There’s an entire industry devoted to different types of smoking devices. This shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise considering that people have been using smoking paraphernalia for centuries.
The delivery method is the second key factor in your smoking experience after selecting the strain. Different types of smoking devices have a different effect on how you feel after your puff-puff-pass, both during and after the sesh.
If you’re new to cannabis paraphernalia, this article is for you. We’ll cover all kinds of smoking equipment, from the old-school stuff to the latest technological trends on the market.
But before we dig into that, let’s focus on reasons why smoking is so popular among cannabis consumers.
Reasons Why People Smoke Weed
Despite the rising vaping trend, smoking is still the way to go for the majority of cannabis aficionados.
There’s something special about this method. Some people say that’s because it makes you feel as if you were participating in a ritual; others prefer smoking due to pragmatic aspects.
Smoking is arguably the fastest consumption method when it comes to onset of effects. Once you inhale the smoke, the THC rushes through the bloodstream to reach the cannabinoid receptors in the brain.
The effects of smoked weed are noticeable within minutes after you’re done toking. For medical users, this means more immediate effects. For recreational smokers — a faster high.
It goes without saying that smoking has some obvious downsides, such as the smoke itself. Smoked cannabis delivers harmful carcinogens from the ignited material. Nevertheless, studies haven’t shown any connection between smoked cannabis and increased risk of lung cancer. In fact, current research indicates that smoking the herb may improve lung function.
Now, let’s explore different types of smoking devices.
7 Different Types of Smoking Devices
Being an ancient custom and the most common cannabis consumption method, smoking offers an abundance of devices designed specifically for weed. This includes hand pipes, bubblers, bongs, dab rigs, hookahs, or DIY disposable smoking devices.
Here are 7 different types of smoking devices you can use for your next sesh.
1. Hand Pipes
Hand pipes are one of the most common smoking devices among weed aficionados. They’ve been used for ages and are generally favored for their convenience and ease of use. Pipes are portable, easy to operate, and only involve some simple maintenance to be kept in good shape.
Hand pipes contain the smoke from burning cannabis, which the user then inhales through the mouthpiece. They come in different shapes, sizes, and designs; many of them are handmade models crafted by artisan glassworkers.
2. Bubblers
A bubbler is actually a handpipe with a small water filtration system. There health benefits of water filtration include cooler and smoother hits that are free of dangerous substances you otherwise inhale.
To use a bubbler, you need to follow the same steps as with a normal handpipe — the only difference is that you fill the bubbler’s base with a little bit of water to create filtration and enjoy some bubbles in your smoke.
3. Bongs
A bong is the bigger cousin of the bubbler. Bongs are usually tall and look like scientific lamps. The biggest advantage of using a bong is the volume of your hit. With bongs, you can rip large clouds of smoke that guarantee an almost-instant onset. And, because you can fill them with more water, they offer better filtration, especially when you buy a bong with a percolator.
Some bongs are also equipped with an ice catcher to ensure cooler smoke and allow you to revel in the unique flavor of each cannabis strain.
4. Dab Rigs
Dab rigs are the most popular smoking devices for concentrated forms of cannabis: oils, wax, extracts, etc. Many dab rigs have water filtration systems that are more or less complex depending on the final price of your units.
A dab rig is comprised of two main parts: the body and the nail. The body is what keeps the unit in one piece and where all the filtration happens. The nail is the element which you heat up to flash-vaporize your concentrates.
Once you place a small portion of the concentrate onto a red-hot nail, you close the cap of your rig and pull the smoke through the mouthpiece.
5. Hookahs
Hookahs aren’t the most popular choice when it comes to different types of smoking devices because they are originally designed to smoke shisha — the term used to describe wet tobacco.
Because cannabis is too dry to burn efficiently in a hookah, you can place it between two layers of tobacco like a sandwich to fix that issue. While smoking cannabis out of a hookah gives you a more potent experience, it also introduces the same health risks as smoking blunts or spliffs.
6. DIY Disposable Devices
This is where you may give free reign to your imagination. Homemade smoking devices can take a myriad of forms. The most popular homemade smoking device is an apple pipe, but skilled crafters can also make amazing constructions out of everyday objects.
If you want to get even more out of your next ssh, you can make a gravity bong from a bucket and plastic bottle, but this method requires some prior experience in smoking out of a traditional bong — the bucket bong may hit you pretty hard.
7. Joints, Blunts & Spliffs
The reason why we mention joins, blunts, and spliffs at the end of our list of different types of smoking devices is that they’re not actual devices per se. But still, you can smoke weed ou of them, so here we go.
A joint is made using rolling papers and a cardboard tip. It contains nothing but pure ground weed.
Sometimes, you may come across cannabis mixed with tobacco or some kind of herbal blend, but these aren’t joints. There’s a special name for them in cannabis vocabulary — spliffs. Spliffs are more popular in Europe and, as mentioned, they additives along with weed.
Let’s not forget about blunts.
In essence, a blunt is similar to a joint, save for the fact it uses tobacco or hemp leaves as rolling papers. Blunts can be made with an emptied cigar if you want to speed up the process or don’t have blunt wraps at hand.
What other different types of smoking devices would you add to this list?
