W ith his shaggy black hair flopping over his forehead, Josh Kesselman propels a joint-shaped skate- board through the labyrinthine aisles of a Phoenix warehouse. It’s something of a stoner’s paradise: three acres of shelves filled to the brim with boxes of the RAW-brand rolling papers and accessories that have made Kesselman one of the biggest celebrities in weed. What began as a small venture in 2005 has become a huge business that calls Arizona one of its homes. RAW, which won Best Rolling Paper at the 2024 International Cannabis Awards, does about $120 million in annual domestic sales, according to MarketWatch. Kesselman said the brand does more business outside of the country, selling just about every- where but China and North Korea. As RAW blew up — thanks in large part to the cascade of legal weed measures across the country and pop culture allusions to the brand — so did Kesselman. With 2.1 million Instagram followers, he’s now one of the most recognizable faces (and set of bangs) in the world of marijuana. He’s not Snoop Dogg or Seth Rogen, the stoners that even your parents know about. If you don’t smoke, you prob- ably wouldn’t recognize Kesselman on the street. But your stoner friend certainly would. RAW rolling papers get name- dropped in rap lyrics. Wiz Khalifa wrote a whole song about them. His success — and his squeaky, hyper, fairy-on-laughing-gas online persona — have earned him a moniker: “The Willy Wonka of Weed.” He’s a character of intrigue, a guy who spends his time reinventing household items or rolling 3-foot-long joints. Unlike his competitors in the rolling papers market, which last year was valued globally at almost $4 billion, Kesselman’s company is not publicly traded. RAW and its parent company, HBI Innovations, are his fiefdom and playground all in one. Now, like the Roald Dahl character who inspired his nickname, Kesselman finds himself pondering what to do with the proverbial chocolate factory. He is 54. His goatee is speckled with gray. He doesn’t need the money, nor is he partic- ularly concerned with making as much of it as he can — and he never was. He never expected his papers to become a behemoth. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said. “It was supposed to be a few head shops — a small papers company making some cool stuff.” RAW was supposed to be like Jones Cola, a beloved niche brand that never aimed for anything more than a devoted cult following. But now that he has an empire, he wants it to outlive him. Whether that means finding his Charlie Bucket or giving it all to the Oompa Loompas, he hasn’t decided. It will go somewhere, just not into the hands of some hedge fund or any other group of capitalist sharks that Kesselman — himself an undeniably rich and successful businessman — holds in disdain. “I can’t be doing this forever,” he said. For decades, Phoenix’s crown prince of weed has enjoyed one long, glorifying toke of the good life. He’s puffed and he’s puffed. At some point, Kesselman knows, it’s his turn to pass. Rolling one for Timmy Kesselman’s love affair with weed began at a Bar Mitzvah in New York, where he grew up. Other kids were passing around a joint in the corner, and little Josh rushed over to see what the commotion was all about. As he arrived, the doobie was gone and he searched the ground in vain for the source of attraction. He finally got a puff when he was “way too young” at a Grateful Dead show. At the University of Florida, weed became his chosen career. While in college, he opened a smoke shop in Gainesville, sleeping in a friend’s shed to save money on rent. He had to hop over a lawn- mower to get into bed. After getting busted for selling a bong to the underage daughter of a federal law enforcement officer — for which he was fined $150,000 and sentenced to house arrest and probation — he decided to relo- cate to the wide-open climes of Arizona. Once settled in the Grand Canyon State, Kesselman founded HBI Innovations in 1997 and began producing and selling rolling papers. RAW officially debuted in 2005 as a “vegan” dye-free rolling paper made with plant-based gum. But RAW was actually conceived in 1993 — Kesselman said it took a decade of making other papers and tinkering with the RAW formula to finally nail his masterpiece. “Back in 1997, the world was an ocean of bleached white papers,” Kesselman said. He was dead-set on creating a brown, translucent paper. “The little nuances of RAW were based on knowl- edge of other papers I made before it,” he said. “RAW is my opus, and you can’t have an opus until you’ve made a bunch of mistakes and had successes — sometimes by accident.” Social media, and Kesselman’s prolific presence on it, fueled the brand. In 2014, Wiz Khalifa released his song “Raw,” dedicated to the brand. RAW and the rapper later collaborated on his own line of rolling papers. Josh Kesselman, Phoenix’s Willy Wonka of Weed, ponders the future of his chocolate factory. By TJ L’Heureux Josh Kesselman is a constant tinkerer, a personality trait to which he attributes the success of his rolling papers. (Illustration by Nick Meola / Photo by Carl Schultz)
