Roll Your Own Cigarettes

Want to save money on cigarettes? Buying a cigarette rolling machine is the way to go. You won't just save money--you may or may not be aware of all the crap that tobacco companies put into their cigarettes. Arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, nitrosamines and more. For a complete list, check out the article on Wikipedia. If you must smoke, a healthier alternative (you'll still get nicotine & tar, of course) is to roll your own.


When you buy tobacco in bulk, you know where it's coming from. You can choose by location and/or type and you can choose organic tobacco that's free of any pesticides. You can find a good list of sellers here. You can also find a huge selection of papers; they come in a variety of flavors, sizes and materials, like hemp, wood pulp and rice straw. In addition to papers, you can buy pre-rolled tubes, which are used in injector-type machines. With both papers and tubes you can buy filters; some tubes come with the filters already inside.

Just one example of cigarette tubes.

There are three basic types of cigarette rollers. The simplest and cheapest is the hand roller, which consists of two rollers with a slot for tobacco and paper. Using a rolling motion, similar to hand rolling, you can turn out a neat cigarette in a couple of minutes. Some of them are adjustable or made specifically for "blunts" or thicker cigarettes.

Next up in price are the hand crank machines. With these you place a cigarette tube over a hollow holder, insert the tobacco and turn the crank. The advantages of these over the basic roller is they can turn out a more evenly packed "professional looking" cigarette and, with the pre-rolled tube, there's no glue to moisten. Some of them can push out 2 or 3 cigarettes at a time.

The fastest, most efficient choice is also the most expensive: the electric cigarette rolling machine. Load it up & push a button: couldn't be simpler. I have both an electric machine and a small hand roller. The hand roller, being small & portable, is great for travelling in case you run out of the ones you've made at home with a table-top machine. If you run out of tobacco while you're on the road, you can buy pipe tobacco; but because the consistency is different from that made for cigarettes, you'll need to break/chop it up before using it.

The prices range from as low as $6 to $90. The electric machines in particular may seem a bit pricey, but you'll save so much money in the long run it will pay for itself many times over. If you want to smoke, one of these machines is the way to go.