Even celebrities are turning their hands to the budding canna-biz.
Making Bank with Buds
While the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a lot of businesses go up in smoke, the cannabis industry has hit new highs, emerging as the nation’s fastest-growing industry.
Since 2020, legal cannabis sales across the U.S. have jumped a whopping 50 percent, topping $20 billion and adding almost 80,000 jobs to the economy. The pandemic has played a huge role in the spike in cannabis’ popularity, with many U.S. states deeming dispensaries “essential businesses” and cannabis delivery companies seeing surges of 25 percent. Ultimately, the boring, never-ending tedium of the stay-at-home coronavirus saga has even seen cocaine sales drop, as more and more people choose to get stoned at home instead.
With weed’s popularity and the fact that recreational marijuana is now legal in 19 states, the lucrative promise of selling Mary Jane to the masses is luring lots of investors to the canna-biz, including a growing number of celebrity cannapreneurs. While once upon a time numerous celebrities had wine brands attached to their names, celebrity cannabis strains are now blowing up in popularity.
From actors, comedians and musicians, to sports stars and TV personalities, here are a few of the biggest celebrity cannapreneurs right now.
Bud Bucks: Highest Roller
No conversation about celebrities and cannabis would be complete without mentioning the ultimate high roller himself: rapper and self-dubbed “master of marijuana” Snoop Dogg. Snoop, 50, is more than a famous cannabis user and activist. The man is a weed icon and one of the most recognizable faces of cannabis culture today. He even once said he took his first toke at the age of eight or nine when an uncle offered him a roach.
Snoop has openly discussed his love of cannabis in past interviews, and in his marijuana-related songs: “Smoke Weed Everyday,” “Smoke the Weed” and “This Weed Iz Mine.” He even once boasted in an interview that he smokes “81 blunts a day.” Toking that much pot hardly seems realistic — until you learn Snoop has a professional roller on his staff to ensure he and his posse always have fresh blunts on hand. Sounds like a cushy job, if you ask us.
In 2015, Snoop launched his own cannabis brand called Leafs by Snoop, making him one of the first celebrities to front a line of cannabis buds, oils and edibles. The Colorado-based company is renowned for its indica and sativa hybrids, which are personally selected by the big Dogg himself, and many smokers claim they’re the best flowers in the canna-biz.
Snoop is also a co-owner of Toronto’s Canopy Growth Corporation, the biggest cannabis grow operation in the world and one of the first companies to launch a cannabis brand backed by a celebrity. Canopy Growth has since partnered with more A-listers, including Seth Rogen, Drake, Evan Goldberg and Martha Stewart.
Bud Bucks: Most Dope
Mike Tyson has never been the kind of guy to do anything by half. The former heavyweight boxing champion fought his way to the top of his game, and now his cannabis empire is smashing the competition. After years of substance abuse, Tyson turned to marijuana for pain relief and credits it with helping him recover from the many injuries he accumulated during his boxing career. Tyson also says cannabis calms his anger and anxiety.
“In my 30s, cannabis really saved me from myself,” he told Vegas Cannabis Magazine in 2019. “The health benefits were so clear. As it continued to save me, I knew that everyone needed this kind of medicine.”
Instead of kicking back in retirement, the 55-year-old developed his own company — Tyson Holistic Holdings, Inc. — which has sold cannabis products, including flower strains and edibles, since 2016.
In 2020, the cannabis connoisseur launched Tyson Ranch: a 420-acre cannabis-themed playground for adults in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., which has earmarked 20 acres of land for growing new strains and cannabis research. The resort also features a dispensary, an amphitheater, a cannabis university, an edible-making factory, an extraction facility and a campground.
Tyson’s empire is said to be generating around $1 million per month. However, he reportedly smokes $82,000 of his own supply in the same amount of time.
Bud Bucks: Best Buds
Perhaps the most surprising celebrity potrepreneur is America’s foremost goddess of domesticity, Martha Stewart.
I guess you could say it was a joint effort that saw the domestic diva join the many celebrities who have created their own weed-related brands.
The 80-year-old businesswoman says her curiosity for cannabis was kindled by her bud Snoop Dogg while filming their Emmy-nominated cooking show, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, which helped her learn a lot about the natural healing and palliative effects of cannabis. While she’s no stoner, Stewart has developed a passion for CBD — also known as cannabidiol, which does not contain marijuana’s psychoactive compound THC — and incorporates it into her daily wellness routine as “a natural way to manage life’s difficulties.”
In 2020, she launched Martha Stewart CBD in partnership with Canopy Growth. Stewart’s offerings include hemp-derived, cannabidiol-rich gummies — inspired by her favorite recipes and ingredients — a line of flavored CBD oils and soft gels, as well as chewy treats for pets. And she’s also cooking up the CBD-based skincare line 86 Elm.
“I’m not a user of cannabis, but then I got very interested in not only cannabis but also in hemp and the derivatives … I’ll leave the THC offerings to Snoop,” she said in an interview with CNBC.
Celebrity Roll Call
No story like this could be complete without at least mentioning, say, the top dozen “other” in this category of famous weed endorsements. Certainly you could take exception to our rankings. You might have options we have missed, or disagree with the hierarchy below. We can tell you two things for certain. First, you are not crazy, and that last picture shown happens to be of Willie Nelson, and not Martha Stewart. In at least one (influential) editor’s opinion, Willie would probably qualify as better known for for this particular mood stabilizer than Ms. Stewart. (We have zero idea whether or not Willie makes an excellent soufflé.)
OH! And second, doing the research should be a blast.
- Willie Nelson — Willie’s Reserve
- Bob Marley — Marley Natural
- Cheech Marin — Cheech’s Private Stash
- Tommy Chong — Tommy Chong’s Cannabis
- Seth Rogen — Houseplant
- Jay-Z — Monogram
- Jim Belushi — Belushi’s Farm
- Rachael & Megan Rapinoe — Mendi
- Wiz Khalifa — Khalifa Kush
- Carlos Santana — Mirayo by Santana
- B-Real — Dr. Greenthumb’s
- Melissa Etheridge — Etheridge Botanicals
No true country music fan could possibly assist in putting together an article like this without mentioning perhaps the best “Bud Bucks” song ever written — admittedly limited in this case to that specific music genre. We’ve already provided a couple of Toby Keith memories in these digital pages over the years, highlighting his USO work, Mr. Keith in general, and even his tequila. It just seemed reasonable to do a bit of an aside on his song-writing skills as well. Not wanting to get into even a hit of copyright issue, though, we will leave you with a mere suggestion: Head on over to YouTube and look up I’ll Never Smoke Weed with Willie Again. Life needs more smiling moments.
