Craig Ex, founder and host of Expert Joints, says he’s humbled to hold the torch for B.C.’s legendary weed industry on High Times TV.
Season four of Ex’s Vancouver-based webcast, plus his on-the-ground event coverage and numerous tutorials, are the newest additions to the publication’s video offerings.
“Expert Joints is a multi-platform media outlet offering a voice to cannabis enthusiasts from B.C. and around the world,” he says, practically singing the slogan in his charismatic host voice.
“Basically, I roll joints and talk to people about weed.”
Sitting in his living room, of course rolling one of his signatures, he recounts the five-year journey to building one of the country’s most successful and “well put together” underground weedia companies: Studio 710.
It started in 2013, when, after two grueling decades working various jobs in the hospitality and events industry, Ex took some time off to refocus.
“Turns out, 20-some-years of life kicking me in the balls enough did some damage,” he says, laughing. After six-months holed up on his couch, sedated on a handful of prescription medications, Ex did what anyone gripped by an existential crisis does: he made a list.
Realizing he couldn’t return to the thankless 18-hour-day grind, he set about writing down all the things he loved to do and what he was good at. The goal was to find a correlation between his passions and talents to find something to pay the bills.
“I kept coming back to my love of showbiz,” he says. “My straight-A class in school was improv and I was always the emcee, host, whatever, for any event from grade two onward. What can I do better than anyone else? Put a microphone in my hand and I’ll show you.”
“Then I looked at the list of what I was passionate about and at the top was weed. I can roll a damn good joint.”
He launched on YouTube in April 2014 with a video titled “Expert Joints – The best how to roll a joint video ever!” It has since garnered 1.1 million views.
Now, his live weekly webcast features some of the country’s top growers, influencers, extractors, scientists, and innovators in the weed game today. Traveling around the world, Ex frequently covers events like MJ Biz Con in Las Vegas and High Times Cup in Amsterdam with a witty sarcasm, on-camera ease, and an expert-level of cannabis knowledge.
He has interviewed some of the biggest names in pot culture, channeling his love of rap and hip-hop into exclusives with the likes of rappers Waka Flocka and Damian Marley.
High Times, he says, is a huge step forward both for Expert Joints and weed media as a whole.
“To call the High Times deal ‘very cool’ understates it,” he says.
“If I was ever going to say the name of one company, media organization, brand that I wanted to work with…it’s High Times. They’re legends.”