There has yet to be a more fitting year to fulfill a new year’s resolution. 2021 and the end of the coronavirus pandemic could kick off the beginning of the roaring 20s. When you crawl yourself up out of quarantine and resume living your best life, why not add a useful skill to whip out at the next real social gathering. Since you have begun smoking weed to get through the lock down, why not learn out to roll a proper joint.
Long ago, when marijuana was delivered by a potentially violent criminal not via e-scooter, pre-rolled flower was hard to come by. Back then buying a pre-roll was risky. Anything could be in there. Buying a mystery pre-roll is much safer from a dispensary, but you are still at risk of smoking some shake that has been spilt on the floor.
Also, pre-rolls take the ritual out of what makes smoking a blunt or joint special. There is something spiritual about collecting weed from a few friends, breaking it up, rolling up a perfectly shaped joint, and sharing what you just created.
Follow this guide and you could be the one responsible for the magic at the post-covid kick back.
Break It Up
Use a grinder if you need to. In Tupac’s joint rolling tutorial, he urges users to keep it natural and use your hands. There’s nothing wrong with having some smelly, crystal covered fingertips.
Make sure to get all the stems out if you choose to follow Pac’s advice. A stem destroys this entire operation, I’ve seen this tragedy happen with my own eyes.
I use about a gram to roll joints; it makes a nicely cigarette shaped joint.
Prepare the Filter/Crutch
To make a perfect joint, you need a crutch. I prefer to use a piece of one of the worthless business cards I have lying around. Premade little pieces of paper can be bought from any smoke shop or dispensary in Toronto. I prefer to repurpose something from around the house.
Measure off a half inch piece of the card, tear or cut vertically. A business card works width ways, but you need about 2 inches of paper. Make (3) quarter inch folds, alternating directions, like an accordion. Then roll up the piece of paper around the folded paper. This should make a ‘W’ shape with a circle around it while peering through the hole.
I obtained this valuable information from a Wiz Khalifa joint rolling tutorial. I do recommend this tutorial however his method is a bit complicated, its best to try my way first. If you can’t figure out the Wiz crutch, just roll the paper to resemble a cigarette filter.
Papers
My preferred size is 1.25 inches. Note that papers contain a glue edge.
Prepare The Joint
Fold the paper in half. If your paper is already folded, you’re already in good shape. Hold the paper between your fingers like the person does on the cover of Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke movie cover.
Place the crutch on the left edge, inside the folded rolling paper. You want this firmly snug against the paper and your three fingers holding the joint. Add a pinch of weed with your right hand up against the crutch. This is the start of the joint and needs to be packed up against the crutch.
Once you have a nice packed start, add weed to fill the joint. You want this as even as possible. The goal is to make a perfectly cylindrical paper weed tube the diameter of the crutch you rolled.
Once you have the joint filled, you are going to literally roll the joint into a cylinder. The more times you can roll the edges of the paper up and down with your thumb and index finger the better. At the same time, you are slightly packing the weed, trying to get it as even as possible.
Some flower is probably going to fall out right the end, that’s fine. Make sure to keep the crutch in position.
Press the long edge of the paper on your thumb down on the weed and inside the other end of the joint paper. Lick the glue. This end should be facing you. Now fold the paper over sealing the joint and your new years resolution.
If you did this perfectly the first time you may be the first one to accomplish this feat. I can get these pretty close to symmetrical. You should be able to stick a pencil perfectly in the open end of the joint.
You can add weed to the right side of the joint for the pre-rolled, gradually increasing in mass, cartoon joint look, but I prefer an even, cigarette looking joint. Avoiding a pregnant joint unless you are looking to be humiliated by your friends.
Now the most important part, decarboxylate the THC. Once you have it lit proper pass it on.
Rolling joints isn’t easy. It can be frustrating, and you won’t get a nice one for quite a few tries. Thankfully, I can’t think of a better time to sit down and repeatedly do something until you are a master.
