Rolling paper

Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes (commercially manufactured filter cigarettes and individually made roll-your-own cigarettes).

Cigarette paper is made from thin and lightweight "rag fibers" (nonwood plant fibers) such as flax, hemp, sisal, rice straw, and esparto. The paper is available in rolls and rectangular sheets of varying sizes, and has a narrow strip of glue along one long edge. It may be transparent, colored and flavored. It has a high filler content and a basis weight of 18-28 g/m². To control the smoking properties, this paper has a porosity that is suited to the type of tobacco and contains additives that regulate burning. One critical paper characteristic is permeability; its primary physical influence is smoke dilution. Among the fillers used are calcium carbonate to influence the permeability and color, magnesium carbonate to improve ash color, or titanium oxide if a particularly white ash is required.Sodium potassium tartrate (Seignette's salt), sodium and potassium citrate are used as a combustion regulator in cigarette paper, increased levels result in faster burning papers.Poly(vinyl alcohol) in aqueous solution is used for cigarette adhesives.

Permeability is defined as the measure of the volume of air that flows through a specified area of cigarette paper in a given unit of time. It is measured in CORESTA units. US commercial filter cigarette brands have paper permeability between 14 and 51 CORESTA units. Increased cigarette paper permeability results in increased smoke dilution with air.

Other specialty papers for tobacco products are:

In the United States, Tobacconist Magazine has called roll-your-own (RYO) the tobacco industry's fastest growing segment. It estimates that 2-4% of US cigarette smokers, or approximately 2.6 million people, make their own cigarettes. Many of these smokers have switched in response to increasingly high taxes on manufactured cigarettes.

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