Want to roll a joint like a pro? It’s an art that few have mastered, and definitely not something that people are good at just because they’ve smoked weed for a long time. There are some gnarly-looking joints out there rolled by veteran cannabis users. The good news is that in a few minutes, this guide will teach you how to roll a joint properly.
Let’s dive in.
How to Roll a Joint
First off, if you’re wondering how to make a marijuana joint look like the beautiful, perfectly symmetrical joints you see on YouTube videos and your TV screen, get that thought out of your head. (For now, at least.)
Start small—your first objective should be to pack up and roll a joint evenly and neatly. You can focus on really stuffing it later.
Step 1: Grab your supplies for rolling marijuana.
Before you learn how to make a joint, you need to make sure you have all the gear you need.
- Weed – Get some (ideally at least half a gram) of the strain (or strains) of cannabis you want to smoke.
- A grinder (or scissors) to grind up the aforementioned weed.
- Rolling papers – These range from delicate, translucent papers to thicker tobacco papers. You can also roll a joint with cigarette paper if you want. Just bear in mind that you should use good-quality papers (meaning not any paper you find lying around at home) and typically, the paper will dictate if you’re rolling a joint or a blunt
- A filter, aka. a crutch, aka. a tip – You can make this yourself, which is really easy, or it may come with your rolling papers
- A pencil or something narrow and long that you can use to pack the joint later.
Step 2: Grind the weed up.
Using either scissors or a grinder (there are many different types), grind up your weed. Unless you have a very specific preference, it’s okay to just do it roughly—if the weed is ground up too finely, it’ll be hard to get a good hit from the joint later.
Step 3: Get your filter (or make one).
Some people like to roll joints without filters, but we’re not animals here. Every joint needs a good filter or crutch. If your rolling papers didn’t come with one, just make one out of a piece of card or really stiff paper. (Business cards are great.) Do a few accordion folds with the card and roll up the remainder of the card or paper until it’s roughly the same diameter of your joint. Congrats, now you won’t burn yourself or eat your ground up weed by accident. (Another reason you don’t want to grind up your cannabis too finely is because it’ll just fall through these folds of the filter and into your mouth.)
Step 4: Fill and pack.
Depending on how much you want to smoke, place half a gram to a gram of ground-up weed on your rolling paper. Start rolling and shaping your joint. It’s a delicate process, so take your time
Once you’ve loaded and shaped your joint, it’s time to roll it. The easiest way to roll a joint is to make a pinching gesture with your fingers (both hands) and roll the paper back and forth into a joint shape.
Step 5: Roll it up.
The best way to roll a joint is to start at the end with the filter. If you don’t have a filter then it doesn’t matter which end you start at. Tuck the paper’s unglued side into the roll. Lick the glued edge and stick it down to hold that end in place. Now you can continue rolling down the rest of the joint, gluing the paper down as you go. It’ll take some practice for this step to go truly smoothly, but that’s essentially how to roll the perfect joint.
Step 6: Pack it in and light it up.
You’re almost there! Use your pencil or another long and narrow object to push and pack in the end of the joint to make sure everything’s even.
What’s the Difference Between a Joint vs a Blunt?
Are a joint and a blunt the same thing? You wouldn’t be the first—or the last—to ask this question. There’s actually not a big difference between joints and blunts—they both only contain weed.
The only thing that distinguishes the two is the fact that you roll joints with see-through-ish, thin rolling papers, while blunts are rolled with thicker (usually brown) tobacco paper. That’s pretty much it. However, this one seemingly small difference leads to a few other differences.
For example, when it comes to rolling blunts vs joints, you can pack in more weed in blunts because of the nature of the paper. Blunts’ thicker rolling papers also affect the taste of the weed a bit more, partially because the rolling papers contain tobacco.
What’s Healthier, Blunts or Joints?
Even though neither are super healthy for you in the marijuana blunt vs joint debate , blunts are slightly less healthy than joints because of the added tobacco and nicotine in the rolling papers.
How to Roll a Spliff Step by Step
Just joking. Spliffs are rolled pretty much the same way as joints, so just follow the steps above.
Pro-tip: Spliffs contain both weed and tobacco. That means that unlike blunts, where the tobacco comes from the rolling paper, spliffs actually contain tobacco. If you’re looking for that burst of energy and headrush that comes with smoking cigarettes but you don’t want to actually smoke a cigarette, a spliff could be an option.
There are many different types of spliffs and joints, each with its own shape and design (re: Spliffigami), so experiment and see which one works best for you.
