Figuring The Best Way To Toke This 420.

Choosing the best way to smoke your stuff is one if not the most important parts of becoming a master toker. Certainly, new experiences are important in the world of smoking marijuana, but with the social demand for a functionally consistent society as well as the (presumably) common desire to not feel like a piece of shit, it's essential to reduce damage (both psychological and physical) and make ones trip as favorable as possible.
 
NO TOBACCO!!!
This is, without a doubt, my favorite part of any MJ related discussion and is advice I commonly give to beginners. While a lot of people I know just love to mix tobacco in their joints (eww), or even stuff their tobacco cigarettes with hash, it's not good for beginning smokers. Without any sophisticated studies, I can give you a fairly accurate estimate of percentage of people who smoke marijuana as their first way of consuming it. It's somewhere around 90%. Vaporizers and bongs come into the picture later.
 
The fact is, if you're not a seasoned tobacco smoker, it's probably not a good idea to mix tobacco with your weed, hash or even brickweed. Here's why, 1. tobacco is bad for you. Honestly, if you're pro-legalization your arguments have to be bulletproof if you claim that "marijuana cures cancer" and end up getting cancer yourself, you're doing no one other than the conservatives a favor.
 
In case you're not a hypocritical hippie douche, 2. tobacco can make you feel sick if you don't smoke it regularly. While a marijuana trip is a largely subjective experience, the psychological impression of the drug is equivalent among users at the base level. This is to say that marijuana amplifies sensory perception. If this is true, then feeling nauseous makes one feel even more so.
 
Now, some of you are going to argue that marijuana is used medicinally to subvert nausea felt by chemo patients. I am not going to argue with this as it holds true for me as well. However, what I mean to say is that marijuana amplifies and propagates nausea only when it occurs at the same time. Smoking tobacco for many users is nauseating the first time around. If we take into consideration the fact that marijuana, hash and tobacco are smoked in very different ways!!!
This means that smoking a joint with both in equal measure would require you to smoke it half incorrectly. I know that holding in cigarette smoke makes me feel sick and that doing so with marijuana makes me want to quit both (addicts take note).
 
Avoid cigarettes, try and smoke a joint without tobacco even if it tastes funky. If you only have brick weed look at the next section. If you prepared well you should have some nice food to stuff your face with when you're done.
 
SMOKING MEDIUM
 
The symbol of the marijuana movement, throughout the world, has been wither the atypical marijuana leaf or the joint. In fact the joint is the most widely used form of consuming marijuana all over the world.
 
To pick the best way to smoke your marijuana, there are several factors to consider:
1. Different ways of smoking have different physiological and psychological effects (different trip)
2. Some materials may cause harm. Your death may impede legalization.
3. The way you smoke and hence the intensity of the trip should be weighed against how much of a novice or 'pro' you are.
4. The type of weed you have (sativa or Indica)
 
1. In my experience, the vaporizer has the strongest effect of all the conventional ways to smoke marijuana. It's capable of extracting 90% of THC from any inserted substance and and delivering all that to your lungs in the same time a bong hit would get you only 20%!
 
The bong would be the next in intensity as it allows one to continuously smoke the equivalent of 3 joint drags (pulls) without stopping as the smoke is cooled by being bubbled through (cold) water. There are two main delivery methods when smoking a bong. You could dab or pack a bowl.
 
Dabbing implies that you heat a titanium pin or bowl with a blow torch and 'dab' some THC concentrate causing it to vaporize (mostly) and be inhaled the conventional way.
Packing a bowl on the other hand is exactly as it sounds. You pack a bowl with 3 drags worth of weed and smoke it all in one go, if you can.
 
The best part smoking a bong is that it (to a great extent) gets rid of the bad taste associated with brick weed and hits you pretty hard even if said weed is weak. Try it.
 
Glass pipes have become popular in marijuana culture in an attempt to provide an on-the-go solution for patients since the elimination of aluminum pipes (see next section). They're a great way (not the best) to smoke your stuff but are no where near as intense as a bong or vaporizer or as tranquil and serene as a joint.
 
The joint is one of the best ways of smoking weed for recreational users as it's a slow delivery process. As you slowly drift into a higher state of consciousness (what weed does essentially) the act of smoking can become a very psychedelic experience!
 
For medicators and cancer avoiders alike, using a vaporizer to ingest your medicine is probably the best way to go about things as it ensures the fastest delivery without the added carcinogens from smoke and lets you get the most out of your weed - a long term investment.
 
For first timers, however, I would and always will suggest that you smoke a J(oint). There's nothing like it the first time around. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the trip.
 
2. As mentioned, aluminum pipes have largely been replaced by glass ones. In recent years a correlation has been drawn between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease. if you'll notice, people smoke mostly out of glass as it's an extremely inert substance. Smoking out of metals such as copper, aluminum (aluminium), stainless steel, zinc and brass are probably not a good idea.
 
3. With the trip intensity going joint<pipe<bong rip <bond dab<vaporizer, you should move up from one to the other although it is not necessary and wouldn't ruin your trip if you were not to do so.
 
Some of the people I know have suffered panic attacks from taking huge bong rips and getting nauseated completely ruining the day. It's not so much about the strength of the marijuana but your ability to cope with the smoke and nausea.
 
4. If you're a predominantly indica smoker, you should prefer the slower ways of smoking such as joints. This is because indica's give you more of a lazy couch lock high, whereas sativas give you a more energetic high. You can get away with smoking sativas in bongs and pipes but leave indicas to the joint, there's simply no other way.
 
PREPARE!!!
WHEN YOU GET HIGH:
you will get drymouth
you will get the munchies
you will get tired
you will get horny
you will get spiritual
your eyes will get bloodshot
 
Get a lot and I mean a LOT of water. Dry mouth can interfere with breathing which gets uncomfortable at most. Prepare food. I like to keep both sweet savory food around but there is not 'trick' to what you should eat when high. Most if not all food will taste good. Some ice cream, brownies and pizza are a good way to go.
 
I like to get high alone at night (it's fun), This way I don't have anything to worry about like nosy neighbors or parents knocking on my door in the middle of a toke. This also allows me to either masturbate or listen to music and fall asleep immediately after.
 
In the event that you choose to get high with friends outside or go outside immediately afterward, it's probably a good idea to put your eyedrops in before smoking. It becomes nearly impossible to do it afterward especially for beginners. It works 100% and your eyes stay white for hours when the high is long gone.
 
Getting high is a spiritual experience, but unfortunately an illegal one. In the effort to legalize weed we have to be responsible in terms of how we smoke and what happens as a result of our smoking. There is evidence that smoking too frequently (like anything in excess) can be detrimental to you and perhaps others around you. Keep it indoors especially if you're a beginner. Getting high for the first time in conjunction with it being illegal brings about fear of being caught which amplifies under the influence especially in the presence of company (or other living beings).
 
Take it easy, couple puffs at a time and relax. HAPPY 420 everyone!

 

 
We often forget our unique biologies. When I toke there seems to be a limit for me at which point smoking more is a futile effort that only serves to prolong the high. I know people that can't get stoned on weed and smoke hash exclusively; I know some people that get really high off of a single cone. I myself can get pretty stoned out of my mind on weed. I smoked about a gram (1 joint and 2 bong rips) of some white widow and I just sat there for what seemed like for ever (1 hour in reality) just staring out the window. Hash seems to produce the same result with only a difference in the duration of time between the first inhalation and the felt effect.

 

 
I guess, but keep in mind that this post is directed towards beginners who probably haven't smoked tobacco before. With recent decriminalization, people are now more likely to try cannabis on 420 than any given day. I'm just trying to make it a more enjoyable experience for them to get more people on 'our side.'

 

Yeah! How did I forget that?! Anyway, not exactly something for a beginner. Tried it once, worst trip of my life. Gave me a headache. Tried it again (i'm self destructive) - best trip of my life.

 

Unmentionables? If you mean LSD, shrooms and other psychedelics, I've tried each once, but that's a story for another post. In case you're talking about other ways of smoking, this is something I forgot to mention: if you're a frequent smoker, you should only do one bong hit. Honestly, you can stone yourself sober. Happened to me more than once. A couple of friends and I packed a pretty big bowl with some tangerine dream, hit one bowl each and we were stoned the entire day (this is when we were just a few weeks into it though.)

 

 
I know what you mean. I guess you're right in that immediately after dropping some acid, weed doesn't seem to have much of an effect. But give it time. I tried LSD once and weed's still pretty great in my opinion. You're not gonna trip balls but you have to realize that it's a different trip altogether. Each to be appreciated in its own way.
 
If you have a hard time getting high on pot, try downing a bottle of beer right after a bong rip. It's pretty great.