# Rolling your own with pages from a book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 7, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108 "2007-06-07T13:34:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/1 "2007-06-07T13:34:41Z")
Flipping throught channels last night I stopped for a bit on some recent comedy whose name escapes me, and it showed a guy rolling one with a page torn out from a large hardbound book. Is this sensible? Even as a last resort wouldn’t you use a coke can instead? Wouldn’t the whole thing burn in like two seconds? And would it seal as well without adhesive? ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/2 "2007-06-07T13:41:10Z")
Anecdotal: I knew a Jamaican fellow who could roll with any hunk of paper, and it stuck together with only his saliva. I have no idea how he made it work, but it obviously does. I hope someone else comes to this thread to explain why it works. ---
**Author:** ![DustyButt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc348/32.png) [@DustyButt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DustyButt)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/3 "2007-06-07T13:46:57Z")
Doesn’t print paper have arsenic and various other compounds in it that make it “unhealthy” to ingest and/or smoke? That sounds like a really bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/4 "2007-06-07T13:59:52Z")
I was trapped at my uncles farm during the [Armistice Day blizzard of 1940.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day_Blizzard) I had- part of a pack of cigarettes, my uncle had a can of pipe tobacco and my cousin was out of tobacco. All three of us smoked. We were snowbound for three days. By the third day we were tearing butts apart for the tobacco and rolling our own using newspapers. They were pretty bad and resulted in my quitting smoking - 35 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/5 "2007-06-07T14:49:21Z")
I personally witnessed someone roll and smoke a joint using the first chapter of the book of Genesis. Seemed to work pretty well. Stuck in a hotel room with no rolling papers, but the Gideon bible has nice thin pages. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/6 "2007-06-07T14:53:55Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] I personally witnessed someone roll and smoke a joint using the first chapter of the book of Genesis. [/QUOTE] _In the Beginning, God created the Twinkie and the Nacho Cheese Dorito…_ ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/7 "2007-06-07T15:04:31Z")
My own anecdote: When I was really poor, I’d usually buy a pack of smokes, and out of each pack I’d take 5-10 smokes out and empty the tobacco into a bag for later rolling. I found I could stretch the smokes a lot longer this way. If I had no rolling papers with which to make them though, and no money to buy more, what I would do is take the aluminum sleeves the smokes were packed in from inside the pack, separate the outer foil, and use slices of the leftover paper to roll. It was harsh as hell, both from the lack of filter and the paper, but it was probably better than ordinary paper or newsprint, and it worked well enough and didn’t burn quickly. I saved the sleeves for this purpose. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/8 "2007-06-07T15:07:36Z")
I have heard (don’t you love sentences that start that way?) that the paper tampons are wrapped in is the closest substitute. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/9 "2007-06-07T15:25:29Z")
As a teenager, before I was old enough to legally purchase rolling papers, we always used pages from the Bible (because they are thin). This worked well, and the pages were thin enough it stuck with just saliva (twisting at the end helped, as I recall). I also thought it was very funny, as blasphemy is to youngsters. Once, however, I was with a religious-type who was deeply offended at this idea, so we used paper from the Yellow Pages. It also worked fine. I think thicker paper wouldn’t work, but I don’t remember testing it. I heard of a guy who tried to use notebook paper, but I think it was meant to be a joke about how dumb he was. I don’t think it was true. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@Mike\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Fun)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/10 "2007-06-07T20:57:54Z")
I did the bible page thing before, too. I used one of the empty pages at the beginning, though. It tasted godawful (pun intended) and I didn’t get more than a few puffs into it before resorting to other methods. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/11 "2007-06-07T21:00:30Z")
When I volunteered in the former Yugoslavia, if we ran out of cigarettes and the stores were closed, we’d pick the cigarette puts out of the ashtray and gather as much tobacco as possible, and then roll them in beer bottle labels. ---
**Author:** ![smhanse751](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f4b2a3/32.png) [@smhanse751](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smhanse751)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/12 "2007-06-07T21:09:09Z")
was the movie Harold and Kumar go to white castle? ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/13 "2007-06-07T21:12:48Z")
[QUOTE=smhanse751] was the movie Harold and Kumar go to white castle? [/QUOTE] Come to think of it, that was it. ---
**Author:** ![Miscue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Miscue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miscue)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/14 "2007-06-08T00:48:30Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] My own anecdote: When I was really poor, I’d usually buy a pack of smokes, and out of each pack I’d take 5-10 smokes out and empty the tobacco into a bag for later rolling. I found I could stretch the smokes a lot longer this way. If I had no rolling papers with which to make them though, and no money to buy more, what I would do is take the aluminum sleeves the smokes were packed in from inside the pack, separate the outer foil, and use slices of the leftover paper to roll. It was harsh as hell, both from the lack of filter and the paper, but it was probably better than ordinary paper or newsprint, and it worked well enough and didn’t burn quickly. I saved the sleeves for this purpose. [/QUOTE] I always thought the most hardcore down-and-out thing I did was stay so drunk for five months that I had no electricity, but you’ve got my vote. Radioactive Hardcore. ---
**Author:** ![Myself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Myself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myself)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/15 "2007-06-08T02:12:26Z")
I never smoked Bible pages or anything of the sort in fear of ingesting ink, etc. Can’t say I ever witnessed this either. Were I in a situation where I had tobacco but no papers, I’d look for some aluminum foil to make a pipe. It’s also possible to make a small pipe from a cigarette box. (Empty soda can works too.) Take the foil from the box, poke a hole in the top of the box and make a ‘screen’ from the foil. Make another hole at the bottom of the box or can to draw out the smoke. Yes, it’s a small ‘toke,’ but it will get you through a serious nicotine fit. (And yes, these methods were pioneered smoking substances that weren’t necessarily tobacco. Not that I ever did. 😃 ) Break your last cigarette? Tear off the paper nearest the filter, leaving the colored paper of the filter intact. Roll the end that you normally light and stuff it into the filter. You can further secure the union of the filter and the barrel of the cigarette by using a moistened piece of cigarette paper from a butt. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/16 "2007-06-08T02:52:31Z")
Does McDonalds still wrap ice cream cones with the white tissue paper that had the McD’s logo on it? I rolled a cigarette out of that once just to see, and it worked just fine. Tasted like ass, but it was an even burn. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rolling-your-own-with-pages-from-a-book/407108/17 "2007-06-08T09:15:56Z")
British and Australian POWs in the Far East were known to use Bibles for rolling papers during WWII, FWIW.