The Stargazer Cannabis Festival's inaugural joint-rolling contest has attracted a bona fide pro: Snoop Dogg's full-time, professional blunt roller since 2016, Rana Samarghandi, also known as "Ranagade PerRana" on social media. As Ohio fully embraces its first full year of legal recreational marijuana, this summer's inaugural joint-rolling competition attracted 11,000 applications from wannabe judges.
The most famous —that we know of— is Samarghandi, whose work was featured in the now-famous Joe Rogan episode when he and Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously lit up on the air.
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"Have you ever seen the Elon Musk, Joe Rogan episode where they smoke a blunt? That was her blunt," said Chad Thompson, organizer of the joint-rolling contest.
"She's actually from Ohio. ... Really amazing woman still rolling professionally today, so we're very honored to have her as a judge. She's also going to host our award ceremony on Sunday," Thomson said. The event is taking place on July 27 at southern Ohio's Wisteria Campground.
Thousands Of Applications: Only One Judge's Name Revealed
Thompson revealed details about the judges selected for the contest to NBC4 on Wednesday. His team received some 11,000 applications, some coming from Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado and even Australia.
Samarghandi was the only judge Thompson identified by name. Though he also mentioned two other veteran judges from Michigan, who advised keeping the rest of the names private to maintain competition integrity. Another judge, an Ohio scientist who ran one of the first testing labs for the state's medical marijuana program was chosen for his/her "scientific analytical approach" despite lacking professional judging experience, Thomas said. The final judge is another Ohio-based professional joint roller whose Instagram pictures of rolled joints impressed him and the organizers.
"We had to go to like Instagram to look up some of the like the pictures of the joints that the professional roller had described," Thompson said. "And when we did, it was just, we were in awe. ... I thought to myself, if he is not a judge and he enters the competition, he's a shoe-in to win."
Raw, the rolling papers manufacturer, has also thrown in prizes for the winners of the contest. Thompson said those would be kept secret until the festival begins.
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Photo: Courtesy of Stargazer Festival