Does RAW Own Elements? The Story Behind Both Papers
Does RAW own Elements? Pretty much, yes. Both brands come from the same bloke, a smoke shop owner who opened his first shop in 1993. Same year we opened ours.
The short answer
RAW and Elements were both created by Josh Kesselman, and both sit under his company, HBI. Both were developed with the same family paper mill in the Alicante province of Spain. So when people ask us “RAW or Elements?”, they’re really choosing between two siblings, not two rivals.
That’s also why they’re so close in quality. Same founder, same obsession with paper, same mill.
A smoke shop in 1993
Kesselman opened a smoke shop called Knuckleheads in Gainesville, Florida, in 1993, importing specialist papers from Europe. He’d sold most of what he owned to do it, keeping a $500 van and a Harley he’d built himself.
In 1996 the shop was raided after he sold a bong to a woman whose dad worked for the US government, and he ended up under house arrest. Later that year he moved to Arizona and started HBI, a smoke shop supply and distribution company. Anyone who’s run a head shop will recognise at least some of that story.
The mill in Spain
Around the same time, he met the owner of a paper mill in the Alicante province of Spain, a factory that had been making papers since around 1764. The owner was looking for a new partner to develop and sell new products.
Out of that partnership came three brands:
- Juicy Jay’s: the flavoured papers.
- Elements: the rice papers.
- RAW: the unbleached hemp and plant-fibre papers. Kesselman came up with the brand in 1995, and the first full RAW line launched in 2005.
Are RAW papers made in Alcoy?
Alcoy, in the Alicante region, has been the centre of Spanish rolling paper making for centuries, and RAW has long been linked with it. But RAW’s organic hemp papers are reportedly made in Benimarfull, a village in the same province.
It even ended up in court. In 2023, Republic, the company behind OCB, sued HBI, claiming among other things that HBI had misled people by saying all its papers were made in Alcoy. The court ruled for HBI on the federal false advertising claim but made it change some of its advertising under state law. The jury also found that Republic had wilfully copied RAW’s packaging, and awarded HBI around $1.47 million. Kesselman said he’d give the money to organisations helping small cannabis businesses.
So the honest answer is: made in the Alicante region of Spain, in the paper-making heartland around Alcoy.
What are Elements papers made of?
Rice paper and a natural gum. No hemp, no wood pulp, no bleach. That’s why Elements taste of next to nothing and burn down to almost no ash. The criss-cross watermark is there to keep the burn even.
The range we stock:
- Elements King Size Slim, the classic
- Elements Phantom King Size Slim, the thinnest Elements
- Elements King Size Slim combi pack, papers and tips together
- Pink Elements and Rainbow Elements
- Elements pink pre-rolled cones
And RAW?
Unbleached hemp and plant fibres, with RAW’s natural watermark doing the same anti-run job as Elements’ criss-cross. A slight earthy taste compared with Elements, and the gum is acacia, as it says on the box. The main lines:
- RAW Classic and RAW Classic Connoisseur (with tips)
- RAW Organic and RAW Organic with tips
- RAW Black and RAW Black Connoisseur
- RAW Ethereal, RAW’s thinnest
- The 2ft RAW Classic Challenge Cone, if you want to show off
So which should you buy?
That’s a different question, and we’ve answered it properly in RAW vs Elements: An Honest Comparison. The one-line version: Elements if you want to taste nothing but what’s inside, RAW if you like a bit of body.
Or just buy both. It’s the same bloke’s money either way.