Puff N Ponder #9

Puff n Ponder

With Papa Jefe

Where are we in the world of joints.

What's been and what will be?

"Lick it, stick it and light it up" - Graffiti in the 90's

We've come a long way from when our ancestors used to just throw the funky plant in the fire and flood the caverns with smoke, or from the beautiful mixes of sweet grass, tobacco, hemp and coco bean of the wooden peace pipe. Many methods were used, created and reinvented to consume this wonderful plant.

One thing caught on and caught on well - joints. Much like the cigar and cigarette, joints are easy to handle, consume and dispose of. The convenience factor here is massive and that is its biggest redeeming quality.

The days of asking your buddy to roll you one or a half dozen are far from over but steadily becoming a request that happens less and less. The reason: reasonably priced pre-rolls.

Let's explore the history, present and future of pre-rolls;

In the beginning there was flower, and man said let there be an easier method to get high; pre rolls were being made and made poorly. Within the first few years your joints came in three formats: One gram single, one half gram single and a three pack of half grams. No infusion, no straight cut, or large formats. It was written in the unholy health Canada cannabis book that no single pre roll could weigh more than one gram, which tied the hands of many.

There was one machine, one machine to roll them all. Okay well maybe not roll; more like bounce. The Futurola machine was a knock box that made 100 joints every three and a half minutes. Which isn't terrible by any stoners standard but that's not including prep, weighers, twisters and packers. This was mass production pre-rolls.

Small shifts came, pivotal points in the industry that only a few actually cared about. "Rolling" machines were getting bigger and more industrial, the Rocketbox came rolling out with a beast of a machine that could make four hundred and fifty three joints every three and a half minutes if done correctly. More fully automated machines came out with custom designs, production speeds and finished ends (ex. Twisted or Dutch crown.) Now production has gone from a hundred in three minutes to a few thousand every half hour. The times, they are changin’.

One of the small shifts was bringing back a classic; Blunts but with a non tobacco twist. Sure there's always been hemp wraps to look like cigars but how did the industry go? Camomile pressed wraps, hemp wraps and whatever else they use. (It's mostly the Camomile btw) This caused a stir, not an uprising, but the market was divided on the "blunt'' and with that going on the 10 packs cigarette style snuck onto the market. JUST LIKE THE CIGARETTE!! Cigars weren't selling as much so the cigarillo was born for women to start smoking cigars, then went the way of the cigarette for a "healthier living".... but that's off topic.

So we got one gram joints, three packs of half gram joints, single blunts 1g, three packs of half gram blunts and ten packs of cigarette style point three fives. This wasn't enough! We demanded more variety!

Ten pack half gram joints barged on to the scene with a super tiny splash, fifty plus dollars for pre rolled cannabis was a tough sell. Especially if you couldn't guarantee the burn (Yes, I only get asked that when it's a 10 pack of half grams.)

Some time passed, and life was interesting. Distillate carts were almost 40$ for a half gram, cannabis was still packed in a jar but not in a box anymore and cannabis life was kinda decent. The competition was fierce for pretty much everything in the industry but my gawd there were so many freaking kinds of pre-rolls. Blends, mixer packs and straight strains! But the race was to the bottom dollar value for the longest time. Which is sad because the joints were, are and continues to be poorly packed, twisted and ground.

Pre-rolls got a little boring and just a sea of similar looking tubes or bags. (Yeah some companies just throw loose joints in a pouch!) Now cue Sundial to make some very interesting moves with their Top leaf brand's caviar cones. These were a mix of winterized oil, kief and cannabis. The first few lots were a mess. They clogged so hard you'd have to cut the filter off to smoke them, but they were the first to show an over thirty percentage on a joint

Then it was an arms race to create the biggest baddest infused pre roll out there. Many companies tried and had major issues and losses. In comes a brand that was like a fish out of water, struggling to stay alive - General Admission.

This company came out as Qwest’s cheap adopted cousin and didn't do much but produce some of the worst carts since Saturday was a thing.

General Admission dominated the market with their version of a moon rocket. That's a joint dipped in oil then rolled in kief. The flavor is all in the oil masking whatever blend of flowers their using. A one gram option and a three pack of half grams. These move and go fast.

There are way better methods of infusions but GA tastes like candy and not weed whatsoever. There are many like it but none quite like it. So now that distillate has made its huge splash, what else are we going to use for infusions?? Anything that can go in a joint does. Hash, shatter, kief, botanical terps, terp sauce and THCA diamonds just to name a few.

After all of this we finally got cannagars, a whomping TWO GRAM MONSTER - I mean beauty. Buddy Blooms and El Blunto are the ones worth mentioning on the recreational market. This doesn't even include the novelty joints, UP did a 24k gold joint with the strain 24k, Tenzo with the diamond infused cross joint and the wrapped and redee candy cane filter joints. There's more but it's just fluff.

What's left?

I get asked this a lot.

A few things come to mind from the legacy days. “The Tulip" a large bulb of cannabis at the end of a large joint, “The Plumbers joint" a joint with a tube in the middle to help clogging and helps with a constant burn, and “the Sherbet" a joint rolled with layers of different strains. I'd say more but I can't show all my cards.

There's always something around the corner, there's always something to smoke.

The joint craze will never end, there's something beautiful about lighting up a perfectly rolled joint and destroying it one puff at a time.

As always

Peace, love and pre-rolls

- Papa Jefe

These opinions and views are mine and mine alone, as they do not reflect those of Cannaviews.ca.

**there's a lot that I left out, rewrote and redid because this is an ever changing category with no cemented in timelines for pre-rolls in the legal recreational market**