Weed 101: How to Make a Thai Stick (And What Is One, Anyway?)

The ways how you can consume cannabis are nearly endless, as any Google search will tell you, with some being simple and very popular and others being more complex. One of the most complicated—but ultimately very satisfying—ways to smoke is by creating a Thai stick.

What’s a Thai Stick?

A Thai stick is, essentially, a blunt made entirely from cannabis. That’s right: there are no rolling papers or pipes involved, just grade-A cannabis. When they were first crafted in the 60s, Thai sticks were made by putting marijuana on a skewer and then dipping it in opium.

While the modern Thai stick is not dipped in opium, it does follow a similar logic to its ancestor. Now, Thai sticks are basically buds of marijuana skewered on stick (which is later removed) and wrapped in marijuana leaves. Since the entire blunt is made of cannabis, it will only burn at about an inch per minute, which means you get a whole lot of bang for your buck.

How to make a Thai Stick

Here is a step-by-step guide on crafting the perfect Thai stick:

1. Find your least-dense buds and separate them. These will be the easiest to compress for your finished product.
2. Grab your stick (bamboo skewers work well for this) and coat it with either hash oil or sugar water to make it a bit sticky.
3. Bind the buds you chose in the first step to your stick by pressing them onto the stick and wrapping with hemp string. The buds should be secure to the string without being too tight.
4. Put your Thai stick in the fridge for a few days. We recommend wrapping it up in parchment paper to stop it from sticking to your refrigerator. Waiting is the worst part of the process, but it’s worth it for the finished product.
5. Unwrap the hemp line from your stick. If you completed the previous steps successfully, your buds should now stay on the stick without the hemp.
6. Apply cannabis leaves around the stick—these will essentially replace smoking papers for your Thai stick. Keep wrapping the leaves around the blunt, generously applying sugar water or hash oil as you go to keep the whole thing together.
7. Put the stick back in the fridge for another day, wrap with more leaves, and repeat. The end goal is to have three layers of leaves, which means you’ll be completing your stick for about a week, give or take.
8. Re-wrap your Thai stick in parchment paper and warm it on a hot plate or warm pan for a few seconds to seal the layers of leaves.
9. Once the stick is heated for a few minutes, re-wrap it with hemp string and place it back in the fridge.

Once this process is complete, your Thai stick is technically ready to be smoked. Some people recommend letting it cure by putting it in a paper bag and burying it underground for a few weeks, or vacuum-sealing it and letting it sit for a week. This extra waiting time gives the Thai stick its signature flavor.

Make sure to remove the stick and hemp string before smoking your Thai stick—both of these burn at different rates and will restrict air flow.

We recommend making a few Thai sticks at a time if possible to maximize your crafting time. Making Thai sticks is a long and complex process, but smoking one is a unique experience that makes it worth the wait.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3