Intro:

Regular tobacco cigars tend to be status symbols for some, props for others (like Groucho Marx), or maybe some form of compensation, but a weed cigar is a whole other smoke! Also known as Thai sticks or cannagars, canna cigars are basically big, fat blunts – potent pot puffers wrapped in cannabis leaves or hemp wraps that use cannabis oil as cigar glue! You can buy cannabis cigars in a few select dispensaries, or you can make your own – which we will get into and which you may want to consider because they are quite expensive at retail; $100 USD is a pretty typical price, with some higher-end pot cigars selling at $420 USD, and there’s even a canna cigar wrapped in a layer of 24-karat, edible gold leaf selling for $10,000 USD! Some larger canna cigars can have up to 12 grams of weed and three grams of cannabis rosin concentrate – so, though pricey stoner smokes, one of these things can be a plump cannabis stick full of potent weed. Do cigars get you high? With as much as they cost and with the amount of marijuana, leaf and concentrate that goes into each pot cigar, they ought to!

(Cannagar on a pot leaf, image from Vegas Cannagarz on Instagram)

Background:

When it comes to the history of tobacco use, you’re on your own; but when it comes to pot proliferation, we can tell you that cannabis use began centuries ago in Asia, first mentioned in writing by Chinese emperor Shen Nung in 2753 BC (or BCE); it then spread to the Middle East by the 14th century, reached Europe in the 19^th century and the United States and the rest of the Americas in the 20^th century. And in all of that history, people have come up with numerous ways to smoke or otherwise utilize the benefits of cannabis. Smoking weed has long been the mainstay of marijuana use, long before vaping and dabbing. Pipes and rolled joints are the most basic forms of smoking weed, and cannabis cigars are jumbo joints of a kind.

The original canna cigar was the Thai stick. Thai sticks came to Western cannabis culture in the late 1960s Vietnam era when Americans sent overseas were exposed to the Asian custom of binding cannabis buds to bamboo skewers, dipping them in hash oil or opium, then using fibers from the stalk of the marijuana plant, as well as the leaves, to wrap it all together. It was an intensely potent smoke, and remained popular until the war ended in 1975; though joints, blunts, bongs and vapes have since become the most used marijuana smoking methods, Thai sticks have kind of resurfaced as weed cigars, which are very similar.

How to make a Thai stick:

If you are wondering exactly how to make a Thai stick, fear not because we have it covered (and you are entirely welcome)!

You will need:

• At least 1/8th ounce of freshly harvested and cured cannabis buds, or flower
• A wooden skewer made of bamboo or hemp
• Twine or hemp binding cord
• Cannabis oil
• Fresh fan leaves from the cannabis plant of your choice 

Directions:

1.  Take 1/8th of your favorite cannabis and smoosh the sticky nugs onto the bamboo stick, then wrap it all up with hemp cord and place into your refrigerator for at least 3 days.
2.  Following 3 days of curing, unwind the hemp cord or twine from around the weed on a stick.
3.  Drizzle the weed on a stick with cannabis oil or hash oil to glue on the first layer of pot leaves.
4.  Begin wrapping the weed on a stick starting closest to the pointy tip end of the skewer, pressing the first leaf toward the center and then wrapping and overlapping the other leaves, covering the cured cannabis all the way to the opposite end.
5.  Use the hemp rope to rewrap the weed on a stick, securing the  first layer of cannabis leaves, and then refrigerate for 24hrs.
6.  After a day, drizzle cannabis oil or hash oil and spread around the first layer of leaves, then  wrap the weed stick in the second layer of cannabis leaves and wrap the hemp cord around it again. Repeat the 24hr curing.
7.  Unwrap the hemp cord from the weed on a stick and coat it again with cannabis oil or hash oil, then wrap more pot leaves from one end to the other for the third and final layer. Rewrap the whole thing with hemp cord again, and then store in a cold, darkened place to cure for 2-3 more weeks  - the longer the cure, the smoother the Thai stick canna cigar will smoke when you blaze!
8.  When your Thai cannabis cigar is finally fully cured, unwrap the twine or hemp cord and pull out the bamboo stick. Snip off the tip with a pair of scissors, a knife or a commercial cutter and you are good to go!

Thai Stick Weed Strain:

Before we move on from Thai sticks, here’s a little but-wait-there’s-more: Thai sticks are popular enough that they actually have a Thai Stick strain of ganja! Thai Stick weed is also known simply as Thai sativa, a skunky pure sativa landrace (an original grow strain in its native Thailand environment) cannabis strain with a THC level of 20% and some very energizing and uplifting effects! Thai Stick strain is often used in native Thai stick creation, thus, that is where the name of the strain comes from. You certainly could consider using Thai Stick weed to make your own canna cigars!

(Weed sticks and cigar rolling kit molds, image from Cannagar City on Instagram)

Other Ways to Make Your Own Pot Cigars:

1. Commercially Available Cigar Rolling Kits – If you know how to roll a cigar with a traditional tobacco cigar rolling kit or beginner cigar kit, you can use their molds, tools and papers, but utilizing weed instead of tobacco. Leaf Only makes a cigar rolling kit for $48.99 USD that you could use to make up to 10 canna cigars.

   You can use traditional cigar rolling papers to roll your cigar of weed or you can buy a premade hemp blunt wrap, also known as hemp cigar wraps or canna wraps; you can buy hemp blunt wraps online at places like Kush Cargo which has them for $7.99 for a pack of four wraps in four different flavors - Grape Ape, Honey Pot Swirl,  Maui Mango, and Original; or you can get Kingpin Pure Hemp Wraps with 4 wraps per pack (and with flavors like Blueberry Bomb and Goomba Grape ) for $4.19 on Amazon.

2. Hollowing Out a Tobacco Cigar – We’re gonna explain how to roll a blunt with a cigar or cigarillo - that’s the original way that blunts were made and a big, fat blunt is essentially what a weed cigar is!

   All you need is some grinder-shredded marijuana and a traditional store-bought cigar or cigarillo; some of the best cigarillos for weed include Swisher Sweets, Phillies, or Backwoods. Then cut the blunt lengthwise and remove the tobacco. Moisten the empty wrapper with some saliva or tap water.

   Fill the empty cigar or cigarillo wrapping with your freshly ground cannabis - for a standard size cigarillo, one to two grams is all you will need. Then you roll the fresh ground weed between your fingers to pack your blunt evenly: once it is packed and you’ve evenly shaped your blunt, just tuck the cigar or cigarillo wrapping under itself - wetting the inside of the exposed edge with saliva or water from one end to the other, using your fingertips to smooth out any wrinkles.

   Finally, you bake the blunt by running a lighter lengthwise back and forth along the seam, being careful not to hold the lighter too close —heating it only, not burning anything. And as with Thai sticks, you can use cannabis oil as cigar glue to make sure the seam is sealed.

   Among the best blunt wraps for weed among manufacturers of traditional tobacco-burning leaf cigars include Swisher Sweets, Dutch Masters, White Owl and perennial stoner favorite Zig Zag Cigarillos.

Now you know how to roll a blunt with a cigar and cigarillo – basically how to make a blunt wrap, so you are ready to light it up and toke away!

(Smoking a premium weed cigar, image from Smoke Stuff on Instagram)

How to Make a Joint Burn Slow – or a Canna Cigar!

There are several factors that influence the burn rate of pot cigars, blunts and joints:

1. Grinding your weed – an even and fine grind of your ganja will give you a longer-lasting smoke sesh, with a more even burning on all sides of the cannabis cigar or joint.
2. Curing your weed -  properly cured cannabis and a weed cigar properly cured during its making will ensure you of a longer-lasting smoking experience. When marijuana has been under-cured it will burn very slowly, yet too dry or old cannabis will burn far too quickly for a proper joint or weed cigar.
3. The wrap matters - hemp blunt wraps and canna wraps offer a nice, even smoke, and being plant fiber, they burn more slowly than paper-based wraps; some people swear by fibrous corn husk rolling papers to extend the life of a pot cigar or joint.
4. Wrap with multiple sheets – wrapping more than one sheet of hemp blunt wraps or canna wraps will prevent uneven burning along one side of your cannabis cigar or joint, plus another sheet might better contain airflow, funneling oxygen through a tighter space, slowing combustion and preventing your weed from burning too fast. 
5. Wrap tightly – airflow control is crucial, as we mentioned above, and the best way to control airflow is to roll a nice, tight joint or cannabis cigar. Rolling machines may produce tighter canna cigars, but tight joints, blunts and pot cigars can be made by hand with practice.
6. Concentrates - cannabis oil cigar glue or wax used to seal the cannabis cigar or cigarillo for weed – or even some wax or shatter added to a joint - will add extra cannabinoids to your system when you blaze, and will also act as a buffer, slowing down the burn rate. 

Buying a Weed Cigar:

If you decide to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, maybe you can afford some of the ‘best things in life’, then you might want to give Artisan Canna Cigars a try! Their cannabis cigars use three and a half grams of pressed Forbidden Fruit cannabis strain, plus ¾ g of Gelato 33 strain rosin, plus a half a gram of Kings Kush dry-sifted kief to craft each Artisan Canna Cigar. Artisan Canna Cigars’ outer leaves are carefully sealed with Blue River Terpenes, using a proprietary process that extracts pure aromatics from cannabis and reapplies the aromatics in liquid form. Artisan Canna Cigars are only sold in California and Washington, currently, but if you live in those states you can pick one up for about $200 USD!

Elsewise, as we mentioned towards the beginning of this blog, $100 USD is a dispensary or provisioning center low-end price for a cannagar, with higher-end pot cigars retailing at $420 USD – and, assuming you are obscenely rich, there’s even a canna cigar wrapped in a layer of 24-karat, edible gold leaf selling for $10,000 USD! 

Summary:

Why should you try canna cigars? Here are a few reasons you need to add weed cigars to your cannabis culture bucket list: 1) they are packed full of potent pot, marijuana leaf and some concentrate, so they will give you a phenomenal high; 2) Thai sticks, one popular form of cannabis cigar, are easy to make and popular – so popular that they named sativa Thai Stick strain after them; 3) aside from Thai sticks, you can easily make your own pot cigars by using the outer wraps of tobacco cigars, or by using a traditional cigar rolling kit or a beginner cigar kit to make them; 4) you can make them with a hemp blunt wrap or canna wraps, and avoid tobacco exposure altogether; 5) if you’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket, then spending $100 to $420 on a premium cannagar smoke will certainly lighten the load in your wallet!

You’re not going to find cannabis cigars listed for sale on Cigar One, an online web site for premium hand-rolled Cuban cigars; but at certain California and Washington dispensaries you can buy one of ‘the best things in life’ Artisan Canna Cigars for around $200. Of course, you can also make your own weed cigar with a cigar rolling kit or a beginner cigar kit; or follow our simple recipe for how to make a Thai stick. The Thai stick is popular enough as a cannabis stick or pot cigar that there’s even a pure sativa Thai Stick strain of weed that you could potentially use in making a cannabis cigar. To enlighten you, not only did we discuss how to make a Thai stick, but we also went over how to roll a blunt with a cigar. Additionally, we gave you the lowdown on the best blunt wraps for weed and the best cigarillos for weed, so you can make an informed decision if you want to scoop out the tobacco and replace it with marijuana.  And if you know how to make a joint burn slow, then you know how to make your weed cigar, or canna cigar, or cannagar, last a good long time, giving you a canna wrap or a hemp blunt wrap full of potent pot cigar smoking satisfaction!

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Written by Megan Medeiros (BA)

Megan Medeiros has a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently working on a master’s in English at James Madison University. She's the owner and operator of Medeiros Writing, and has been working as a cannabis writer for the past three years, mostly following the legal climate of marijuana, especially in areas like California, Colorado, Oregon, Canada, and other legal areas.

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