Cannabis cigars, cannagars and Thai sticks

What a cannagar is

Ground or whole-flower cannabis packed hard into a cigar shape around a central channel, wrapped in a leaf rather than a paper, and then cured. It is the same idea as a tobacco cigar and it is built the same way. It is not a large joint, and it does not smoke like one.

The wrap is the whole point

Three things get rolled around cannabis: paper, tobacco leaf and cannabis or hemp leaf. Paper is the joint and the pre-roll. Tobacco leaf is the blunt. Cannabis leaf is the cannagar, and the reason people build them is to get the slow burn of a cigar without the third thing a cigar wrap brings.

A blunt wrap is tobacco

This is the part that gets waved away, usually with the claim that emptying a cigar removes the tobacco. It removes the filler. The wrapper is tobacco leaf and it stays.

What the wrapper measured at

Peters and colleagues put five cigar products commonly used for blunts through gas chromatography and measured the wrapper on its own. Total nicotine in the wrapper ran from 1.2 to 6.0 mg per cigar, and the wrapper accounted for 8 to 18 per cent of the weight of the whole article. Every one of the five had quantifiable nicotine in the wrap.

Why that matters here

Because it is the measured version of the thing a cannagar is for. Nobody needs to argue about whether a leaf-wrapped roll is different from a blunt; the difference has a number on it, and the number is not zero on the tobacco side. That is the case for a cannagar stated honestly, and it is the only claim this page makes for one.

The fan leaf, and curing it

The wrap is a large fan leaf from the plant, dried and cured until it is pliable rather than brittle. A leaf that is too dry cracks as it goes on; one that is too wet will not seal and will mould while curing. Getting the leaf right is the step that separates a good cannagar from an expensive failure, and it is the step no video spends time on.

How one is actually made

Pack, compress, skewer, wrap, and then weeks of curing. Each stage has one thing that goes wrong, and all five have to go right, which is why hand-built cannagars are priced the way they are and why most people who try it once buy them afterwards instead.

The mold, and what it does

A two-part form, usually wood or aluminium, that holds the shape while the cannabis is compressed into it. Without one you get a lumpy cylinder that burns unevenly; with one you get a consistent cross-section, which is what makes an even burn possible over an hour or more. The taper is cosmetic. The consistency is not.

The press, and the core

The press is what turns packed flower into a solid core. Compression is the whole trick: a densely pressed core burns slowly from one end as a flat front, and a loosely packed one tunnels and goes out. It is the same physics as a pre-roll canoeing, scaled up and with a great deal more material at stake.

The skewer leaves a channel

A wooden skewer runs down the middle through packing and pressing, and is withdrawn before the wrap goes on. What it leaves is an airway through a core too dense to draw through otherwise. Pull it too early and the channel collapses; leave it in while it is curing and the wood flavours the thing.

Curing is the slow part

Days to weeks, in controlled humidity, and it is not optional. The curing is what marries the wrap to the core and brings the moisture content down to where the thing will burn evenly. A cannagar smoked the day it was rolled is harsh, uneven and a waste of what went into it.

Why they burn for so long

Density and diameter. A pressed core several times the cross-section of a joint, with a leaf wrap that burns more slowly than paper, gives a burn measured in hours rather than minutes. That is the appeal and it is also the catch: a cannagar is a session for a group, not something to light on the way somewhere.

The glass tip, and the holder

Most cannagars worth buying ship with a glass tip pushed into the channel, and it earns its place twice: it holds the airway open as the core softens, and it keeps condensed resin out of your mouth. A wooden holder does neither and is decoration. If the tip slides out easily while the thing is cold, it will fall out when it is hot.

It is still combustion

A leaf wrap removes the nicotine question. It does not change what burning plant material produces, and it is worth saying plainly on a page that has just made the case for one.

What the smoke measures at

Moir and colleagues ran marijuana and tobacco cigarettes on the same machine smoking regimes. Ammonia in mainstream marijuana smoke came out at up to twenty times the tobacco figure, with hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxides and aromatic amines at three to five times. Reported as measured. If it matters to you, the answer is a vaporizer, and a cannagar is the opposite of one.

Thai sticks are not cannagars

They get conflated and they are different objects. A Thai stick is cannabis bound onto a thin stick or skewer with thread or hemp, wrapped in leaf, and cured, traditionally for a long time. The shape is a rod rather than a tapered cigar and the stick stays in rather than coming out.

How a Thai stick is made

Flower is tied along the skewer with fine thread until it forms a dense rod, coated in something sticky in the traditional method, wrapped in fan leaves and cured for weeks. The result is denser than a cannagar of the same diameter, and the thread has to come off before it is smoked, which is the step people forget.

Not a pre-roll, legally

Worth a line if you are shopping for one. California defines a pre-roll as material rolled in paper, so a leaf-wrapped cannagar does not sit in that category and is not labelled or tested as one. If you are comparing a cannagar with the pre-rolls in the same case, you are comparing two different product categories.

Storing one before you smoke it

A finished cannagar behaves like a cigar and wants the same treatment. Too dry and the wrap splits along its length as the core shrinks away from it; too damp and it will not stay lit. A sealed tube with a two-way humidity pack is what the careful sellers ship them in, and it is what they should be kept in once they arrive.

Buying one, and what to look at

Ask what went into the core, because whole flower and trim both get used and the outside looks the same. Ask how long it was cured. Look at whether the wrap is tight and unbroken along its whole length, and whether the ends are finished rather than tucked. And check the weight against what you are paying, exactly as you would with a pre-roll.

Making one, and whether to

A mold and a press are not expensive and the technique is learnable. What is not cheap is the material: a cannagar takes several grams at once, and the first few will not condition properly. Build one if the building is the point. Buy one if the smoking is.