Features // March 13, 2021 // Annie Gallo

9 Ways to Smoke Weed

9 Ways to Smoke Weed

There are so many wonderful ways to smoke cannabis flower, whether it’s out of  a glass pipe, a piece of fruit, or rolling up a fatty. The options can be overwhelming and confusing for someone who wants to take their first puff, so we've broken down some classic ways to spark up!

Rolling up

Rolling up with papers takes practice, patience and skill. There are many ways to roll up, just like there are several methods of smoking weed. 

Blunts 

People who smoke tobacco might enjoy an extra kick to their high and choose to roll up a blunt. Blunts are cigars or cigarillos that are split open, emptied of tobacco, and re-rolled using cannabis. Flavored cigarillos like White Owls, Games, Zig Zag and Swisher Sweets, all found at the gas station or your corner store, are often used for rolling up blunts. 

Joints

Joints are ideal for stoners who wanna really taste their flower. Rolling a joint can use from half of a gram to a gram of cannabis. A whole joint can be overwhelming to smoke alone for a newbie. RAW papers, which are made from pure, naturally unrefined plant fibers, are some of the the most frequently used papers to roll joints. 

Cones

For people who can’t roll up but want to try smoking a joint, pre-rolled cones are a good option. RAW makes various sizes of cones. All you have to do is break up the weed, fill the cone, light up and inhale. There are other brands like High Hemp cones and Cyclone hemp cones which come in flavors like strawberry, blueberry, and grape. These hemp cones are a great option for people who want to roll up with a flavor. 

Pipes

Pipes are a simple way to enjoy your weed, whether alone or with friends. 

One-hitters, chillums and bowls

These smaller pipes can be often be found at gas stations or smoke shops. One-hitters hold enough weed for just one or two puffs. Chillums are simple straight pipes, often made from glass. Bowls, also called spoon pipes, have a fat bowl to smoke out of.Prices on pipes like these can range from $10 to $100 or more for hand blown, artistically designed pieces.  Pipes can be made of glass, acrylic, metal, or silicone. The downside from a pipe is the ash can make its way into a smoker’s mouth since there's no filter. Pipes are convenient for travel and easy to stash. 

Water pipes  

There are many styles of water pipes, also known as bongs, that can range in price from $20 to over $1,000. While cheaper pieces often come from China, there are many glass artists creating intricate, unique hand-blown pieces that demand a higher price. A water pipe is smoother on a smoker’s throat and lungs than a regular pipe, because the water acts as a filter for ash and resin, mellowing the harshness of the burn that smokers can experience on inhaling. This makes water pipes a go-to for many cannabis connoisseurs. 

Bubblers 

Bubblers are a type of water pipe, but they're much smaller than your average bong. Bubblers are often small enough to carry in a purse or backpack. A big bong carries the risk of breaking and being conspicuous, but a bubbler is stealthy, so it's handy if you're traveling.

Gravity Bong 

Using a gravity bong is a fairly common (and cheap) way to smoke, but it's the least healthy smoking method. This decades-old technique requires a few supplies. Many people find a socket out of a tool set to act as the bowl of the piece. The next step is cutting a few small holes in the bottom of a water, soda, or Gatorade bottle, and submerging that bottle with holes into a larger cup or container of water.Cut a hole into the cap of the bottle and and fit the socket as the bowl into the cap (you can melt the plastic around the socket to do this, but, yuck, burning plastic is horrible. We don't advise this). Finally, it’s time to smoke. Light the weed as you pull the bottle up out of the water, creating a vaccum that fills the bottle with smoke. Once the bottle is filled with smoke, take off the socket, and inhale. Gravity bongs are an old-school way to smoke; one or two of these will have beginner smokers feeling almost too high. Pieces like the A.C. Greebs and the Grong are ready-made gravity bong bowls that you can buy rather than using a socket.

Vaporizer 

Ok, so this isn't really smoking. When you put cannabis in a dry herb vaporizer, it's brought to a temperature just below combustion. Since cannabis is not being heated up until it has turned to ash, vaping can reduce some of the harmful lung effects of smoking.Most vaporizers retail for around $50-$150, like the G Pen Elite Vaporizer for $119.95. This pen has temperature settings from 200° - 428°F. The Elite is a portable convection vaporizer, and features an all-ceramic heating chamber, LED display with temperature control, and battery life indicator.