Pre-roll

A pre-roll is a ready-to-smoke cannabis cigarette manufactured, packaged, and sold through a licensed producer or dispensary rather than rolled by the consumer. In form it is a joint — or, more commonly in dispensary practice, a cone (a tapered paper tube wider at the top and narrow at the filter) that a machine fills with ground flower, kief, concentrate, or a mixture. Industrial pre-roll lines use vibration or tamping systems to pack cones consistently; craft producers still hand-roll small runs. A crutch or tip is standard at the mouth end. Pre-rolls reached roughly 15% of U.S. dispensary sales in 2024, making them the third-largest product category after flower and vape carts. Licensed pre-rolls must pass the same contaminant and potency testing as loose flower, and regulators such as the California DCC restrict permissible ingredients to cannabis, cannabis concentrate, terpenes, paper or leaf wraps, and filter tips. Common variants include whole-flower pre-rolls, shake or trim pre-rolls, infused pre-rolls (containing kief, hash, or distillate), and hemp-wrap "blunt" pre-rolls. → See also: Flower, Kief, Distillate, Live Resin (Part 3). ---