Rolling joints (idea)

1. Buy good weed. Simple as that. If you have crappy leaf that breaks all over, it'll be a titantic bitch to roll a good one. Plus, sticky (read higher quality) weed is far easier to roll.

2. Chop and clean. Remove all seeds and remove the bud from the stems. Throw the damn stems away. Using (scissors/herb grinder/etc) cut the now cleaned weed into a nice pile. A guide for consistency is a bit rougher than the oregano you can buy at the store. You could of course chop it finer, but you might end up trying to smoke what amounts to a solid stick of weed. The air needs some space to flow through...

3. This is where everyone fucks up. Anyone can buy good weed, and anyone can chop it. Its the shaky fingered mangling and panic rolling that creates those crappy joints that fall apart and waste your weed.

   First take a paper out of your rolling papers. Smooth it out, remove that damned crease. Then (pay attention) hold the paper with your thumbs and middle fingers on the four corners of the paper. (Left middle finger on the upper left corner, left thumb on the lower left, etc. If you cant figure this out, you really dont need the, um, "depressant" effects of weed) Then, use your index fingers on both hands to make the paper into a trough.

   Remove one of your hands. You should have a paper trough blocked by your index finger on one end, and open on the other end. Use your free hand to put the chopped weed in the paper. Place your hands back into the position you had them before.

   Now, carefully keeping the paper in a trough, remove your index fingers. Roll the paper back and forth in your fingers, up and down. This will cause the weed to form a cylinder, loosely held together by its own moisture. Some stuff will probably fall out the edges, more likely a whole lot if you're starting out. Try holding your index fingers close to the open ends to stop this, but some spillage is inevitable. Just relax.

   When you think you've rolled it enough to cause the weed to form a cylinder, roll the paper down far enough to fold the paper into the cylinder shape. Use your thumbs to push it around the weed cylinder you've made, then with a quick roll of the wrists, you've got it rolled. Lick the sticky gum side, and press to the joint.

4. Finishing it off. Take some stiffer paper (anywhere from cardboard to envelope paper, anything lighter tends to get all gummy and ruined with saliva). Cut out a strip about a quarter to a half inch wide and anywhere from 3 inches to 10 inches in length (depending on the weight of the paper) and roll it into a cylinder. This is now your filter. Poke it into one end of the joint you've rolled, and make sure it expands enough in there to stay in and not let any weed fall out. Should be easy enough.

   Then take a (paintbrush/keys/pencil/etc) and use it to poke the weed down from the other end. The idea here is to compress the weed slightly so it burns slower and you don't waste your weed when you're just holding the joint. It's a fine art... too much tamping the weed down and you've got yourself something you need to pull insanely hard on. Too little and the joint will fall apart/burn way too fast. Once you're satisfied, pinch any excess rolling paper on the remaining open end and twist it. This keeps the weed from falling out of the end you're lighting.

How to create a shockingly good joint with zero experience:

This can't really be called rolling a joint, can it?

First off, a word of warning. This will not get you girls, or impress your more-experienced drug friends. What it is is the cheapest, easiest, cut-corner way to roll a joint EVER. You can be quite inebriated and still roll a perfect one, even if you have little to no experience. This was thought up halfway through a drinking binge in frosh week when fine motor skills meant little to me, and I obtained a certain clarity of thought only drunkards can. Intruiged? Read on...

Firstly, chop the weed finely. This is easy. If you cant do this, dont smoke weed. Seriously. Drugs are not for you.

Secondly, grab a pencil or pen that's roughly the circumference of the joint you're looking to roll. If you're human, use a pencil without any jaggy bits poking off of it. If you're inhuman, use a giant marker or whatever shiny thing grabs your attention. Take a rolling paper (or more than one pasted together if its some ungodly huge marker say) and wrap it around the pencil/pen. Lick the gummy part of the rolling paper, complete the roll, and you now have a paper tube wrapped around your pen. Slide the paper tube off the pen just a bit, and put a filter in one end. If you need more help with that, see how to roll a joint.

Now comes the long boring part. Hey, you're bored already though, because you're obviously smoking weed. Take your paper tube with a filter in one end off the pen and start putting the weed in the open end. This is hard and boring, but patience is a virtue. Once you have about a quarter inch of loose weed in the tube, insert the pen into the tube, and press the loose shake down. Oddly enough, it fits perfectly inside the tube and has a convenient flat end to tamp down the weed! Unless of course you screwed up rolling the tube or are pushing the pointy end in the paper tube. Dumbass. Anyhoo, keep repeating this (fill with weed, tamp down) until you:

1. run out of space in the tube
2. run out of weed

Now close the end of the joint off, pinch and roll the loose paper at the end between your fingers so it doesnt open up and spill precious marijuana out, and you're done. Wow, perfectly round, nice and tight isn't it? Just don't tell anyone how you did it and you'll be fine.

University brings us so many new discoveries, doesn't it?