Doctor G: The 10th Generation Joint

The Tenth Generation Joint
My brother and I had been smoking together about three years when he
asked what would happen if we saved all our roaches and smoked a roach joint.
We saved our roaches and after a week or so we rolled up a joint of all the
roaches. It was pretty stony as as we relaxed in the glow of a good stone he
asked
â??What happens next?â?�
So we got out a couple of 35mm film cannisters and labled them. Roaches
were second generation, roaches of that were third generation and so on. At the
first we just set up five generations.
Of course that led to numberous decisions. What was an official size for a
roach? Was it a roach if it went out on itâ??s own? Was a quarter of itâ??s length a
roach? What did you do with the remains of the cherry and ash end? If we were
rolling super sized joints how much was a roach ? What if we didnâ??t have a
cannister, how did we save the roaches? And then the big question; how far
could we go with this?
Eventually we came to some guidelines. A quarter of the length or less
was an official roach, roach generations could be mixed in storage if they could
be identified (wrapped in a plain paper for example). All ash and carbonized
material could be discarded, and multigenerational joints should be smoked in
special ceromonies. And we would go for a joint of tenth generation weed.
With the guidelines in place we went back to work generating the raw
material we would need to complete the project. Eventually we calculated it
required seven joints of weed to make one second generation joint. After that it
was about 4 roaches to a joint. After four years we looked into our containers and
found we had made it to sixth generation. Four years. Smoking like fiends, fifteen
joints a day and all we made it to was sixth. We did the math. It was going to take
over FOUR MILLION joints to get one joint of tenth generation weed. We were
screwed, how the hell were we going so keep track of over four million joints?
At that point we put out the word to our friends, Help us meet our goal,
Please donate to the cause. And God Bless them Every One, they stepped up to
the challange. One by one our friends donated roaches for the cause. In ones
and twos at first and then in dozens people donated roaches for the collection.
The second and third jars got to be quart mason jars and even the sixth and
seventh made it to baby food sized. And the collection grew.
I married and had children while my brother went to college in California.
Our friends spread out across the country but they kept the faith and roaches
kept showing up in the mail. Some times our friends donated third and fourth
generation roaches. Usually with badly scribbled notes.
â??Here you go, you crazy Bastards, I almost hacked up a lung on this
suckerâ?�
â??Here is a Joint of fourth for the collection. I canâ??t do this any more.â?�
â??Enclosed please find the results of three years smoking, Please let me
know how the project turns outâ?�
â??No more for me man, Iâ??ve got to drive....â?�
Every donation was marked and the donor was sent a letter with details of
the progress. As we got past sixth we found that joints simply would not smoke
unless we dried the weed for at least twenty four hours before we tried to roll it.
And rolling was a real challange. You had to roll looser and looser or the joint
would not draw. And the tar was terrible. After sixth generation the joints would
spit the most bitter and nasty tar after the first third. Before you could toke you
would squeeze the end and get as much tar as you could off the end. Eighth and
ninth joints had to be dried out for days before any attempt to roll them.
It took most of ten years but eventually we met in Canyonlands National
Park in Utah in a place called Dead Horse Canyon. The original three
participants, and assorted children and friends. We gathered for a Thanksgiving
celebration in one of the most amazing places I have have ever experienced.
After a huge Thanksgiving dinner we sent the children off to climb the
rocks or bicycle through the landscape. Then we sat down around the campfire
and prepared to smoke the â??Holy Grailâ?�. I had dried the ninth generation roaches
most throughly before I left Colorado. Even with the drying the material was very
gummy and hard to roll. Eventually I produced a joint and we tried with all our
lungs to get it lit. No chance. My brother broke it down and tried again. The Quinn
stood by and took pictures while Jeff kept the beers comming. After three tries we
managed to produce a cylinder of tarry gummy weed that it was possible to draw
through.
The first few hits were like smoking Egyptian tobacco. Harsh, black and
thick. As we slogged on the back end of the joint looked like the exhaust of a big
diesel truck. Black and oily, it didnâ??t taste like weed, it was more like smoking
some road tar. A third of the way through the joint it went out. It was hard to hit
and it took several minutes after each hit to get your breath back. It was relit and
we continued to make the best effort we could to get the damn thing to burn.
At half way through we were all tired of the effort. The joint was going out
every time we passed it from person to person. We were relighting it for every hit
and the flavor was foul. When it made it way to my brother he looked at the
blackened tar dripping cylinder and shook his head. No one objected when he
pinched off the cherry and dropped in onto the rolling tray.
He grabbed a bag of fresh weed and put a couple of pinches on the tray.
After breaking up the tar soaked remains and mixing it with some fresh cleaned
weed he rolled a Lucky Strike sized joint that was maybe half tenth and half fresh
weed. Again no one objected. With a flourish he put a flame to it and inhaled.
After that it was passed from person to person with out going out. As the
cylinder reached the size we had determained was an â??Official Roachâ?� Jeff broke
out a clip and we smoked that sucker until it disappeared. Not so much as a
scrap of paper left over for the collection. Done, Finis, No Mas.
The question was posed, what do we do with the rest of the collection? In
answer my brother emptied the containers on to the rolling tray and stirred them
all together. He tossed in a couple of big pinches of fresh weed and stirred the
whole mess together. The he got out the extra large rolling papers and rolled a
cigar sized joint . One match to fire it up and he passed it around. It seemed like a
fitting end.

Wow, man, it never occured to me to smoke roaches, what a great idea!

I can't get over the fact that everyone was sending you their roaches.

I got over it.

That's awesome man. People around here are far too shitty to do that kind of thing with their bud. =(

yea around here people keep their roaches, and lose them , but yea nice fucking idea man

highest i ever got was 3rd or 4th generation...even then the papers become quickly soggy with resin and hard to keep it lit...much less to be able to handle the taste easily....i can't imagine a 10th generation....(btw 3rd or 4th genertation was done with cones and not regular joints...so that would probably make it equal a 5th gen. atleast.)

that was quite the story man. and a very clever idea at that.

Your story made me lust for life. -shrugs- No lie. It made me want to make sure I really exist hardcore stylie, doing stuff like that.

For those who call the cardboard bit in the joint a roach like I used to: Most people over here don't use cardboard, and so the roach has marijuana in it, tarry resinated marijuana. I try to use cardboard so I don't have any weed left in the joint when I toke it, because I always lose the roaches and don't smoke enough joints to make alot of generation joints.

I hope your story is a true one. As much as it was just about abunch of potheads, it 'touched me' or something equally corny sounding. -shrugs- No lie.

It's a fucking lust. -laughs- I know it's ridiculous. But, it's lasting. I've been thinking about it for a little while now and it drew me back to this thread. Anyway I just wanted to say it was a really good story. I really hope I develop a group of close friends. I want a reality like yours. Maybe this is envy?

I guess it just seems like the drug lifestyle is very negative these days. Everyone's always scared of being ripped off and making sure they aren't being used and stuff. They forget to just enjoy eachother while simotaneously enjoying the drugs! I don't know. I want to sit around in a field with some people I like, passing a joint around, talking about nothing, and staring at the sky.

I'm sick of all this shady nonsense. Thanks again for your story. Your story really makes me want to meet those people.

well i must admit i didn't really read the whole thing through til ADaisyChain seemed stunned by this. did it really take that much weed and that much time to gain a 10th gen? it only took about a month or two and about 1 3/4 pound to gain a 4th gen (and i fucked up when i said all cones :mad: my drunkness fucks with my thinking again, cones was recently and was only to a single 2nd gen) (btw my estimate on time is pretty accurate, but ammount could be off...i'm just doing math of: 5 roaches to make a joint, each joint about 1.25 grams)


as to adaisy we seem to have a bit in common, cuz it is my dream to someday take some loved ones/friends out to the middle of knowwhere, ya know, just beatiful scenery where we can be un-interupted by modern inconviences and smoke and talk and get to know ourselves as well as each other quite a bit better. i really doubt it'd happen (cuz shit like this never really happens for me) but i'd sure as hell like to have you there to pass the joint to.

duude thats an amaaazing story

Truely inspirational.

well if each joint required 4 roaches it would take around 1.3 million, 5 roaches, around 2.6, 6 roaches is around 13 million, and 7 roaches is around 47 million

so if averaged a bit over 5 roaches per joint, and i mean just a little bit, then he would require 4 million joints for 1 10th generation joint

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slipknotpsycho

it only took about a month or two and about 1 3/4 pound to gain a 4th gen (and i fucked up when i said all cones :mad: my drunkness fucks with my thinking again, cones was recently and was only to a single 2nd gen) (btw my estimate on time is pretty accurate, but ammount could be off...i'm just doing math of: 5 roaches to make a joint, each joint about 1.25 grams).

---

so if it took you 2 months for one 4th gen, it would take you 10 months for 1 5th gen, 50 months for one 6th gen, 250 months for 1 7th, 1250 months for one 8th, 6250 for one 9th, and 31250 for 1 10th (note, these are not added up, 31250 is the amount it takes in total)

this is why he needed friends to send in their roaches because in your case it would take you 2604 years to get a 1 10th gen joint. (or if you use 1 month for a 4th then it is 1302 years)

My error. I must have been stoned or something. Actual #'s are a little over 800,000 joints to produce 1 joint of 10th.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Bizarre as it sounds this is a true story. We started the project about 1973.And
held the final ceremony in 1983. As you may have figured from my other posts I
am a frustrated researcher and this experience was no different.
An â??Official Roachâ?� was one quarter the length of the original joint. At the time we
were rolling primarily with Zig Zag single wides. We would mark the pack of
papers when we opened a fresh pack so we had a ready measure to compare to
the smoke in hand.
Observations showed we tended to smoke the first generation farther down than
the â??Official Roachâ?� size, thus it took about seven roaches to make a joint of
second. After that we were much more careful of the size of the roach and it took
about four to make a next generation.
The math goes like this: 7 roaches = 1 Joint / 2nd. So it took 196 joints to make
a joint of 4rd. 784 Joints to make a joint of 5th. 36136 Joints to make a joint of
6th. 12,544 joints to make a joint of 7th. 50,176 joints to make a joint of 8th.
200,704 joints to make a joint of 9th. 802,816 joints to make a joint of 10th.
3,211,264 joints to make a joint of 11th.
Oh yea, if you ever want to spend time in a landscape that is almost unearthly,
Canyonlands Nation Park is your place. There are 3 sections to the park. The
Islands in the Sky district, the Maze District, The Land of Standing Rocks. The
easiest automobile access is into the Islands in the Sky district. The hardest
access is the Maze District (four wheel drive ONLY). This is not an easy park to
access. There are no services, no water, fuel for the Maze district is 70 brutal
miles from the park entrance. Some of the most challenging four wheel drive trails
in the United States are located within this park. But what a place....WOW.
Summers are hotter than hell but spring and fall, wow. Winter? We did Christmas
there one year and slept on the ground in 5 below zero (Fahrenheit not
Centigrade). If you go there, please, do not deface the ancient rock art that in
places is a thousand years old or more. Stay on established trails. Take only
pictures, leave only footprints.
Thanks for reading
Doctor G

kinda confused

My favorite part from that was "The original three participants, and assorted children and friends."

I just have this mental picture of 50 or more people, standing around you, watching in hushed anticipation, waiting for you to spark the joint.

Great story as always, Doctor G, keep 'em coming.

well probably the reason (saying this before someone starts questioning how i managed to smoke nearly 2 pounds in less than 2 months, should anyone remember i rarely get any weed anymore) would be because me and my brother had got our apartment (the house i live in now had 2 apartments out back, one of which was going to be tore down in a couple of months so we lived up there, and held 'small' parties with about 15-20 people EVERY night) so we'd go out and mow a couple of yards after school, take a shower pick up our usual and have our party, after we noticed how quickly roaches were building up we decided to start saving all the roaches of the week for firday nights (the major parties when shit would get wild) ahh those were the fuckin days.....

Wow that story was really cool. Good job. You're giving hope to us kids. Wow, seriously amazing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ADaisyChain

It's a fucking lust. -laughs- I know it's ridiculous. But, it's lasting. I've been thinking about it for a little while now and it drew me back to this thread. Anyway I just wanted to say it was a really good story. I really hope I develop a group of close friends. I want a reality like yours. Maybe this is envy?

I guess it just seems like the drug lifestyle is very negative these days. Everyone's always scared of being ripped off and making sure they aren't being used and stuff. They forget to just enjoy eachother while simotaneously enjoying the drugs! I don't know. I want to sit around in a field with some people I like, passing a joint around, talking about nothing, and staring at the sky.

I'm sick of all this shady nonsense. Thanks again for your story. Your story really makes me want to meet those people.

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What he said. :D