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How to vote on Proposition 119

Unless you’d like to start paying a 25% tax on legal marijuana, you need to vote no. Actually, you need to stand on a street corner holding a big sign that says “vote no on Proposition 119” because it’s extortionate.

Do you know what’s hilarious? Way back when Amendment 64 was adopted, thereby creating the legal cannabis market here in Colorado, it said that marijuana would be “taxed in a manner similar to alcohol,” but guess what? That little tidbit was straight-up ignored by our politicians (which, coincidentally, is why nobody likes politicians).

Currently, alcohol is taxed at 8.4% here in Durango, and Marijuana is taxed at a 20.5% rate, which is two and a half times higher.

Granted, I have a degree in English, so I might have a better grasp on basic definitions than politicians, but still, “two and a half times” is nowhere near “similar,” so the madness needs to stop; that brings us to Proposition 119. If this initiative were to pass, the tax rate you pay for legal, recreational marijuana would slowly climb over a period of three years from 20.5% to 25.5%, which is insane. We’d move even further away from the “similarity” that was supposed to exist between marijuana and alcohol tax, and we’d once again be asking legal, adult marijuana smokers to pay more than their fair share. It’s not cool, and it’s not American, no matter which side of the aisle you sit.

The money from this tax would go to after-school programs for underprivileged students, and that’s the rub. It makes you sound like Ebenezer Scrooge if you stand on a soapbox and demand that more money not be given to underprivileged students, but I promise that’s not the case. If you read the fine print of this initiative, if we pass it, the state will also take $22 million out of our state land trust to fund the bill initially, and that money would otherwise go to general school funding. So, we’d be taking from kids to give to kids.

Look. For the record, I have children. The people who own this dispensary have children. We do everything in our lives for our children, and we care about kids in general. But disproportionately hurting our industry isn’t the way to help them. Just think about our underprivileged customers: should we really make the unemployed veterans who come in here for relief pay more for their cannabis? What about the cancer patients who come in trying to stimulate their appetites, or the ones who are trying to make the horrors of chemotherapy more bearable with weed? Are these really the people who should bear the burden of higher tax rates while family-ruining alcohol escapes unscathed?

And here comes the most ridiculous part: the proponents of Proposition 119 say it’d generate over $137 million annually, but that’s a lie. It would only generate that much money if people kept purchasing marijuana at the rate they did last year, which simply will not happen if we make it all 5% more expensive. One of the reasons for this is that the illegal cannabis market here in Colorado is still alive and well, and if the legal stuff gets taxed more, the illegal stuff will take more of the market share. It’s all just simple, infallible logic (you know, the kind not possessed by your average, greedy, baby-kissing politician).

For real, if all that you just read sounded a bit vitriolic, I apologize. It’s just that most of us in this over-regulated, over-taxed industry have become jaded. In fact, I wrote THIS article over four years ago the last time our industry was put into the crosshairs of avarice, and nothing has changed since then. Cannabis is still seen as a newly legalized, unnecessary thing by the old guard, and whenever a financial shortcoming is discovered, the powers that be turn once again to cannabis taxes to bridge the gap without even looking at other revenue sources such as an increased alcohol tax. It sucks, and we need your help fighting it.

So, please, please, please, vote “no” on Proposition 119. We don’t want to charge you more than we already do just to come buy some legal weed that’s already over-taxed. We want to keep things fair and legal, and we want to continue providing you with the same affordable quality you’ve become accustomed to here at The Greenery, because We’re Your Best Buds!

Why is pot called pot?

No… it’s not because you grow pot in a pot. That would be way too obvious. Nowadays, when the younger generation drinks alcohol and smokes pot at the same time, they call it “getting cross-faded,” but the combination of alcohol and marijuana is nothing new. In fact, the Spaniards started preserving marijuana (and other herbs) with alcohol a couple thousand years ago. It wasn’t long before they discovered that alcohol infused with marijuana gets you “cross-faded” when you drink it, so they named it “Potacion de Guaya,” which was later shortened to “potiguaya,” and then finally shortened all the way to “pot.” Interesting tidbit: “Potacion de Guaya” means “drink of grief” because sipping it turns your frown upside-down.

Wasn’t that fun? Etymology is probably my favorite ology, so with this blog, I’ve decided to dig into the roots of some of today’s biggest cannabis slang words and tell you where they come from, because learning something new is always good.

That leads us to “weed,” which isn’t nearly as interesting as “pot.” Here’s the big reveal: weed is called “weed” because it’s a weed, plain and simple. In fact, some marijuana species, such as Cannabis ruderalis, are “ruderals,” which is a scientific term used for hearty plants that can grow anywhere, even where they’re not wanted, ergo “weed.” But nowadays, you won’t see the word “weed” anywhere on social media because the tech giants like Facebook and Twitter have special algorithms that hunt for weed posts just to delete them. So instead, you’ll see “ouid” used everywhere because it’s a play on the French word “oui” (which means “yes”) that’s pronounced “wee.” If you put a “d” on the end of “oui,” it sounds like “weed,” but more importantly, it circumvents those algorithms and allows stoners say “weed” all they want on social media. Next time you’re on Instagram, search for “#ouid” if you don’t believe me; you’ll find al the cannabis posts you’ve been missing.

Honestly, there are over 200 documented slang terms for marijuana (you can find the complete list HERE thanks to Wikipedia), and most of them are hilarious, such as “jazz cabbage” or “pakalolo,” which is Hawaiian for “crazy tobacco.” There’s also “dro,” which is one of the syllables in “hydroponic,” (which is a popular way of growing cannabis without soil), and “indo,” which many people think refers to Indonesian cannabis, but in reality, it’s just short for pot that’s grown “indoors.” Actually, many cannabis slang terms are misunderstood, but none more so than “sinsemilla.”

I have no clue how many times an elderly smoker has come in and asked if we have any “sinsemilla” because he’s been looking for it ever since that “one time in the sixties” he got to try some. But unfortunately, this is nothing more than a case of “the good ol’ days” syndrome. You see, the definition of “sinsemilla” is “seedless, feminized marijuana.” And guess what? Just about 100% of what we sell is seedless, feminized marijuana. Just like with all green leafy plants, cannabis comes in male or female—the males create pollen, and the females create seeds. Way back in the sixties before they had fancy things like legal indoor grows, cannabis was grown in clandestine outdoor fields where the bud-producing females couldn’t always be isolated from the pollen-producing males, and when a female plant gets pollinated, it starts creating seeds instead of buds, which diminishes the THC percentage. That’s why old-school pot was always full of seeds and didn’t get you that high.

But now, “sinsemilla” is all that exists in modern dispensaries, and thanks to breeding and newer growing techniques, it’s way better than anything anyone tried that “one time in the sixties.” I hate to tell you this, Mr. elderly smoker, but you’ve been smoking sinsemilla every time you’ve smoked the pot you bought legally at a modern dispensary, it’s way better than the pot you remember from the sixties, and the only reason you won’t stop talking about “sinsemilla” is that you yearn for the “good ol’ days” of your youth.

But then again, I might be in the same boat because I cannot stand the fact that dealers are now called “plugs.” The word “plug” is a simple gerund (a verb that’s used as a noun) used to describe a drug dealer because that’s who you go see to get “plugged in” or “hooked up,” and I cannot stand the term because it makes buying pot sound salacious and secretive. In fact, Plug Brand is a highly popular clothing company that makes sweatshirts emblazoned with the word “Plug” just so a bunch of not-plugs can walk around looking cool. Just stop. All this does is strengthen the stereotype that marijuana is an illicit thing, and that’s something our entire industry has been working tirelessly to erode. When you go to a bar, you’re talking to a bartender, not an “alcohol plug,” much in the same way that marijuana is purchased properly from a budtender, not a plug. Pot is mainstream and legal; it’s time to start using words that reflect this truth.

Alright… I’m down off my soapbox. Let’s wrap this up with an examination of “chronic” and “dutchie,” because they’re both misunderstood. Per the former, no, Dr. Dre didn’t coin the term “chronic” via his seminal 1992 album, “The Chronic.” And no, Snoop Dog isn’t correct in his assertion that he came up with the term by shortening another word he invented, “hydrochronic.” The term “chronic” was first used in conjunction with drugs in the late 1940s to describe a “chronic user,” which is someone who uses this or that substance habitually and long-term. The word “chronic” was then applied to the drug itself if it was abnormally strong with long-term affects; Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre simply made it famous fifty years later.

Lastly, not all joints or pre-rolls can be called “dutchies,” even if you pass them on the left-hand side like we learned from that Musical Youth song from 1983. In fact, “Dutchie” is a name-brand thing, because in order for a blunt to be called a Dutchie, it needs to be rolled with a Dutch Masters cigar—they’ve been sold in the US since 1912, and since they’ve always been so affordable compared to other brands, they were the cheapest to buy, hollow out, and fill with pot. This perfect storm led the term “dutchie” to become nearly synonymous with joint or blunt, even though it’s not entirely accurate.

Thank you for reading all of that! I’m a straight-up pot and word nerd, so when the two things come together, I can ramble on forever; I just appreciate the fact that you took the time to slog through my diatribe. But if you too are a pot/word nerd, I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope you come by to visit our Durango dispensary at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Bodo Park, because no matter what you call “pot,” We’re Your Best Buds!

What makes purple marijuana purple?

Anthocyanins are what make purple pot purple. I wanted to answer that right off the bat without a rambling preamble just in case you googled something about purple weed and came here for a quick answer. But the real reason I’m writing this blog is twofold: one, The Greenery Grow is famous for purple weed and we have eight new and exotic strains in this category that I’d like to tell you about, and two, there’s a glut of misinformation out there about purple pot, so I wanted to set the record straight. We’ll start with the latter first…

Per the most common and completely inaccurate rumors surrounding purple pot, the three I hear most often are, “purple weed doesn’t get you as high,” or, “purple marijuana is always an indica,” or, “any strain of marijuana can turn purple if you grow it in cold conditions.” All three are false. Anthocyanins are nothing more than water-soluble vacuolar pigments that show up in nearly all flowering plants. They’re what make roses red and violets violet, and since they’re water-soluble, they’ve been used as dies forever—in fact, when colonial Americans used blueberries for purple dyes, they did so thanks to blueberry anthocyanins.

In the realm of cannabis, anthocyanins are categorized alongside flavonoids, which are polyphenolic metabolites that exist in a variety of fruits, vegetables, and weeds such as marijuana. Flavonoids are not psychoactive, and they don’t influence your high in the slightest when you smoke them, so per the first myth I mentioned, it’s completely impossible for the purple anthocyanins that exist in purple pot to stop you from getting high. Purple pot still contains THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, and the anthocyanins don’t diminish THC percentages in lab tests, so if you think purple pot doesn’t get you as high as the green stuff, it’s all in your head.

Secondly, per purple pot always being an indica varietal, this is another big fat “nope.” After all, Sativa and Indica cultivars are in fact members of the exact same species, so they can both contain anthocyanins. Fuel Biscuits and Bazookies #10 are both sativa-dominant hybrids that we grow and sell right here in Durango, and sometimes, they both turn out just as purple as a grape, which shoots a gaping hole in that indica-only claim. But I know how this rumor started, so we should get into that, too.

Chlorophyll is the most dominant pigment in cannabis, just as it is with other leafy plants, and it’s green. If you’ll remember your lessons from high school biology, chlorophyll lives in the chloroplasts of plant cells, and it’s the compound most critical to photosynthesis, wherein plants transform light into energy. When it comes to deciduous trees (the ones that lose all their leaves in the fall), the chloroplasts lose their integrity right before the leaves fall, which allows the green chlorophyll to escape, thereby turning the leaf a different color, such as red or yellow. This is what draws hordes of tourists to Durango so they can drive slowly and see all the pretty colors. And with marijuana, the exact same thing happens as the plant starts to mature: less chlorophyll is produced, and some is lost, so the anthocyanins become the dominant pigment, thereby coloring the pot purple. This happens more quickly in cold temperatures, much like those seen naturally outdoors in autumn.

Now, as you may or may not know, Indica varietals of cannabis originated around China and India (the “ind” in “India” gave “indica” its name) where the temperatures are cooler, so Indica cultivars grow best in colder conditions than the ones in which sativa strains thrive. So, when cultivators grow indica strains, they usually lower the temperature, and this triggers the autumnal degradation of chlorophyll that I just told you about, and that’s why indica strains are purple more often than sativa strains. It’s not because indica strains contain more anthocyanins than sativa strains, but rather, it’s because cold temperatures bring out the anthocyanins more strongly, and indica strains are grown most commonly in colder environments. Get it?

Per the last myth, that “any strain of marijuana can be purple if you grow it in cold conditions,” guess what? Not all anthocyanins are purple. Some of them are orange or red or yellow, or even dark or bright green. And it’s the innate genetics of a plant that decides which anthocyanins are present in the flowers, not the growing environment nor the sativa/indica designation. So yes, it’s true that if you grow any strain of marijuana in cold conditions, the anthocyanins will become more apparent given the reduction in chlorophyll production, but sometimes, the plant will turn red or yellow, not purple, because it doesn’t contain the purple anthocyanins thanks to genetics. So, no, it’s not possible to turn all strains of pot purple with differing growing temperatures because the plant needs to be born with purple anthocyanins to turn purple, and not all of them are.

Alright… now that we’ve set the record straight per three common purple-pot myths, it’s time to get into the nine purps varietals that we grow and sell here in Durango (“purps” is the slag term for purple cannabis cultivars, but you already knew that if you’re a fan of rap music). Here they are:

1.) Truth Serum was bred in the Midwest via a three-way cross between G13, Trinity, and Pineapple. The resulting cultivar has very dense buds and the classic green-with-orange-hairs look you’d expect, albeit with a touch of purple, and the tropical nose is dank and classic. Truth Serum is packed with terpenes such as Limonene and Pinene for an uplifting high that’s balanced on the other side of the spectrum with ß-Caryophyllene, ß -Myrcene, and Linalool. Expect a thoroughly relaxing smoke that’s perfect for evenings or weekend mornings from this Indica-leaning hybrid.

2.) Bazookies #10 is a strain made famous by the Front Range right here in Colorado, which is something we helped accomplish given that we’ve started growing this wonderful cultivar. It’s a cross between Bubblegum and Girl Scout Cookies, but the nose you’d expect is replaced by hops and grass, and the plant itself is a lovely dark green/purple covered with so many crystals it looks like a saltshaker was used. Rich in the terpenes ß-Caryophyllene,  ß -Myrcene, Humulene, and Limonene, we’ve designated this strain as a Sativa, but don’t let that fool you because the goldilocks high is perfect for any time of day.

3.) Violet Vixen = Purple Punch X Jet Fuel Gelato. This strain produces smaller, dense buds that are perfect for pipes. The flower itself is highlighted with purple hues (ergo the “violet”), and the nose is dominated by hints of sour grape, sweet berries, and a touch of herbal bliss. This sativa-dominant hybrid is perfect for daytime smoking, or for those nights when you want to stay up giggling.

4.) Gelato. Sometimes called “Larry Bird” or “Gelato 33,” this indica-leaning hybrid was bred via a cross between Thin Mint GSC and Sunset Sherbet. This fruity, deep-purple bud has a creamy taste and high that transcends normal pot.

5.) Purple Sunset #4 is a specific phenotype Purple Sunset first bred and grown by Ethos Genetics. This strain is a breeder’s mashup of Mandarin Sunset, Mandarin Cookies, and Purple Punch, and the nose on this one is just as complex as you’d imagine with spicy notes of fuel mingling with floral citrus. Expect a nice, laidback high from this strain with a touch of berries on the palette. Oh, yeah… and it’s purple.

6.) Tropicana Cookies was first created by Harry Palms (from Bloom Seed Co.) by crossing Tangie and Girl Scout Cookies. The Cookies flavor comes through dominantly with this varietal, but there are plenty of citrus notes and sweetness on the backend, almost like sugar on your lips. Expect slightly purple buds covered with red hairs, as well as an awesome smoke from Tropicana Cookies.

7.) Garlicane is a rare indica-dominant cultivar created by crossing Slurricane and GMO. GMO stands for “Garlic, Mushrooms, Onion,” and the garlic terpene came through strongly in Garlicane, thus the name. Expect a deep and down high from this varietal with plenty of funk on the pallet. These purple buds are beautiful, so if you’re an Indica lover, you’re missing out by not giving Garlicane a try.

8.) Borealis is a deeply purple strain that was created via a cross of two deep indica varietals, Northern Lights and Skunk #1. This strain will be fruity and sweet on the pallet, but there’s a heavy serving of hash on the exhale with a touch of skunk. Borealis brings with it a dreamy, sedative high, but it’s subtle enough to avoid couchlock. If you’re a fan of Indica strains, you need to get in here and see this stuff immediately. Borealis is extremely terpene rich with  Limonene, ß-Caryophyllene, Pinene, Linalool, and Ocimene.

And that’s that! Chances are that no matter when you shop, we’ll have one of these eight purple pot strains available for sale, but just in case, you should always check our online flower menu HERE before showing up if you’d like to try putting purple pot in your pipe. But please, even if you simply want to see or smell the best purple pot in Durango, feel free to swing by for a free peek and sniff, because when it comes to purple cannabis, We’re Your Best Buds!

$10 Joints in Durango

Do you know what’s ironic? When weed was legalized here in Colorado, coming up with regulations was left to the same politicians who’d fought to kept marijuana illegal for years. Crazy, right? That’d be like letting a fox watch the chickens if we got rid of coups, but it’s exactly what Colorado did. That’s why we have all sorts of nonsensical regulations like purchase limits for a plant that grows naturally out of the soil even though you can buy as much booze as you want. And more recently, it’s why our joints went up to $12 after tax as opposed to $10. Let me explain…

When we grew marijuana and rolled joints a couple years ago, the testing requirements were simple. And when we passed, we’d sell you the joints. The end. But earlier this year, the powers that be decided that a joint needed to be tested in its “final form,” paper and cardboard tip included. So now, we still have to test the flower, but once the joints are rolled, we also have to send a few of them to the lab where they’re put in a blender and then tested for potency, pesticides, microbials, heavy metals, and water content. It’s a bit much, and it’s more than a bit costly. So, we had no choice but to include that cost in our retail prices because that’s how business works, and as such, our joints went from ten bucks up to twelve earlier this year.

But that didn’t sit well with us. So, we did our research and changed our processes just like a bunch of scientists, and our joints became “process validated” by the state. I won’t go into the specifics because they’re boring, but long story short, it means we’ll save on testing costs, which means we can pass that savings along to you. So, that’s what we’re doing.

Effective immediately, all our fat, one-gram pre-rolls are going back to $10 after tax like they used to be, which is exactly the way things should be. We still grow the flower for these joints right here in Durango, they’re still rolled locally, and they’re still the best in town, but now, they’re more affordable. And not for nothing, you should keep in mind that locals still get 10% off all full-priced items in our shop every day, so if you’re a Durangatang or one of our neighbors in Bayfield or Hesperus, our joints will cost you only $9 out-the-door, which isn’t something the other “local” shops can say.

And to sweeten the pot (pun intended), we’re bringing back our old-school Friday Daily Deal. This means that every Friday, if you walk into our shop and spend $60 after tax, we’ll sell you a full-gram joint for $1, which is simply awesome. For real, getting a big joint for a buck is the perfect kickoff to any weekend, so come see us at 208 Parker Avenue, or order online HERE. We’ll always have plenty of pre-rolls for you—we have two Sativa and two Indica options every day, along with our new Blunt Box and a couple different infused joints—and they’ll always be affordable, because We’re Your Best Buds!

How to Roll a Joint

I told my 7th grade English teacher that I’d never use the lessons she taught me about expository speeches—I did mine on “how to play the drums” because I was a band nerd—but I was wrong. Thirty-something years later, it looks like today is the day, because I’m going to teach you how to roll a joint.

And it’s an important lesson to learn because the skill is dying slowly, which is unfortunate, but to be expected. Right here in our Durango dispensary, we sell four different kinds of flower pre-rolls, a solventless infused joint, a BHO joint, and the all-new Blunt Box, which contains six awesome blunts that you don’t have to roll yourself, so why would you ever need to roll your own?

Well, according to the late great Anthony Bourdain, “next to making a proper omelette or wiping your own ass, rolling a joint is an essential life skill for any self-respecting member of society.” I agree. What happens if you find some beautiful bud in our shop that isn’t available in a pre-roll? What happens if you break you pipe or if you want to mix strains in a joint or if you want to roll something special for a friend? You’ll need to do it yourself. And really, can you even call yourself a smoker if you can’t roll your own joints to smoke? Nope. So, keep reading and learn.

To back up a bit, when I say I’m going to teach you how to roll a “joint,” I mean a real joint. A classic joint. One without a “filter,” because if you know what you’re doing, they’re superfluous. After all, the rolled-up cardboard “filters” people put in joints don’t really “filter” anything at all, and they’ll make your joint taste like cardboard instead of pot, which sucks. Back in the day, we called them “crutches” because they were used by people who needed them; people who needed a “crutch” because they couldn’t roll a joint without one. If you roll a joint properly, the packed flower will stay in the tip where it belongs instead of ending up in your mouth like a snack, and using a cardboard crutch won’t leave you with a roach, which robs you of the opportunity to roll a generation joint (click HERE to learn what that means).

And I won’t be teaching you how to roll one of those arts-and-crafts joints, either. They’re an abomination, something gratuitous that came from the showboating that followed legalization, and they serve no purpose. I’m sure you’ve seen them. People will spend hours these days rolling a joint that looks like an animal or something else crazy like a spaceship, but those things never get smoked. They’re used for social media posts and the wow factor, and more often than not, the dude who rolled it cuts it open after posting the picture to smoke the weed inside normally, because smoking an entire spaceship joint is a waste.

However, as one final disclaimer before we get to the “how to” portion of this blog, I should warn you not to roll a joint if you’re trying to conserve your weed. A joint takes about three times as much pot as you can fit in a pipe, so joints are for gatherings, or for people with high tolerances who don’t think a single bowl will do. Alright… let’s get into it. The first thing you’ll need is weed:

I chose two Greenery-grown strains for my “expository” joints because there’s nothing better in Durango, and I wanted these to be picture-perfect buds—on the left is a 2g nug of Bruce Banner, and to the right is a 2.5g bud of Blue Dream. Again, I got three joints from these four grams because I wasn’t worried about conservation. The same two buds would’ve filled my pipe at least ten times, so take that into consideration if you’re balling on a budget.

Next, you’ll need papers (obviously), a rolling tray, and a grinder. For the record, you can roll a much better joint without a grinder because if you carefully pick all the bud off the stems in little pieces with your forefinger and thumb, you won’t get any stems in your joint. Stems can poke little holes in the paper which messes with the airflow/draw, and stems make joints taste bitter. I went 20 years without using a grinder, so I promise this is true, but I’m going to let go of this one stickler point because everyone uses a grinder these days, so I might as well show you how. Here’s the setup:

Granted, you don’t really need the Gandalf pipe pictured in the background, but I like to smoke before I smoke (and then I smoke some more), so it’s a bonus. Per the tray, I chose an antique plate, but anything will do so long as it has raised edges to keep the pot where it’s supposed to be. And back to the grinder, the example pictured is a three-chambered one because it has a little screen in the bottom that allows kief (the crystals/trichomes covering the flower) to fall into a separate section, but I always empty the kief chamber after every grind instead of saving it, and if you think about it, you’ll probably start doing the same. Because if you don’t, you’re taking away a little of the awesomeness from your joint. It just doesn’t make sense to roll ten or fifteen joints that are slightly less wonderful than they could be just so you can use the kief from all of them to roll a super-wonderful joint later, especially given that we sell Lebanese Hash (which is made from kief) right here in our shop. If you buy some and grind it, too, all your joints can be extra wonderful.

Moving on, the next step is to grind your weed. Break the buds off the main stem and then put them in your grinder in a little circle around the magnet:

If you cover the magnet, you’ll get the dreaded “bud patty” right in the middle from the pressure created during grinding, and it’s annoying. As to the ground flower itself, it needs to be cut up finely, and properly ground flower will look and act like kinetic sand when you pour it out on your tray; it’ll flow slowly thanks to the fine particles and oil content (as a side note, if you’ve never played with kinetic sand, you should do so after smoking because the ASMR is wonderful when you’re high). Next, pull out a paper and fill it evenly from end to end like a little burrito with the glue strip facing up and away from you:

I chose the Raw Black papers we sell right here in our shop because they’re natural and unbleached with chemicals, and they’re ultra-thin, so they’ll allow you to taste the terpene-rich flower in your joint as opposed to the paper itself. Next, you’ll want to pinch the paper together, thereby forming a little teardrop shape:

Then you’ll start forming a perfect cylinder out of the flower inside the paper by rolling it back and forth in between your fingers in both hands. It’s a lot like making a playdough worm; it needs to be done evenly from end to end so your joint doesn’t end up looking like a pregnant snake. Start with pressure in the center to avoid this, and then roll from the middle out—extra flower will fall out evenly from each end onto your tray, which is a good thing because even distribution is key:

Once you have a perfectly symmetrical weed worm in your paper, like this…

… you’ll need to tuck in the glue-less side, making sure the exposed paper is free from little pieces of pot (if not, they’ll end up stuck between the paper rolls and your airflow won’t be perfect), like this:

Then, all you must do is lick the glue strip evenly and wrap it up with gentle pressure—not enough pressure will cause your joint to run or “canoe” as you smoke it; too much pressure will make it so you can’t get a drag off your joint because it’ll be rolled too tightly. This takes practice.

Lastly, all you’ll need to do before smoking is choose which end will be the mouthpiece (if you did your job, this will be a random decision because both ends will be identical), and then tap the joint mouthpiece-down on your tray to pack it (this will stop the little “snacks” of weed from ending up in your mouth. A well-rolled joint should be able to stand on its end and look like this:

I kid you not, right after I rolled this joint and stood it up for the picture, a dappled ray of sunlight came through the window and landed right on the joint, illuminating its flawlessness, which you can see clearly in the picture above; I was pretty proud of the perfection.

At this point, your joint is ready to smoke. But if you’re not ready for your joint because you rolled it for later, it’s always a good idea to close the ends—this stops the flower from falling out while it’s waiting for you, and it slows the drying process. So, all you need to do is grab a thin packing tool like the ink tube from a pen or a small stick, and then push in the weed on both sides to give yourself a little extra paper like this:

Lastly, you’ll need to either roll the paper into a little tip, or fold the paper down to look like one of these options:

The pointed option on the left gives you a little wick to light, which is nice, but if you’re not careful when you’re pinching it together, it’ll compact the pot on both ends, which can clog it up. So, I always go for the option on the right wherein you fold the paper down with your packing tool like a little gift-wrapped present. When you’re ready to smoke, all you have to do is open it up, rip off the access paper, and then light up.

When you light your joint, it helps to hold the flame on the joint’s end for a while in your hands before inhaling. You don’t do this with a cigarette given that tobacco burns quickly because it’s much dryer than oily weed, but with sticky cannabis, if you inhale before the tip is lit fully, the outside will burn more quickly than the core of your joint, which can cause runs. That, and if you light the tip fully before inhaling, you won’t suck any butane from your lighter through your joint, which can make it taste funky. And then after your joint is lit, hold it gently in your fingers and don’t chomp down on the tip with your lips. This will keep the mouthpiece end perfect throughout your smoking session, and it’s why you don’t need a crutch:

And that, my friends, is how you hand-roll and smoke a joint. I’d like to give a special shoutout to Mrs. Byrd for teaching me how to give expository speeches in middle school, because those lessons came in handy today. It’s nice to know that even though this skill is fading from our collective knowhow thanks to pre-rolls, a permanent record of how joints are supposed to be rolled will live on in the annals of the internet forever due to this blog. So, if you’re reading this in 2050 via the internet chip implanted in your brain, please keep hand-rolled, classic joints alive and say “no” to all the robot-rolled joints from that dispensary on Mars; I’d appreciate it.

And if you’re reading this right here right now, thank you for taking the time to do so. Please keep checking back in to learn all there is to know about cannabis in Colorado, and please remember, here at The Greenery (which is Durango’s highest-rated dispensary), We’re Your Best Buds!