Learning the ins and outs of joint rolling is essential if you want to be a social, friendly stoner, even if your preferred method is not usually smoking. Rolling up a perfectly shaped fatty is incredibly satisfying, sometimes smoking them is a terrible shame. Luckily, practice makes perfect. Rolling one after another (into the hundreds if you must!) is the best way to refine what your perfect joint looks like.

Five Quick Tips

• Wider papers will effectively create cone shaped joints, perfect for sharing with others.
• Don’t smoke excess paper unnecessarily: trim the waste off and dispose of it. Better for your throat!
• Joint rolling or joint filling machines are common and will keep things streamlined and simple if you just can’t learn how to roll that joint!
• Hemp papers are best for Planet Earth, but rice papers are the finest/thinnest papers on the market.
• Invest in a reusable filter for your joints to do your bit for the environment.

Find Your Rolling Style

Creating your own rolling style is personal work. There are thousands of tutorials online and in magazines that describe how to actually roll a joint, so do some reading or watching and educate yourself about the actual work behind joint rolling shapes. Here are a few examples of different joint shapes:

Cone (image of cone shaped joint)

Pinner (image of thin joint)

Ciggie-style (image of normal looking cigarette thickness joint)

Do You Filter?

Using a filter in a joint prevents the paper and cannabis from getting soggy, and keeps the sweet weed in the joint and out of your mouth. Filters can be made of folded or rolled cardboard, or you can buy glass and wooden filter tips to insert into your joints. The glass and wood ones are reusable!

Papers in Endless Sizes

Ok, so you are probably aware that there are hundreds and thousands of brands of papers available to you when you wander into a smoke shop. It can be overwhelming if you do not know where to start; a nightmare if you have no idea! (Measurements will vary slightly depending on the manufacturer.) If you end up with the wrong papers, it’s no biggie, you’ll soon learn your preferences. The standard singles and king sizes are most commonly sold, and reputable brands include Raw, Rizla, Smoking, Elements, Zig Zag and Juicy Jays (flavored).

Single: Super common cigarette papers, perfect to share with someone or to smoke solo.

1 and ¼: An extra 25% larger than singles, this size paper is easy to roll into a cone shape and is great for sharing with friends if you’re not too greedy!

1 and ½: This less common size paper you can find in smoke shops. Suited to smoking with a small group of friends.

Double: Less popular and tricky to roll, doubles are double the width of a standard paper. Roll a fat fatty and blaze up!

King: An extra long paper designed to fit more cannabis inside and great for gatherings. Can share between 2-6 people. These papers are the second most popular after the standard size.

King Slim: My personal favorite, King Slims are a more slender version of the king size paper. Large and great for superstoners and family entertainment.

Spool: Cigarette paper that comes on a roll. Whaaaa! Make those joints as long as you can!

What Ya Smokin’?

The materials in joint papers vary: some are made from wood pulp or a blend of wood pulp and flax, but hemp and rice papers are usually more popular for smoking marijuana. Wood pulp papers have a horrid taste, and I prefer papers created from hemp or rice. Hemp papers are wonderful as they burn slowly and add a little flavor to the mix. Rice papers are very fine and burn more slowly and have little effect on flavor at all. Go for unbleached and unrefined papers!

Tobacco or No?

In Europe and Australia, smoking spliffs with cannabis AND tobacco is common, while in the USA the standard is smoking joints with cannabis only. Tobacco is gross and not a habit you want to start, so stay away from it if you are not already a smoker. Ditching tobacco from my spliffs was the best decision I made!