Pre-ground rolling packs have become wildly popular due to a combination of practicality, convenience and affordability.
Ready-to-roll packs usually contain around half an oz of pre-ground flower and rolling papers, just about everything you need to get high on the go. They’re great for adventures, nights out with friends, and other low-stakes situations where you want to roll up, roll often, and share with whomever — sans the feeling of guilt that comes with squandering top shelf flower at $20 a gram.
The caveat? For one, mechanically ground flower loses a lot of the trichomes containing the chemical compounds, like terpenes and cannabinoids, that get you high. The packs also dry out way faster than full nugs. And two, it’s easy for brands to grind anything into that fine powder you’re rolling, like stems, leaves, and other fillers, without you knowing. Purchasing these rolling packs, especially since you can’t see what’s going on inside them through opaque packaging, can be a bit of a minefield.
But regardless of the minor downsides, the price of cannabis is totally out of control. Half an ounce of potent mids for $50 is a godsend of a deal to many, especially those who want or need to be smoking all the time but haven’t cashed out on that crypto quite yet.
So we’ve simplified the pre-ground guessing game by sampling all the packs on the market and picking only the best. Here are seven of the best pre-ground packs that are ready to roll wherever you are.
Old Pal Appalachia ½ oz Ready to Roll
Old Pal pioneered the concept of “sharable cannabis” when they launched the first pre-ground rolling pack a few years ago. Flash forward to now, and this trend-setting brand has become one of the most popular around, building a killer reputation with great vibes and solid flower.
With their new Appalachia hybrid ½ oz Ready to Roll pack, they really kicked it up a notch. Coming in at 24.74% THC, the crystalline, crumbly goodness of this pre-ground sparkles. Gassy, earthy, woody and dank, it smells like the deepest depths of an emerald forest.
Fresh pine, eucalyptus, moist, alive … the high is clear, focused, and left me feeling upbeat and ready to get shit done.
Available: California and Nevada
Stone Road ½ oz Garlic Cookies Pre-Ground Pack
Stone Road is a super hip queer-owned cannabrand known for good branding and better weed. Their new ½ oz Garlic Cookies Pre-Ground Pack doesn’t disappoint in either category. Coming in at $50 for the half oz, this beautiful weed hasn’t been ground to a bloody pulp. You can still feel the semblance of fresh, moist flower, the kind that wouldn’t blow away if a breeze hit the rolling paper.
The Garlic Cookies indica hybrid is gassy, dank and totally fire, with a dreamy head high that promotes calm, relaxation, and — in the right situation — sleepiness.
Available: California
Baker ½ oz GMO Pre-Ground Cannabis
Baker is a new-ish house brand by Canndescent, the California brand known for their out-of-control-incredible top shelf flower. Baker, who specialize in different forms of pre-ground cannabis, like rolling packs and prerolls, is exciting because it allows people who don’t have the $60-70 to spend on an eighth of Canndescent access to the gorgeous weed they’re growing in an extremely pared down package.
Coming in at a mere $45-60 for the half oz, depending on the strain, this high quality pouch offers some of the best bang for your buck on the market. The GMO variety we sampled, for example, was so stanky it permeated the mylar bag.
I was really impressed. It was fresh enough to give you a head high from a whiff alone. Gassy, spicy, garlicky and dark, this cross between Chemdawg and Girl Scout Cookies makes you feel elated and effervescent, before settling into a dreamy, relaxing head high.
Available: California
Sublime Roll Your Own Infused Sativa 1/8th
Sublime, the Oakland brand behind the cult favorite mini-tarantulas, Fuzzies Infused Pre-rolls, are back with a line of Roll Your Own Infused Cannabis Flower. Our favorite was the Super Silver Haze sativa pack. It’s potent, pre-ground, and pretty fucking fire.
While these packs come in 3.5g, 7g, and 14g, the 3.5g is sufficient for a day or night (or two) out. This flower is extremely strong and you don’t need to smoke that much of it to realize that almost immediately.
Upon hitting this dark, earthy flower that appears to be infused with distillate, I lost myself in productivity and rearranging every plant in the house. Five stars.
Available: California
Reef Leaf Hyrbid Pre-Ground Cannabis
This house brand of Caliva breaks the ½ oz mold with their 5g option, but really delivers in terms of flower potency and quality.
Reef Leaf cost $20 for the 5g, which is the same as a single gram of top shelf at a dispensary. There’s no strain listed on these packs, only Sativa, Hybrid and Indica, and the flower comes in an extremely fine grind, but the weed itself is fire.
With pungent notes of lush, earthy pine, I was genuinely shocked by how strong it was. The heady high kicked my ass — I immediately lost interest in my work and devolved into a pile of languid joy in the best way possible. Fun, heady, and wholly recreational, it’s a great high for summer days, hot tubs, and sunsets.
Available: California
Deli Roll Ups Sativa
Deli, another house brand by Caliva, offers a similar flower experience as the Reef Leaf, but this one comes in the traditional ½ oz rolling pack. At $50 for the half oz, it’s a good deal, containing chunky ground flower with a round, woody smell. And while the aroma doesn’t knock your socks off and the texture of the flower includes some stems, this pouch serves as a solid reminder to never judge your flower on optics alone.
The high was incredible, elated, focused, and overall really great for daytime use when you want to take the edge off but still have a ton of shit to do.
Available: California
Claybourne Co. Chemdawg Power Pack
Our final pack on this list is not pre-ground, but deserves entry because there are a lot of cannabis users out there who don’t know how to roll a joint, but still want to get in on this affordable, on-the-go pack trend. It includes a gram of kief and a tiny shovel, so let’s be real, it rules and you guys should know about it.
The Power Pack by Claybourne Co. contains 3.5g of small nugs and a gram of kief for $45, which is really good when you consider you’re getting a gram of high quality concentrate along with an eighth of top shelf whole nug flower. They come in all kinds of different kief and strain combinations for whatever you’re looking to get into.
We tried a sativa combo of Chemdawg flower and kief from a cross of Bokers x Chemdawg x Cookies and Cream Kief that was totally out of this world. High in limonene, caryophyllene and myrcene, the combo was perfect: a peppery tang of gas, spice and citrus that produce a zoomy head high then levels into focus that lasts all day.
Available: California
Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps
