The History of the Cross Joint

Few things dance across the stoner imagination like the fabled Cross Joint.

With its unique, interwoven design, three smoking ends and generally large payload, the Cross Joint is the perfect party pass-around, guaranteed to draw eyeballs and get everyone talking.

But where did this Holy Grail of Joints get its start and why has it captured the cannabis community’s collective fancy in a way few other non-traditional rolls have?

‘Pineapple Express’

The Cross Joint burst into the public consciousness in the 2008 stoner comedy “Pineapple Express,” starring Seth Rogen and James Franco and written by Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg.

Early in the movie, Rogen’s character is visiting Franco’s and finds on the table a fat joint with a second joint stuck perpendicularly through it to create a cross.

"You can smoke this?” he asks.

Franco’s character calls it “the future,” adding that it is the “apex of the vortex of joint engineering.” He says it’s rumored that famed Irish Civil Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy designed the first one, though we should certainly take that with a grain of salt since he also says O’Shaughnessy designed the Golden Gate Bridge and he did not.

“What you do is you light all three ends at the same time and then the smoke converges, creating a trifecta of joint smoking power,” he tells Rogen. “This is what your grandchildren are going to be smoking.”

Convincing Rogen to help him light it (three hands are needed to do it properly...), Franco and Rogen fire up the Cross Joint and the movie’s plot begins to take off.

Rogen’s Admission

For most people, “Pineapple Express” marked the first time they’d even seen the Cross Joint, leading many to believe that Rogen and Goldberg created it, but in interviews since, Rogen has admitted that is not the case.

Answering questions from fans for a video for Wired magazine, Rogen notes that while he helped popularize the Cross Joint, he only wishes he had “the ingenuity to invent the cross joint.” Calling them a “party trick,” Rogen said he and his friends had a “book of novelty joints” and that the Cross Joint was one of the ones in the book.

We have found what we believe to be the book.

The “Handbook”

First published in 1994, “The Joint Rolling Handbook” – now widely available including on Amazon – is most likely the book that taught Rogen and his friends (who were in high school in the late 1990s) how to roll the Cross Joint.

The book, published by Bobcat Press, includes instructions on how to create 11 different novelty joints with names like “The Saturday Night Special,” “The Joker,” “The Flaming Backflip,” “The Diamond” (which features two joints separating and coming back together in a diamond shape), “Tulip” and, of course, “The Crossroads,” which appears to be the basis for the Cross Joint.

The instructions in the book are a bit clunkier than the more refined advice that you can find today on how to roll a cross joint, since more people – including Rogen – have streamlined the rolling process in the wake of the Cross Joint’s growing popularity after the movie. But the basic idea and shape are still the same as was published 30 years ago.

Smoke Temple

Besides a slight simplification of the creation process and a proliferation of instructive texts on the internet, little else happened in the evolution of the Cross Joint in the 15 years since the release of “Pineapple Express.” That changed in 2023 when DaySavers perfected the Smoke Temple Cross Cone, making it so every stoner – not just engineers – could try one of these legendary smokes. Welcome, as Franco puts it, to “the Future.”

Made of high-quality rolling paper and pre-assembled for ease of use, the Smoke Temple Cross Cone is a mass-market, but hand-made cross version of the standard DaySavers pre-rolled cone, designed to be filled easily and enjoyed by everyone.

We’ve come a long way since the days of having to find an underground bookstore that carried the Handbook or having to crush paper after paper as you build one at home.

Perfect and easy to pack and share, the Smoke Temple Cross Cone truly democratizes the Cross Joint to make it something every smoker can enjoy, whether you get the Pineapple Express or the Snicklefritz. Simply pack your favorite ground flower into each of the three ends, twist or fold to close and you are ready to impress.

But though this new pre-rolled cone makes it easy to pack up one of these epic party favors at home, you may still need help from friends to get it lit.

And now you can also impress them with the history of these once-mythical cones. So grab a friend, a couple more lighters, and enjoy the trifecta of joint smoking power that is the Cross Joint!