Dear first time roller,
You're in good hands. I made this site on how to roll a joint because I am amazing at rolling joints. I have probably rolled thousands in my life, and I'm always the guy that gets asked to roll.
Know what this also means? Free weed because you rolled. Ultimate fame. And you can smoke joints correctly without having to constantly re-light them.
Follow the instructions below. It's my technique on how to roll a joint, and trust me, it works very well. Practice makes perfect, but it's easy to make at least a decent one your first time if you have a pro, like me, teaching you.
Let's get started.
If you want, you can watch this video while reading the text for a visual.
STEP 1
First, let's get our materials assembled. Make sure you are in a windless room.
- Your weed. Grind it up so it's finely ground but not near powder. It doesn't matter too much, just easier to work with.
- Your rolling papers. If you don't have any you can find a nice selection here
- Steady hands.
- Your game face.
STEP 2
We're at the easy part right now. Open up your rolling paper and flatten it out a bit. Make it flat enough so that it can rest on the surface you are rolling on flat, but make sure you can still see the crease.
STEP 3
Place your weed in the joint. Put it near the crease of the rolling papers. As a general rule, use .5 - .8 in a single joint. This will make learning how to roll a joint easier and the joint will be smoother overall. You can make them skinnier or fatter, but they will get harder to handle. Now we can get to how to roll a joint.
STEP 4
Pick up your rolling paper with the weed in it. Hold it however is comfortable - despite what idiots say on Youtube, there is no correct way to hold it while rolling. Just do what's comfortable.
STEP 5
Now we're going to want to get the weed away from the crease and to the bottom of the rolling paper. To do this, pick up your paper and fold it over. Squeeze it slightly while "rolling" it down to the bottom. This is very hard to describe, but common sense will hit you if you do it wrong and try to continue.
STEP 6
The tuck.
Welcome to the hardest part of joint rolling. This will determine whether your joint is tight and good or loose and bad.
By now, you should have the weed at the bottom of the paper, so you only have paper available to you at the top. Try to guess in your head how much of that paper you will need to barely cover the weed completely with paper all around. Now, do the same motion that you did in step 5, except move it to where you thought in your head. Then, take the paper available on the bottom and tuck it behind the weed so that the weed is completely surrounded by paper once.
This is by far the hardest part of learning how to roll a joint so don't get discouraged if you can't do it at first. Don't be afraid to restart if it starts to get mangled, learning how to roll a joint is tough.
STEP 7
Now, you should have the joint surrounded once with paper and a lot of paper available at the top. Don't blow off step 6, if the joint is too loose, it will burn poorly. Simply wrap the remaining paper tightly around the shell you have already created.
STEP 8
Stop when you get to the sticky strip and a little bit of paper. Lick HALF of the sticky paper and finish off HALF of your joint. If it looks good, lick the other half and put it on. If you mess up, just undo it. If you do the entire thing at once, there's no undoing your actions and you will have to redo the entire thing (which is okay, this stuff happens when trying to learn how to roll a joint.)
STEP 9
Twist one end of the joint so it's shut. This is the side you will light and it's also helpful if you are using a filter. Smooth...
STEP 10 (optional)
...transition. If your papers are normal size, you're going to want a filter. This will prevent you from burning your face off if you need to re-light your joint and makes it easier to save the weed if you want to save the roach. (Roach: the part of a joint left over after smoking that you can't smoke without burning your mouth).
There's nothing fancy about this. Just take a piece of a notecard and fold it up for your filter or use part of your rolling paper pack. Insert it into the opposite side that is twisted. It will give you a nice cushion between lips and flame. It'll also make the smoke less harsh by a little bit. It'll also pack your weed even tighter.
STEP 11
Hold joint in mouth, inhale, and light. Your face will feel hot, suck it up. Re-light as needed if you rolled a bad joint - most don't know how to roll a joint well their first time.
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My guide on how to roll a blunt
Find yourself wasting a lot of weed? Joints waste weed in general. The end of the joint is always cherried, meaning it's always burning, even when you are not inhaling. THC is burned and you get less THC than if the weed only burned when you were inhaling. If you are tight on funds, use a pipe or bong, but joints are stealthier and easier overall.
Are Joints Safe?
Surprisingly, they are pretty safe. Clear rolling papers are contain no extra toxins or chemicals and definately aren't plastic. Inhaling them is fairly safe.
The stuff you have to watch out for is added into them. For example, flavor. Inhaling some papers with flavor might be hazardous to your health.
What it comes down to is you're still inhaling smoke. Inhaling smoke is bad for you in itself, but through a joint isn't worse unless you start modifying the papers. If you want to be completely healthy, make edibles or use a vaporizer.
Do Joints Waste Weed?
When I'm teaching people how to roll a joint, they almost always ask me if I waste weed with joints. My answer: no.
First off, bowls can cherry too. Have you ever had a bowl cherry all the way through it? A group can still get some great hits off that. You don't really notice any substantial waste of weed - same with a joint. The exception is if it's windy out - the wind makes the joint burn like it's constantly being hit. If it's windy, you WILL waste weed.
That noted, you can't learn how to roll a joint with a tiny bit of weed. If you don't have a lot, stick to the bowls.
Should I Start With Joints?
If it's your first time smoking, don't learn how to roll a joint. Why?
Joints are harsh during the time you spend on how to roll a joint. Since you will have virgin lungs, you will get destroyed by the smoke. Even worse, you will probably cough with smoke in your lungs, causing your lungs to be on fire and be extremely uncomfortable for at least 10 minutes.
Joints are fragile. If you learn how to roll a joint, you know just how delicate they are. A first time smoker won't know the ropes - he might drop it, inhale too hard, or crush it with his fingers. This will waste weed and will piss everyone off, including the roller who knows how to roll a joint.
Finally, they look too much like cigs. If a first time smoker is on the edge and you offer him a joint, he might decline because he makes the connection to cigarettes.
Only learn how to roll a joint if you have smoked a few times before or smoke cigarettes.
Join the movement - get the word out that marijuana isn't harmful at NORML!