If you walk into a brick and mortar head shop or visit one online, you will find an abundance of smoke delivery instruments and devices to choose from. Here’s an overview of products and their characteristics to help you find what suites you.
Glass Pipes and Bowls
Smoking out of a glass pipe or bowl is perfect for passing around a circle of friends or personal use. Bowls come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. They are and fairly durable convenient to travel with. Glass pipes and bowls typically cost between $15 to $60; there are also more costly premium bowls available too. Glass pipes and bowls usually have a circular reservoir on the top side for marijuana and a small hole called a carb on the side that helps pulled air to be through the shaft of the pipe when inhaling. The carb is covered by placing your thumb over the hole. You release your thumb when you are done burning the pot to clear the chamber.
Glass pipes and bowls have a long lifespan unless you drop it. They are easy to maintain and clean. Glass bowls are one of the more quick, easy and intuitive methods of smoke delivery. However, glass pipes and bowls do not offer any smoke filtration.
Chillums
Chillums fall under the glass pipe category. A chillum is a more simple version of a bowl. The circular compartment that holds the marijuana is on the front of the pipe and typically does not have a carb hole on the side. Chillums usually hold less pot with a capacity larger than a one-hitter. Chillums can be a little smaller than bowls which make them portable.
Bongs
The bong’s origins supposedly go back to ancient times but were popularized in America during the 1960s. They are one of the main icons of pot culture. Bongs are typically made out of glass, acrylic, silicon and other materials. Bongs have a wide base where water is stored, a female joint and a tall chamber. The female joint stores the pot and is removable to serve as a carb. There are some premium bongs that have splash guards to prevent water from splashing into your mouth when you’re inhaling.
The main benefit of using a bong is the smooth and cool sensation of smoke once the smoke passes through the water. It is a common misconception that bongs offer filtration from carcinogens and other bad stuff such as tar and ash. Therefore, only use a bong if you want to achieve a different smoke sensation and effect. Bongs are a little more cumbersome than other smoking devices. Beginners may need a little help. The price of a bong varies greatly—they range from $40 to $400 and upward.
Glass Bubblers
Glass bubblers are a hybrid between a glass bowl and a bong. It provides the water filtration of a bong with the convenience and size of a glass bowl. They can work with or without water A cost of a glass bubbler range from $20 to $300.
Joints
Joints are the traditional method of smoking pot. To make a joint, Marijuana needs to be roughly broken apart and rolled in a rolling paper. It takes a little practice to roll a tight joint that doesn’t spill marijuana into your mouth. Nowadays, you can buy pre-rolled paper cones or larger rolling papers that are easily filled with pot. Joints are good for social smoking or heavy solo smokers and not for one hit wonders. Within the joint category, blunts, which are cigars that are cut open with a razor, hollowed out and filled with marijuana. Joints can also be rolled with a combination of marijuana and tobacco to create a spliff.
Vaporizers
A new innovation to Marijuana smoking industry, vaporizers, became popular in the U.S. around 2007. Vaporizing technology has been traced back to ancient Egypt but was patented in 1965 for market use by Herbert A. Gilbert.
Vaporizers indirectly heat up THC concentrates, dried marijuana, or liquid extracts to a temperature that vaporizes the elements. It is thought that vaping has less risk to your respiratory system than combustible marijuana smoke. Different temperatures produce different psychoactive and physical characteristics. Lower temperatures produce a light head high while higher temperatures affect your head as well give you a body high. In a 2018 study of infrequent cannabis users, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers found that, compared with smoking combustible marijuana, vaping it increased the rate of short-term anxiety, paranoia, memory loss and distraction when doses were the same.1
