The Natural Mystic Blog

5 Rolling Paper Alternatives

joint being rolled up

5 Rolling Paper Alternatives

Everyone’s found themselves faced with empty packs at one time or another. And everyone’s had a moment of desperation where they frantically look around for rolling paper alternatives. Only for those attempts to end with subpar results. But that’s only because people didn’t come in with the skills and information to get the job done. Take a look at the following options and you’ll know exactly what alternatives to use when the time comes and which you should avoid.

What To Avoid Using

Before looking at the best alternatives to rolling paper, it’s best to look at what disqualifies something. Most people just look around a room and consider almost anything made of paper to be a viable option. But take a moment to consider everything that went into learning how to pack a cone. You probably put a lot of work into learning the best techniques to make the smoking experience as enjoyable as possible. Putting care into making sure you’re working with high-quality plants. You carefully sift the material to make sure everything’s smoothly packed. And you savor the moment when everything comes together. But now imagine if you were just dumping random chemicals into the mix before you lit up.

You might object that nobody would ever think of doing something like that. But it’s exactly what happens when you use a lot of random materials as alternatives for rolling paper. Most of the paper we have around our home is soaked with various chemicals. Even ink can be harmful when inhaled. As a general rule, you should disqualify anything that you know has been treated with potentially harmful chemicals. This typically means any paper with writing on it or which is dyed into different colors. 

A quick list of items to avoid that you will find around at home are:

  • junk mail
  • magazine pages
  • computer printer paper
  • notebook paper
  • book pages
  • parchment paper
  • aluminium foil

What to Use

Now that you know what not to use it’s time for the fun part.

What can you actually grab in an emergency that’ll get the job done?

When you’re looking over these items don’t be afraid to actually give them a try right away. You might not need to use them right now. But getting some practice in beforehand can ensure that you’ll always be ready for an emergency.

Empty Cigarette

2 empty cigarettes and a pile of tobacco
Emptying a cigarette and using that will be the closest thing to real papers however the packing process can be tricky.

It’s pretty common to have a few spare cigarettes around. You might have been saving a pack for later. A friend might have just left them behind by accident. And who hasn’t just tossed a pack in a drawer and forgotten about it at some point? Whatever the reason, a frantic search for papers might have turned up 0 papers but more than 1 cigarette. But that’s not the loss it might appear to be. You can just empty out the cigarette and pack it like a standard cone. Or you could make a spliff by just emptying out part of the cigarette’s body.

Tissue Paper

empty gift bag from above with tissue paper lining
Unfragranced tissue paper can be used but beware because it is so light that it will burn fast. 

You know those gifts you didn’t want and just tossed into the back of your closet? If they were wrapped with tissue paper then you might be in luck. And the same goes for any birthday or Christmas materials you’d been saving to use for gifts. Tissue paper obviously isn’t quite up to the standards of proper rolling paper. But when you compare the two it’s clear that they’re more alike than different. And you can use them in roughly analogous ways.

The main point to remember is that tissue paper is thinner than rolling paper. That means your tissue paper is going to burn relatively quickly. You’ll want to make your way through it as fast as you can. This makes the experience less leisurely than you’d probably prefer. But any port in a storm and any paper when you’re out.

Dictionary Pages

close up of someone reading a bible
Dictionary paper is incredibly thin and very close to normal rolling papers.

It’s generally best to avoid dyed paper and that includes the ink used for text. But there are some exceptions to that rule. Dictionary and other books with very thin paper are viable options for rolling paper alternatives. Part of the reason stems from the fact that these books tend to use thin paper in order to keep the size of the tome as small as possible. But the books also tend to aim for a style of consistent formatting that leaves a lot of empty space on each page. It’s generally not too hard to find pages in a bible or dictionary that don’t have any writing on them. Once you’ve found a page with a lot of empty space you can simply tear it out. And what the book’s material lacks in quality it makes up for in quantity. Dictionaries are huge so give you a lot of material to work with, you also will most likely not miss it as we all use our phones for checking spelling and definitions nowadays.

Gum Wrappers

unwrapped chewing gum and wrapper
The white paper part of a gum wrapper is very thin and can make a good paper for rolling, the hardest part is getting the aluminum part off of it.

Gum and rolling paper might not seem to have too much in common. But take a moment to really think about what gum wrappers look like. That’s right, they’re pretty similar to rolling paper! Or at least some gum wrappers are. The best options are the wrappers that are entirely made out of paper. A lot of brands have paper on one side of the wrapper and aluminum on the other. You can manually separate the two. But doing so typically requires a lot of effort and more than a little luck. Taking off the aluminum without tearing the paper is no easy task when you’re dealing with something the size of a stick of gum.

Brown Paper Bag

brown paper bag
Not a great rolling paper alternative but a brown paper bag can be used in an emergency.

You might have turned a considering eye toward a paper bag at one time or another. Paper bags, in general, aren’t a great choice for rolling paper. But if a brown paper bag is all you have on hand then you might be able to suffer through it. But take a moment to really drill the “brown” part of that phrase into your mind. White paper bags are white because they’ve been bleached. And when you light it up you’re essentially breathing in that bleach. This is true for some other alternatives as well. But the difference comes from thickness. A paper bag is a lot thicker than most other paper alternatives. So you’re automatically multiplying the number of adulterants you’re inhaling. Because of this you should try to only use brown, rather than white, paper bags if you’re going with this option.

The Most Hassle-Free Option

Of course, the easiest option is to go for the best alternative and just have the professionals take care of everything for you. You can skip all of the fuss involved with frantically searching for substitute papers by staying stocked up with Natural Mystic pre-rolled organic hemp cones. You might be worried about rubbing people the wrong way by having cones on hand in your home. But you’d be surprised by how rare it is for anyone to actually have a negative impression of the hobby.

A full 88% of adults in America believe that marijuana should be legal for both recreational and medical use. In other words, only about 12% of the entire adult population would have any problem with it. Contrary to expectation, people will probably be thrilled to find out that you’ve got the proper supplies on hand. Most people’s reaction to finding unexpected pre-rolled cones is about the same as finding an unexpected cake. You’re not going to see a gasp of shock. You’re going to see a grin and an invitation to dig in.

While speaking of smoking session alternatives, why not try a hemp wick? If you’re wondering what is a hemp wick then there’s a simple answer. It’s essentially an easy way to optimize your smoking experience. They decrease the number of combustible materials you’re taking in while operating at a low enough temperature to maintain the material’s cannabinoids and terpenes. The wicks essentially push up the quality of your smoking experience. It can make any alternative that much closer to the experience of using real rolling paper. And when you are using a high-quality roll, hemp wicks can turn a good experience into a great one.

natural mystic hemp cones review by Michele Leming

Weighing the Options and Making a Choice

Now that you’ve seen the options it’s time to act. Alternatives are often looked at as emergency options.

But that doesn’t mean you need to wait for an emergency to test them out.

Take a moment to actually give some of these options a shot right now so that you know you have the method down when necessity strikes.

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