How to Smoke Weed – Step by Step Guide
Green, bud, mary jane, cheeba, grass, pot, tree – it has a slew of names, but it all refers to the same thing: the good ol’ sticky-icky weed. Marijuana is our most treasured taboo; a psychoactive substance used for everything from mellowing out to play video games or watch movies to smoking up to enhance a musical jam to a plethora of medical uses, including for pain relief or combating the side effects of cancer treatment. Learning how to smoke weed can wake up your mind in so many ways.
Smoking Weed for First-Timers, Tips & Tricks
To catch a buzz off of the mean green, you have no shortage of options. Many people choose edibles if they’re squeamish about any of the other methods, such as concentrating it into an oil or just taking the bud, grinding it, and lighting it. In fact, smoking pot is the time-honored traditional means of getting high. No matter what you use – joint, pipe, bong, hookah – learning how to smoke weed is a simple process that only takes a few steps and a few seconds.
1) Pack it Up
Learning how to smoke weed means learning how to use tools. If you got yourself some really sticky and stank purple kush, you have to get it off the stem and into your lungs. So first, choose your preferred method. Rolling a joint is a tried and true means of getting high, but it takes experience and coordination to roll a well-packed joint that won’t unravel and make you have to pick nugs out of the carpet.
If you lack the dexterity – or you’re already too high to focus on rolling the joint – there are a few other ways to go. The first is a pipe, which is usually made of glass and sold at the convenience store or head shop for cheap (don’t forget the screens so you don’t wind up taking in ash and killing your buzz). There are also bongs, which are upright water pipes that can be made of glass or PVC. Since there are more varieties of bongs than there are names for weed, your best bet is to take a trip to the head shop and check out price ranges and styles when you’re trying to figure out how to smoke weed.
How much THC should be in a joint?
The average joint contains between 0.5g and 1.0g of cannabis plant matter and contains between 5mg and 150mg of THC (i.e. between 1 percent and 15 percent THC).
2) Light it Up – How to properly Light a Joint?
All right, you’ve got a healthy, heaping bowl packed and you’re ready to blaze. But a few things first: even though you may want to jam as much weed as you can in the bowl because you think you’ll get wasted sooner, it’s actually not how to smoke weed. Jamming more weed into the bowl just makes it harder to burn and harder to inhale, so try and break the nugs up into small, crumb-like pieces and pack it loosely.
How to smoke weed with a butane lighter tip: When you go to light up, if you’re using a butane lighter, make sure that the flame is not burning upward toward your hand. Try to hold the light on its side and slightly tipped down. Also, the flame will be burning consistently while you’re taking a hit, so make sure you don’t touch the hood, which will be hot as a stove element by the time you’re done taking it in.
3) Toke it Up
If you’re learning how to smoke weed, this is the part that takes the most finesse, because you’ll have to be experienced to do it properly. You have to know how much smoke you can take in and how fast. Otherwise, you might wind up having a coughing fit (which will give you a wicked head buzz, but annoy everyone else in the circle and make you the butt of taunts for being a lightweight). If this is your first time smoking up, you will almost certainly wind up coughing, especially if you don’t smoke. So if it is, take only a small hit, hold it in until you can’t anymore, and try to exhale it slowly. If you sense you are gonna cough, try to take the mouthpiece of the pipe or the joint away from your mouth so you don’t blow the weed and ash everywhere.
Taking a hit from a joint is pretty simple: just drag on the end and inhale the smoke. Try not to leave your saliva on the end of the joint (called catassing). If you’re taking a hit from a pipe or a bong, check to see if it has a carb hole (which is likely). Covering this with your thumb while taking a toke creates a vacuum between the weed and your lungs, drawing in the smoke to the chamber or the pipe stem. When you’re ready to take it in, release the carb hole, letting in air to carry the smoke. Finally, keep the smoke in your lungs as long as possible. That way, there’s more opportunity for the cannabis to enter your bloodstream, which means it’s how to smoke weed the right way.
4) Wrap it Up – What to do after getting high?
Now that you know how to smoke weed, you’re ready to get wasted and have the greatest online deathmatch ever (don’t forget snacks for the munchies). Just a few final points before you drift off: weed comes in many different strains and intensities, and it affects everyone differently. If you have conditions such as anxiety, it is best to ask the clerk at your dispensary what strains they recommend. Also, avoid driving while high. Other than that, let’s bust out the 90’s hip hop albums and get wasted!
For more about weed culture, check out the Loud News Net Weed So Loud for commentary on all things green.
