creations is a Bulbasaur which, complete with flower-covered vine whips and concealable wooden crutch, looks more like a prized collector’s figurine than a joint.
But behind each Greenhand creation is a special design process that’s aimed at maximizing airflow to create a fluid smoking experience.
However, Tony is humble enough to admit that his joints don’t always burn as evenly as he’d like.
“When you roll something that’s complex like this, there are gonna be some mistakes, just because of the way that heat moves, how people handle the joint, and the way they hit it,” he says.
“And people usually want to hit the shit out of a joint like this. So they let out all their air and Snoop Dogg puff it into oblivion. A lot of people have lead fingers, too. I don’t know why, but they crab claw everything when they should be handling this shit like a baby,” he laughs.
There’s a lot more to Tony than his joints; he’s acted in films and on TV, runs his own seed company, and has been breeding and growing cannabis for over 10 years in Washington and Oregon.
Together with his girlfriend Courtney (who he met through an Instagram contest giving away one of his custom joints), Tony is living proof that the stoner-cliche is complete horseshit.
In 2017, he was cast for Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.
With no acting experience, Tony suddenly found himself sharing the set with Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Kim Gordon, and Jack Black.
“I took the experience a lot like when I roll one of my joints, and I just didn’ think too much about it,” Tony says.
“I didn’t think of the other actors as who they were, I just thought of who they were on the show. So I was a complete dick to Jonah Hill just because my character didn’t like him,” he laughs.
Two years after shooting for Gus Van Sant, Tony received an offer to film a TV show for Quibi titled Let’s Roll with Tony Greenhand in which he designs elaborate joints for celebrity weed lovers like Hannibal Burress, Nikki Glaser, and Blake Anderson.
Right now, he’s in lockdown in his home in San Bernardino County, in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
“It’s absolute hell. I walk outside and it’s 112 degrees (44°C); I might step on a fucking scorpion; I might get a radiation warning on my phone; there might be an earthquake; there might be a sandstorm; there could be a fucking Black Widow in my shoe in the morning. I could literally go on for an hour about all the weird, terrible shit that’s out here,” he laughs again.
“On top of that, everybody looks like they’ve just come out of a methadone clinic, all burnt to a crisp like the last chip in a bag with no will to live. Everyone’s a fucking zombie out here.”
But it’s not only the weather, scorpions, and zombies that Tony’s having trouble adjusting to.
“Hollywood is so fake. And I end up telling everyone ‘cause I’m stoned and I don’t have a filter. I don’t really mesh with the people out here; they are too worried about what people think and not worried enough about how they are.” This time, his laugh has a little nervous edge to it.
It seems that his brutal honesty is exactly what’s brought Tony so far, despite the fact that he still hasn’t managed to come to terms with selling his artwork.
“I don’t even care about my business. I just do it for me. And for me, making joints and giving them to people, and creating that moment for them is invaluable. A few hundred dollars doesn’t make it more valuable for me, it just kinda fucks up the whole vibe.” Just do it, Tony.
And although the current COVID-19 pandemic has brought Tony’s joint-rolling and TV show to a standstill, he’s happy for the downtime to be at home with Courtney, his dogs, and his garden.
“I’m just trying to chill for a minute and focus on my genetics. I might also go back to working on my movie script, which I haven’t worked on for some time”.
So next time you see Tony’s name in the credits, it might be for more than just acting and rolling.
