Joint (cannabis)

"Spliff" redirects here. For other uses, see Spliff (disambiguation).

A joint prior to rolling with a paper "roach" at left

A joint with roach.

Joint is a slang term for a cigarette rolled using cannabis. Rolling papers are the most common rolling medium among industrialized countries; however, brown paper, cigarettes with the tobacco removed, and newspaper are commonly used in some developing countries. Modern papers are now made from a wide variety of materials including rice, hemp, and flax.

A joint can range in size, typically containing between 0.25 to 1 grams net weight of cannabis (depending on whether tobacco is used in the rolling process).

Description

Joints consist of dried cannabis rolled inside a cylinder by hand or by a rolling machine. When smoked to the very bottom of the joint, it is often difficult to hold and is called a roach. The roach will often have an appreciable amount of THC from the accumulated resin. The roach can be held with finger nails, roach clips, roach pins, tweezers, or can be smoked using a bowl. Joints are often passed around a group circularly, and hoarding the joint (otherwise known as "grannying" or "bogarting") is considered a serious breach of protocol.

Variations

Commercially prepared American medical cannabis joint.

Though all joints by convention contain cannabis, regional differences occur. In Europe and certain Commonwealth nations, joints, "B1's", or "spliffs", typically include a bit of cardboard or rolled business card in one end to serve as a mouthpiece. This is known as a filter or "roach." Other common terms used for the paper "filter" are "crutch" or "tip". In North America, "roach" usually means the smoked-down butt of a joint, which can be finished off in a pipe, rolled into the lighting-end of a new joint, or saved for a cumulative all-roach joint. Spliffs generally contain a mixture of dried cannabis as well as some tobacco, which makes the spliff burn slower, more evenly, smoke more smoothly, and allows the smoker to use less marijuana.

Name

Herb grinder for cannabis used to prepare herb for rolling into a joint.

Etymology

The word joint ultimately originated from French, where it is an adjective meaning "joined" (past participle of the verb joindre), derived in turn from Latin iunctus, past participle of iugare ("join"/"bind"/"yoke").

By 1821, "joint" had become an Anglo-Irish term for an annexe, or a side-room "joined" to a main room. By 1877, this had developed into U.S. slang for a (usually unsavory) "place, building, establishment," especially referring to an opium den. By 1935, "joint" was being used to refer to the hypodermic needles used to inject heroin and other drugs at such establishments; this may have been influenced by the secondary meaning of "joint" in the sense of something done "in common" or shared. Its first usage in the sense of "marijuana cigarette" is dated to 1938.

Other terms

There are many slang terms mostly synonymous with the word joint, e.g. "fatty", which is used to describe a joint that contains an unusually large quantity of marijuana.

The term spliff is a West Indian word of Jamaican English origin, but has spread to several western countries, particularly Canada, the United States, and many countries in Europe. Its precise etymology is unknown, but it is attested as early as 1936. While Jamaican spliffs are generally conical in shape, those elsewhere tend to be cylindrical and of varying lengths. "Spliff" can also refer to various styles of cigarette rolled with a mixture of hashish and tobacco.

See also

• Cannabis smoking
• Cannabis smoking etiquette