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Rolling papers |
Rolling papers are small sheets, rolls, or leaves of paper which are sold for rolling one's own cigarettes either by hand or with a rolling machine. When rolling a cigarette, one fills the rolling paper with tobacco, shag, marijuana or other herbs. They are most commonly made with wood pulp, hemp, flax, or rice as a base material. Some companies may use esparto, which might lead to a slightly higher carcinogen level when burned.1 The basic design of a single paper is a long rectangle with a narrow strip of glue or gum all along one of the long edges. Longer, rice-based rolling papers are also often used to make spliffs or used by connoisseurs for cigarettes of the highest quality. Rolling papers are also called skins or rollies (a term which can also mean the hand-rolled cigarettes themselves), but the term skinning up usually only refers to the act of rolling a spliff2. Newer rolling papers are available in various flavors. This is said to enhance the smoking experience. The latest rolling papers are unbleached with a translucent brown color.
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Rolling papers have experienced a resurgence of popularity because it has become increasingly less expensive to roll cigarettes than to purchase a machine-made one in many countries including the USA 3456. Tax policy is the key reason for the cost differential. In addition, people who roll their own cigarettes can customize the cigarette to any shape, size, and form they choose. Rolling papers are sold in lengths of 70mm - 110mm and a range of widths.
Most manufacturers who sell in the USA use the designations 1 (Single wide), 1¼ (1.25) size, 1½ (1.5) size and “Doublewide” (2 or 2.0) in connection with cigarette rolling papers. However, within the industry, these designations have slightly different meanings, much like the term Corona does not mean a definitive size but moreover a general size.; and, across the various brands of cigarette papers, the actual widths of the papers using these designations vary greatly. For example, the 1¼ designation is used with papers having widths ranging from about 1.7 inches to 2 inches, and the 1½ designation is used with papers having widths ranging from around 2.4 to 3 inches. However the length of these papers is always 78mm (+/1 1mm). 1 1/4 is also known as "French Size" in parts of the world.
While a 1 1/4 sized paper is not exactly 25% larger than a 1 (single wide) paper, there is meaning to these size names. A better way to describe these accurately is that a 1 1/4 is designed to roll a cigarette that contains about 25% more tobacco then a single wide paper. Similarly a 1 1/2 size paper is designed to roll a cigarette that contains about 50% more than a single wide paper. A 1 1/4 size paper is larger than a 1 (single wide) paper and naturally a 1 1/2 size paper is larger than a 1 1/4 size paper, and a double wide is larger than a 1 1/2 size paper.
In the United States, Tobacconist Magazine has called roll-your-own (RYO) the tobacco industry's fastest growing segment. It estimates that 2-4% of US cigarette smokers, or approximately 1.5 million people, make their own cigarettes. Many of these smokers have switched in response to increasingly high taxes on manufactured cigarettes. 7
In 2000, a Canadian government survey estimated that 9% of Canada's 6 million cigarette smokers smoked hand-rolled cigarettes "sometimes or most of the time" - 7% smoked roll-your-owns "exclusively", and over 90% of rolling papers sold in Canada were for tobacco consumption.8
According to The Publican, "Low price RYO has seen an astonishing rise of 175 per cent in [2007] as cigarette smokers look for cheaper alternatives and to control the size of their smoke" 9. Britain's National Health Service has reported that roll-your-own use has more than doubled since 1990, from 11% to 24%. Many of these smokers apparently believe that hand rolled cigarettes are healthier than manufactured products. 10
In Thailand, roll-your-own smokers have long exceeded those for manufactured brands11. New Zealand reported in 2005 that: The ratio of roll-your-own to manufactured or tailor-made cigarettes consumed by New Zealanders has risen over (at least) the past decade, perhaps reflecting price differences between these products, and currently approaching 50 percent overall. 12
Consumers switching to roll-your-own has led to a response among certain tax authorities. In the United States, Indiana and Kentucky tax rolling papers. Kentucky set its tax at $0.25 per pack (for up to 32 leaves, larger packs are taxed at $0.0078 per leaf) in 2006 despite complaints from manufacturers. 13
The Spanish manufacturer of Bambu and Smoking was recently convicted in Spain of using illegal carcinogenic materials, namely esparto, in their cigarette papers to cut costs.14. 15
Rolling paper can be used for more than just rolling cigarettes:
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