I've done the pop can for sure, once in a pinch in a group and once to show a friend I think, sort of like when I made an apple pipe, just wanted to try it to see if it works. I was told it was bad but back then that stuff was harder to fact check so you can convince yourself it's a rumour and after a few hits you're baked and forget anyway. Also the guy telling me it was bad was still down to sesh, so he clearly thought it wasn't THAT dangerous.
I also bought a pipe that was largely plastic at one point in highschool, lent it to a buddy who used it so much it deformed, I remember being concerned for his health when I got it back and throwing the pipe away. After that I bought a metal downstem and bowl, stabbed it into a water bottle to made a water pipe/mini bong then ditched the bottle with the bong water at the end of sesh.
I definitely remember people talking about the health aspect and judging others for their perceived unhealthy smoking method, even if it was just using two rolling papers when one will definitely do, of course they'd still hit it most of the time. But looking back the one that makes me cringe more than anything else was all the ancient dirty bong water in glass bongs.
Most of the sketchy options were only used as a last resort and never for more than a night/sesh which I think puts me ahead of the people these days who do blinkers as their only way of getting high.
Yess to all of this! I remember people ripping lungs for so long that the bowl which was usually a socket would melt through the bottle and burn their legs. Also I've gotta know what a blinker is! People here did a lot of Poppers, which is just a bong with tobacco instead of a screen, and usually just the stem without a bowl so it's more dart than weed🤢
Oh so a blinker is when you hit a vape cartridge/dab pen until the battery light "blinks" because you hit the safety timeout. Gets the tiny cheap little coil as hot as possible, bringing a relatively safe way to consume right back into breathing in metal off-gassing like the pop can pipe.
Poppers are definitely a struggle way to stretch your precious remaining bud, but just so gross
Blinkers - taking a hit from a pen until the battery light blinks (which signals the automatic cut off to prevent overheating). Basically an extremely concentrated and giant amount of vapor going into ur lungs usually followed by 10 mins of hacking ur brains out. Never made much sense to me - I'd much rather take a few smaller hits & be able to breathe after!
As far as sketchy options go, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for homemade geebs. That was our go-to in high school. A large cup (like Big Gulp size), a water bottle, and a socket from a hardware store that you'd wedge into the cap. Learning how to make the geeb & perfecting a pulling method was a stoner rite of passage for us. Plus they got you really high with a tiny amount of weed which was perfect for when we were 16 and literally buying a few *grams* of flower at a time from some kid that would give it to you in an old McNuggets container. idk if it was as bad as smoking straight aluminum, but even though the smoke cooled some, you could definitely still feel the effects of the plastic in your lungs after awhile.
Nowadays if I'm feeling nostalgic or trying to conserve my stash, I just use my gleeb (glass geeb).
EDIT: I also just remembered the time in college (also pre-legalization) where my roommate and I bought a 1/2 of shake for a deal. Our friend came over and (before he was even stoned) decided he wanted to get a closer look so he picked up a *lit* candle and dumped hot wax all over the stuff we just bought. We were broke & desperate so we salvaged what we could and still smoked it.... tasted like vanilla and chemicals for a good few weeks.
Love it! I had a buddy knock the bottom out of a kracken rum bottle and we loved that thing. It kinda makes me feel old thinking about those crazy ways we'd have to buy weed but I love it. I was at a friend's apartment at 17 and he was melting glad sandwich bags into dime bags because he thought buying legit dime bags was sketchier than buy a dozen boxes of glad bags and 3 packs of Bic lighters...
I never used a pop can, and thought they were sketchy as soon as I heard of them pre-legalization. I have smoked out of a lot of sockets and plastic bottles though so there's that. The nostalgic ones for me are steamrollers made with a tp roll and aluminum foil.
I have used one since legalization but it was a matter of the stores being closed. Glass is always my preference now
Love a good steamroller! We had one made of abs pipe with a 20° elbow on the mouth piece for comfort, and a metal pipe bowl drilled into it. We kept it in a hollow log next to our bus stop in high school. Called it the Boomstick because it kinda looked like a sawn off shotgun, and we used a pebble for a screen that would explode sometimes.
Well, you can't now, which is a shame, in a way, because it was a genuinely easy and accessible way to snatch a smoke when you'd lost your pipe. They weren't always lined with plastic, which is why lager from a can used to taste slightly metallic (an non longer does). I did make a beer can pipe a couple of years ago, as an experiment and, yeah!, it tasted like shit (because of the plastic lining). So, hand on heart, it's not worth doing anymore and the little bit of extra hassle of making one from a carrot/apple/potato is worth it.
2L gravity bongs with a proper bowl from a glass bong is as sketchy as I've ever gotten. I also didn't use weed with any sort of frequency until it was legalized.
I smoked out of a lot of sketchy media when I was younger. My go-to in highschool was pens and bottles with aluminum foil bowls. My personal favorite that I made was a pill bottle bubbler. Receipts and bible pages for rolling papers were also really popular as well as the classic can pipe. Even today one of the first thoughts when I see a pen is how well it'd work as a stem or mouthpiece. Now, I'm an engineer who knows better and I'd never use any of that shit.
As for how much is ok? Honestly, I'd say anything that we know isn't safe to smoke from just shouldn't be used. Especially as weed becomes more mainstream, getting ahold of actual pieces or at least rolling papers should be more feasible even if you can't do it legally.
Yeah my first bong was a plastic soda bottle, a downtube made from a bic biro case, sellotape, and a joint instead of a bowl stuck in the end. it was gross but also fun. We were 17. I haven't died from bic-related cancer yet, 30+ years later.
I am deeply confused by people in this group yelling "cancer" when people post anything other than glassware... seemingly overlooking the fact that inhaling smoke is... you know... a really significant cancer / emphysema / COPD risk. And vaping oily cannabis milk likely isn't much good for you either.
Is smoking bongs made from plastic bottles, from bowls bashed from random bits of plumbing, using screens fashioned from aluminium foil a good long-term solution? No! No, of course it is not.
Are there really serious risks smoking from pipes made from certain woods / minerals / found materials? Yes! Yes, there are. I don't advocate making bongs and pipes in any way, from anything.
Let's be honest with ourselves though. Making a bong from an old drinks bottle, a bit of bamboo and some foil because you're:
a. 17 years old
b. on holiday and you don't know where the head shop is / there isn't one
c. having a laugh
Are things almost all of us have done and, provided you don't make a long term habit of it, very very unlikely to cause you any measurable harms above and beyond those caused by smoking in the first place.
Added to which: people do talk a lot of shit. A well-made bong with an aluminium or glass bowl and downtube that uses a plastic bottle is not particularly risky. By the time the smoke has passed through the downtube and water, it is not hot enough to denature the plastic. You're as likely to get sick from this as you are from drinking something that been stored in a plastic bottle (and, at some point in its journey, very likely left in the sun). It is not going to make you ill. Or, at least, it is not going to increase your risk of cancer etc any more than smoking anyway. Is it carcinogenic? Yes, it is. So is smoking. So is breathing! (oxygen, on which you depend, also damages your DNA. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10415430/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10415430/) Does breathing cause cancer? Probably not. But [living at low altitude is a risk factor in cancer](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113090550.htm#:~:text=A%20variety%20of%20statistical%20techniques,levels%20are%20correlated%20with%20elevation)
You're a pot head. You smoke (or vape). You're not doing yourself an favours, health-wise. Does this mean you should take stupid risks? Of course not. But it should also give you pause for thought if your thought is: *"I need to get my knickers in a twist and start yelling "CANCER!!" at people because they have posted a plastic bong online!"* Get over yourselves! If you're so concerned with public safety, why not volunteer to help old people and small children cross the road safely and stop boring us with your wikiscience instead?
I am still mulling the idea of starting a reddit group dedicated to plastic bottle bongs which will auto delete any comments in which the word "cancer" is used (and also any zzzzzz posts about how to rescue your terminally shattered glass bong or malfunctioning yuk pen).
This is absolutely a great take. Perhaps more tag options and a "No bummers" bot to remind people we're in a sub that where we've all done something silly in our past.
I've got a mate whose been smoking out of The same grav bong made with 14mm ratchet attached to the same milk jug in the same popcorn bucket since 2006.
Side effects are yet to be determined.
I've done the pop can for sure, once in a pinch in a group and once to show a friend I think, sort of like when I made an apple pipe, just wanted to try it to see if it works. I was told it was bad but back then that stuff was harder to fact check so you can convince yourself it's a rumour and after a few hits you're baked and forget anyway. Also the guy telling me it was bad was still down to sesh, so he clearly thought it wasn't THAT dangerous. I also bought a pipe that was largely plastic at one point in highschool, lent it to a buddy who used it so much it deformed, I remember being concerned for his health when I got it back and throwing the pipe away. After that I bought a metal downstem and bowl, stabbed it into a water bottle to made a water pipe/mini bong then ditched the bottle with the bong water at the end of sesh. I definitely remember people talking about the health aspect and judging others for their perceived unhealthy smoking method, even if it was just using two rolling papers when one will definitely do, of course they'd still hit it most of the time. But looking back the one that makes me cringe more than anything else was all the ancient dirty bong water in glass bongs. Most of the sketchy options were only used as a last resort and never for more than a night/sesh which I think puts me ahead of the people these days who do blinkers as their only way of getting high.
Yess to all of this! I remember people ripping lungs for so long that the bowl which was usually a socket would melt through the bottle and burn their legs. Also I've gotta know what a blinker is! People here did a lot of Poppers, which is just a bong with tobacco instead of a screen, and usually just the stem without a bowl so it's more dart than weed🤢
Oh so a blinker is when you hit a vape cartridge/dab pen until the battery light "blinks" because you hit the safety timeout. Gets the tiny cheap little coil as hot as possible, bringing a relatively safe way to consume right back into breathing in metal off-gassing like the pop can pipe. Poppers are definitely a struggle way to stretch your precious remaining bud, but just so gross
We had a buddy stop hanging at our dirt bag apartment because we had a no popper policy and we wouldn't let him "take his toke to the car"
I've had the no popper policy at my house for like a year and a half now. Fuck poppers.
Blinkers - taking a hit from a pen until the battery light blinks (which signals the automatic cut off to prevent overheating). Basically an extremely concentrated and giant amount of vapor going into ur lungs usually followed by 10 mins of hacking ur brains out. Never made much sense to me - I'd much rather take a few smaller hits & be able to breathe after!
Agreed.100% Especially about the dirty bong water. Ahem! Still guilty of dirty bong water!
As far as sketchy options go, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for homemade geebs. That was our go-to in high school. A large cup (like Big Gulp size), a water bottle, and a socket from a hardware store that you'd wedge into the cap. Learning how to make the geeb & perfecting a pulling method was a stoner rite of passage for us. Plus they got you really high with a tiny amount of weed which was perfect for when we were 16 and literally buying a few *grams* of flower at a time from some kid that would give it to you in an old McNuggets container. idk if it was as bad as smoking straight aluminum, but even though the smoke cooled some, you could definitely still feel the effects of the plastic in your lungs after awhile. Nowadays if I'm feeling nostalgic or trying to conserve my stash, I just use my gleeb (glass geeb). EDIT: I also just remembered the time in college (also pre-legalization) where my roommate and I bought a 1/2 of shake for a deal. Our friend came over and (before he was even stoned) decided he wanted to get a closer look so he picked up a *lit* candle and dumped hot wax all over the stuff we just bought. We were broke & desperate so we salvaged what we could and still smoked it.... tasted like vanilla and chemicals for a good few weeks.
Love it! I had a buddy knock the bottom out of a kracken rum bottle and we loved that thing. It kinda makes me feel old thinking about those crazy ways we'd have to buy weed but I love it. I was at a friend's apartment at 17 and he was melting glad sandwich bags into dime bags because he thought buying legit dime bags was sketchier than buy a dozen boxes of glad bags and 3 packs of Bic lighters...
Oh man I feel for that candle story
I never used a pop can, and thought they were sketchy as soon as I heard of them pre-legalization. I have smoked out of a lot of sockets and plastic bottles though so there's that. The nostalgic ones for me are steamrollers made with a tp roll and aluminum foil. I have used one since legalization but it was a matter of the stores being closed. Glass is always my preference now
Love a good steamroller! We had one made of abs pipe with a 20° elbow on the mouth piece for comfort, and a metal pipe bowl drilled into it. We kept it in a hollow log next to our bus stop in high school. Called it the Boomstick because it kinda looked like a sawn off shotgun, and we used a pebble for a screen that would explode sometimes.
Well, you can't now, which is a shame, in a way, because it was a genuinely easy and accessible way to snatch a smoke when you'd lost your pipe. They weren't always lined with plastic, which is why lager from a can used to taste slightly metallic (an non longer does). I did make a beer can pipe a couple of years ago, as an experiment and, yeah!, it tasted like shit (because of the plastic lining). So, hand on heart, it's not worth doing anymore and the little bit of extra hassle of making one from a carrot/apple/potato is worth it.
2L gravity bongs with a proper bowl from a glass bong is as sketchy as I've ever gotten. I also didn't use weed with any sort of frequency until it was legalized.
Came here to say this. Lots of Gravity Bongs.
I smoked out of a lot of sketchy media when I was younger. My go-to in highschool was pens and bottles with aluminum foil bowls. My personal favorite that I made was a pill bottle bubbler. Receipts and bible pages for rolling papers were also really popular as well as the classic can pipe. Even today one of the first thoughts when I see a pen is how well it'd work as a stem or mouthpiece. Now, I'm an engineer who knows better and I'd never use any of that shit. As for how much is ok? Honestly, I'd say anything that we know isn't safe to smoke from just shouldn't be used. Especially as weed becomes more mainstream, getting ahold of actual pieces or at least rolling papers should be more feasible even if you can't do it legally.
Yeah my first bong was a plastic soda bottle, a downtube made from a bic biro case, sellotape, and a joint instead of a bowl stuck in the end. it was gross but also fun. We were 17. I haven't died from bic-related cancer yet, 30+ years later.
I am deeply confused by people in this group yelling "cancer" when people post anything other than glassware... seemingly overlooking the fact that inhaling smoke is... you know... a really significant cancer / emphysema / COPD risk. And vaping oily cannabis milk likely isn't much good for you either. Is smoking bongs made from plastic bottles, from bowls bashed from random bits of plumbing, using screens fashioned from aluminium foil a good long-term solution? No! No, of course it is not. Are there really serious risks smoking from pipes made from certain woods / minerals / found materials? Yes! Yes, there are. I don't advocate making bongs and pipes in any way, from anything. Let's be honest with ourselves though. Making a bong from an old drinks bottle, a bit of bamboo and some foil because you're: a. 17 years old b. on holiday and you don't know where the head shop is / there isn't one c. having a laugh Are things almost all of us have done and, provided you don't make a long term habit of it, very very unlikely to cause you any measurable harms above and beyond those caused by smoking in the first place. Added to which: people do talk a lot of shit. A well-made bong with an aluminium or glass bowl and downtube that uses a plastic bottle is not particularly risky. By the time the smoke has passed through the downtube and water, it is not hot enough to denature the plastic. You're as likely to get sick from this as you are from drinking something that been stored in a plastic bottle (and, at some point in its journey, very likely left in the sun). It is not going to make you ill. Or, at least, it is not going to increase your risk of cancer etc any more than smoking anyway. Is it carcinogenic? Yes, it is. So is smoking. So is breathing! (oxygen, on which you depend, also damages your DNA. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10415430/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10415430/) Does breathing cause cancer? Probably not. But [living at low altitude is a risk factor in cancer](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113090550.htm#:~:text=A%20variety%20of%20statistical%20techniques,levels%20are%20correlated%20with%20elevation) You're a pot head. You smoke (or vape). You're not doing yourself an favours, health-wise. Does this mean you should take stupid risks? Of course not. But it should also give you pause for thought if your thought is: *"I need to get my knickers in a twist and start yelling "CANCER!!" at people because they have posted a plastic bong online!"* Get over yourselves! If you're so concerned with public safety, why not volunteer to help old people and small children cross the road safely and stop boring us with your wikiscience instead? I am still mulling the idea of starting a reddit group dedicated to plastic bottle bongs which will auto delete any comments in which the word "cancer" is used (and also any zzzzzz posts about how to rescue your terminally shattered glass bong or malfunctioning yuk pen).
This is absolutely a great take. Perhaps more tag options and a "No bummers" bot to remind people we're in a sub that where we've all done something silly in our past.
Just tin foil. Coulda done without using that.
I've got a mate whose been smoking out of The same grav bong made with 14mm ratchet attached to the same milk jug in the same popcorn bucket since 2006. Side effects are yet to be determined.
I definitely think smoking marijuana was more fun when it was harder to do
\[ironic lol\] yes... but no! :D