How Weed Pre-Rolls Are Being Made

Here’s how most weed pre-rolls are made: As budtenders in dispensaries shift nugs of cannabis in their jars, smaller bits of flower, known as shake, fall off. “The jars get shifted all the time,” explained Corey Schwartz, who manages Coast to Coast Collective in Los Angeles. “As you’re dispensing to patients, they want certain buds. After a day or a half a day, that strain gets broken down.” The shake gets collected for use in pre-rolls, which in Coast to Coast’s case are rolled on-site.

Coast to Coast and some other producers also add nugs themselves to their pre-roll mixture. “When it comes to the nugs, we break them down and we actually grind them down in a grinder,” Schwartz said. From there the mix is loaded into pre-rolled paper cones. A machine shakes the joints to help settle the mixture and remove air pockets. Once the joints are filled, an employee gently tamps down the contents of each one to make sure it’s not too tight or too loose, which could cause it to burn poorly. With a twist of the tip, the pre-roll’s ready to go.