Hello everyone, my name is Erik, and I like Raw Rolling Machines, and I’m not ashamed to say that!
There. It’s out in the open. I suck at rolling joints. I fully admit this is a massive weakness of mine, similar to my poor multiplication skills and horrible sense of direction.
Table of Contents
Can I improve hand rolling in the future? Sure, why not? For today, however, I simply suck at it, especially the tiny half-gram-sized joints I’m used to out of my Raw rolling machine!
Sorry if you’re confused here. I’m just trying to get out ahead of some negative stereotypes and stigmas regarding tokers suffering from joint rolling deficiency or just ‘JRD’ for short.
Naturally, we should all strive to become master hand rollers because it’s the most basic and also most versatile, although it’s not without its own flaws, which we’ll get into a little later.
Not being a proficiently mobile hand roller means you’re always relegated to pre-rolls when you travel because you’ll never remember to bring your Raw roller, and in some parts of the world, you wouldn’t want to fly with even that.
Fresh-packed pre-rolls with the whole flower from a single source are great, don’t get it twisted (or DO, for that matter and then spark it!), and so are the infused ones. Brands that come to memory include Highland Provisions and Kaviar Cones.
But suppose you’re exploring a new city and want not to get so blazed that trying to cross busy streets becomes a nightmare. In that case, you’re not looking for infused, which means you’re looking for a regular pre-roll, and this is a segment of the market that is absolutely inundated with basic-ass weed and shady actors.
When you buy whole flower, you see the plant in its completely natural form and can thus quite quickly make a few assumptions, including how fresh it is and how well grown and cured it was.
Dispensary-bought pre-rolls, on the other hand, can contain old weed, crappy weed, dry weed, and even the catchings from trim machines and processing plants.
Sure, it’ll get you high, and there ARE farms that are selling whole flower craft pre-rolls, but they’re not the majority.
As such, being able to buy whole flower which you then roll yourself, is the best way to go, although personally, I much prefer using a grinder to break up my buds than my fingers, so there’s still that to consider.
Pros of Rolling Machines
Rolling machines make the process more efficient and cleaner, and consistent. If you have access to a rolling machine, you can just as easily access a grinder and a Santa Cruz Shredder to grind your weed up all fluffy and consistently vs. having to break it up into little boogers with your sticky little fingers.
Rolling machines also make it easy to roll pins, which are relatively narrow joints. The prototypical hand-rolled joint will be either doobie-like with an elongated football shape (probably filter-less), or it will be more cone-like, with one end being fatter than the other, which probably contains a filter/crutch.
Being the Virginia Slims of the joint world is kind of pimp, in my opinion. They have nothing to prove. They’re not competing to be the biggest or baddest; they serve a well-measured purpose.
This is the type of smoking I enjoy; frequent, casual, and functional. The world is amazing, and I don’t want to be so zooted I under-appreciate its innate beauty.
You can buy different sizes of rolling machines and papers and roll anything from a .5 gram to usually a 1.5 gram King size bad boys.
Personally, I have the smaller 79mm Raw rolling machine that fits 1-1/4th papers and holds, I figure, about .5-.7 grams of flower. This is the perfect amount to break down into two satisfying little sessions, share with another person, or consume all yourself in one go to get thoroughly lit.
Rolling machines are dead simple to use. Rolling a good joint requires a bit of dexterity, especially with the smaller-sized rolling papers. You also probably want a rolling tray because, at the beginning, at least, you’ll probably be spilling a LOT of weed that you don’t want to waste.
Using a roller, on the other hand, you can grind up precisely what you need, dump it into a business card with a crease on one end, and funnel that directly into the rolling machine. No rolling tray or mess to clean up.
If you’re smoking somewhere, you shouldn’t or want to maintain a low profile in general. Rolling machines are great because the joints they produce look just like any other cigarette, so holding it in your hand and smoking it is pretty inconspicuous if the wind is blowing in your favor. Heck, they can be put in a regular cigarette box for super stealth (*legal) traveling!
But I don’t work for Raw (yet!), and the world isn’t all rainbows and soft golf putting grass that you could sleep on if you wanted. There are a few things that I think rolling machines are NOT great for, and I’ll outline these briefly below.
Potential Cons of Rolling Machines
Using a rolling machine is like using a flashlight for sex. Yeah, you can find what you’re looking for, but you’re totally going to kill the mood too.
Okay, so perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Still, the point stands that 10/10 times rolling up a structurally solid joint by hand is massively more impressive than the utterly clerical act of using a joint rolling machine is.
Another negative alluded to previously was the fact that most rolling machines spit out tubular cigarette-looking joints. In my opinion, there are so many more advantages to cones that they are easily my favorite go-to way to blaze.
Having a roller is also detrimental in the way it becomes a bit of a crutch on which you build a dependency, so as mentioned, when you’re out and about, traveling, or just on a special mission and you don’t have it, you’re kind of fucked or at least going to have a slightly sub-optimal time with your limp dicked amateur sloppy jay.
Your Path Is Up To You
Look, I’m not saying joints that are made with a Raw rolling machine or any other manual hand roller device are the “be all, end all” of toking. In fact, I’m pretty sure cones are the superior form of personal burning, given the cone-like design.
All that said, I’ve used my Raw machine successfully for the last three years and it spits out pins that are pretty much the PERFECT size for me and where I’d like to keep my tolerance for the time being.
A pin a day, usually shared, so technically, approximately .25 grams worth is a very modest amount of bud consumption, I think most would agree.
As such, my tolerance level rarely gets out of hand, usually only when traveling, and I’m blazing pretty much 24/7 then, but yeah, sticking with Raw one-and-a-quarter papers, I’m keeping my ship even-keeled, and ain’t that what life’s all about?
So if you suck at rolling, want to roll small joints, or just prefer using mechanical advantages, I highly encourage you to check out the Raw roller.
If you can roll mad phatties in your sleep with your eyes closed behind your back, then well, you know what, that’s pretty fucking sick. Mad respect.
This world is big enough for all types of people and rolling methods, with the shared ultimate goal of just blazing a bit of green earth’s finest, or sciences most advanced if it’s hydro.
