For more than 40 years, comedy team Cheech and Chong have performed together on record albums, in movies and on stage. Like any long partnership, the Grammy-winning duo has shared low and, um, high points.

They broke up for a while in the late ’80s, only to get back together in 2002 to voice roles in the animated movie “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” They have worked periodically together since then. But they didn’t reunite so much because of nostalgia, or for the fans they’ve picked up along the way since they first started performing in 1971.

To put it bluntly — if not with a weed-filled blunt — “It’s more about the money,” said a soft-spoken Cheech Marin, 69, in a phone call from his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., last week. Marin and Tommy Chong perform Thursday night at the Hawaii Theatre.

Marijuana users might have a reputation for being slackers, but the duo has smartly built a comedy career hinged upon stoner culture — a move that began with performing stand-up routines on the comedy circuit tour in the 1970s and continues to the present day.

At first they appealed to a counterculture audience through routines such as “Where’s Dave,” in which a whacked-out Tommy Chong doesn’t remember that he is speaking to a friend. (The routine can be found on their self-titled debut album.) But their brand of humor has expanded over the years to the mainstream, partly as marijuana use has become legalized to various extents in certain states.

“We’re middle-of-the-road dopers now,” Marin said.

He said he isn’t surprised to see the legalization of marijuana happening today.

“I can’t wait until it happens,” he said of the possibility that marijuana use might become legalized in more states.

“I am breathless with anticipation,” Marin added. “All my life I’ve been picturing it. But sometimes you get burned out.”

Although they’ve performed on nine comedy albums, the Cheech and Chong act was unleashed, arguably, upon the majority of unsuspecting Americans with their first movie, the irreverent road-trip comedy “Up in Smoke.” The film ended up being the highest-grossing movie of 1978.

The movie has somewhat of a timeless appeal, with Cheech and Chong “improvising off stuff we wrote and then improving off improvising,” Marin said. He added that the reason the movie is still popular is simply because it’s funny.

“There are some great performances in it,” he said. “It’s off the wall. The chemistry is great between us.”

He added that new generations continue to discover “Up in Smoke.”

“Our humor has stayed the same” over the years, he said.

Marin said their on-screen personas are similar to who they are in real life. “I am very energetic while Tommy is laid-back.”

But he doesn’t have a favorite moment from his long career with Chong.

“I love it all,” he said. “It should all be on the money.”

In 1985 they parted ways because of creative differences after Marin decided to pursue roles without Chong, who up until then had directed most of the eight movies they had co-written. Chong was reportedly upset at the time because he was surprised that Marin wanted to move toward a solo career.

For his part, Marin doesn’t regret branching off in a different direction.

“I have no regrets at all,” he said. “There was good material available. It was just time after a while.”

On his own, Marin became known for mainstream acting roles, co-starring on the TV show “Nash Bridges” with Don Johnson and performing in a recurring role on “Lost.” He’s also done more voice-over work for animated films such as ‘The Lion King” and “Cars” and appeared in several other movies.

Cheech and Chong currently perform comedy on the road about once or twice a month.

“We don’t push it because Tommy is still recuperating from cancer,” he said of Chong, who announced in 2015 that he was diagnosed with rectal cancer.

Chong, 77, had beaten prostate cancer three years before he was diagnosed with the new disease.

Marin said about their current arrangement, “We don’t kill each other. We get out on the road, have fun and go home.”