Apehex, the automated pre-roll system developed by Perfectionist Rolling Equipment in collaboration with RAW founder Josh Kesselman, is quietly changing how joints are manufactured across North America. What looks today like a polished piece of production equipment began as something much simpler: a Saturday morning idea, a production bottleneck and a message that landed in the right inbox at the right time.
The story does not begin inside a corporate innovation lab or a venture-backed tech campus. It starts on June 18, 2016, during a Call of Duty match, when Zen Dispensary co-founder Justin Kruidenier paused his game long enough to check his phone and sketch out a concept he could not get out of his head.
Patients at Zen, in New River, Arizona, were asking for stronger flower. Some were older and uneasy handling concentrates. Others wanted more potency without changing the way they consumed cannabis. Kruidenier started thinking about infused rolling papers: something easy to roll, forgiving in the hands and consistent in effect.
His solution was straightforward. Take a sheet of rolling paper, apply concentrate to it, then seal it with a second sheet. The extract stayed neatly inside, the paper still behaved like a standard rolling paper and the consumer did not need to change anything about their ritual.
A longtime RAW smoker, Kruidenier saw the power of pairing the idea with the world’s most recognizable rolling paper brand. He opened Instagram and sent a direct message to RAW founder Josh Kesselman, explaining the concept and how patients were responding.
He expected to wait days for a reply. Instead, Kesselman answered within hours and connected him with Ron and Ian at HBI in Phoenix. The meeting that followed did more than validate the idea. It set the stage for a completely new kind of pre-roll production.
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Author: High Times / High Times
