How To Roll A Joint

Just like in cooking, things go more smoothly when you do your mise-en-place. That means getting all your materials and equipment ready to roll, so you’re not scrambling when you need ‘em. For our purposes, here are the steps you should take before you start rolling:

• Grind up your flower. You can do this by hand, with scissors, a hand grinder, or even an electric grinder – it doesn’t matter too much, but the smaller and more uniformly you’re able to break it up, the better. Some folks prefer larger chunks in their joints, citing a stronger effect; but if you ask me, the best results always come from finely ground, uniform bud. 

• Roll up your filter. The width/thickness of the filter will determine the final thickness of your joint, so make sure to roll the filter to your desired size. If there’s too much filter material, causing the rolled filter to be too thick, just tear off some of the material.

• Get your (optional) tools ready. If you plan on using a poking tool or credit card, make sure they’re close at hand. You don’t want to be caught with a half-rolled joint in your hands, unable to reach the supplies you need.

Now we’re ready to start on the hardest part – the rolling process itself.

With your flower ground up and your materials prepared, it’s time to roll yourself a joint. Start by holding your paper in between your thumb and middle finger, with your index providing support in the center. Which end the filter goes in depends on personal preference – most prefer the left side, but others (myself included) prefer the right. Take some time to determine which feels more comfortable for you.

Pro tip: if using a filter, let it hang out the end of the joint by about ¼ inch. This will let you push it in when you’re done, creating a nice firm filter with no loose material at the bottom.

Next, add the ground weed to the paper. Use your left hand (or right, depending on which you’re using to hold the paper) to smooth out the weed in the paper until it’s nice and even. The shape of the weed now will determine the final shape of your joint, so make sure it looks how you want it to at this stage.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky – the next step is to pinch the two sides of the paper over the weed contained within, and carefully roll it back and forth until the ground flower is formed into a tube shape. This is where your joint really takes form.

Next, the hardest part of all – colloquially known as “The Tuck” (ok, I just made that name up), the goal of this step is to tuck the edge of the paper without glue into the crevice between the shaped tube of weed and the far edge of the paper. I wish I could tell you that there’s a silver bullet solution for this step, but it just takes a bit of practice to get it right. If you’re really struggling, you can use a credit card to help tuck it in – just use the corner of the card to tuck the edges together.

Once you’ve got your paper tucked, all you’ve gotta do is roll it up – use a firm grip to keep the consistency and shape of the joint, roll it up, lick the sticky, and finish rolling to seal it.

If you’re using a filter, now’s the time to push in that remaining ¼”, firming up the base of the joint. Some people prefer to add the filter after rolling, rather than rolling with a filter in – if that’s you, now’s the time to add your filter.

That’s it – you’re done! You’ve just rolled a joint from scratch! Let it dry for a minute, then spark it up – you’ve earned it.

The obvious answer, and probably what you’ve been doing already – if you find rolling joints too tricky, or too time-consuming, you can always use a pipe, bong, or even a gravity bong to smoke weed with.

Some brands like OCB offer pre-rolled cones that you can simply pack with ground flower. This is one of the easiest options out there for rolling your own joints – no skill at all required. Just pack, tamp, smoke.

Some dispensaries and online weed stores offer pre-rolled joints, taking the labor and guesswork out of smoking joints entirely. With pre-rolled joints, all you need to do is take ‘em out of the pack and light ‘em up. These are a great option for when you can’t be bothered to roll your own.