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Health issues surrounding Butane lighters?

frizzantik

frizzantik

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Someone one doesn't often thing about when smoking pot is the lighter. If you smoke a pipe or bong often, chances are you are inhaling a good amount of soot from burnt butane and also from burnt flint.

Does anyone have any health info on lighters, or tips on how to reduce your exposure to them?

I usually light the lighter away from the bowl to avoid bits of flint from ending up in the bowl, and also to avoid inhaling that little puff of smoke that happens right when you light the lighter.
 
Matches?

I was thinking about this the other day. My dad was telling me a story about back in the day, they often used to dry bong it. Apparently after cashing the bowl on one occasion, the flame ignited the butane in the chamber... and shot a flame directly into someones mouth. That someone then of course accused my dad and his buddies of 'doing that on purpose' and got all disgruntled.
 
they often used to dry bong it. Apparently after cashing the bowl on one occasion, the flame ignited the butane in the chamber... and shot a flame directly into someones mouth.
Click to expand...

LOL. that'd be funny to see (in a bad way..lol).
I think that is HIGHLY unlikely. I've used a bong dry lots and that never happened.
For the chamber to have enough butane in it to ignite you would have to cover the top and hold the lighter to the hole for the bowl and just hold the lighter there with the butane coming out for a few minutes.
It would have to be deliberate.
 
^^ yea, i agree. there is no way for butane to collect taht much on accident. also, you may hold a lighter up to the bowl head for long periods of time, but usually the lighter is lit, burning the butane....correct?
 
LOL

lol

Dont worry my fella!

Butane lighters are not toxic at all.
What inside it its pure butane distilled and compressed from petroleum.

The combustion of butane doesnt give any nasty products, dont worry.
the combustion of butane and all other alkanes hydrocarbons follow a very simple formula.

2 C4H10 + 13 O2 ------> 8 CO2 + 10 H2O

So.. up here is the balanced formula.
As you can se butane(C4H10) needs oxygen to start combustion.
The end of reaction results in formation of carbon dioxide and water!
Hehehe....see?...nothing that bad!

Have ya ever tried (when u are playing around boered) putting the lighter flame next to a cold window glass?
You will notes that above the flame touching the glass some vapours are condensing on the window.
Those are water particules tha cime from the combustion reaction!
The carbon dioxide(CO2) since its a gas escapes and diffuses in the air.

SO........ Again...combusting butane isn't toxic at all.
you could inhale the vapours formed from combustion and nothing bad would happend to you.

All alkanes hydrocarbons: methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, dodecane...ect..... will combust in the same way...following the same formula.
they will al transfor into carbon dioxide and water.

Its useful to know some chem isnt it?

Ah...about the lighter flints.
No need to worry about that too.

Lighter flints are composed by an alloy of iron an cerium metal.
The cerium increses the reactivity of the flintstone and give it pyrophoric propeties.
The hard scratching of the lighter causes the metal to get hot and to become more reactive and it reacts with oxygen to form iron and cerioum oxide.
The reaction forming the oxides of the 2 metals is pretty energetic and fast.
This energetic reaction causes the little spark that gives enough detonating energy to ignite the butane and starte the reaction between butane and oxygen.

The forming iron and cerium oxide are 2 solids which are completely non volatile....wich means..they dont release molecules spontaneously.
The formed oxides just fall down as soon as the spark finishes.
those oxides are heavy and quickly follow the law of gravity after the sparkling.

No products from from the flint goes in you mouth/joint.
So again no need to worry. lighters are completely safe and untoxic.

I would rather inform you that weed itself gives you MANY nasty products in its combustion(in microscopic ammounts of course).
So far i can name you:

hydrogen cyanide
sulfur dioxide
nitrogen dioxide
formal dehyde
carbon monoxide
acrolein
ammonia
complex semihydrocarbon compounds

and there are many others.......

So...to conclude......NO.....lighters do not give toxic cmpounds.

PEACE

/navarone/
 
Yeah, but your assuming that lighter grade fuel is pure, which I strongly doubt.

Personally, I wouldn't worry, far worse shit is going to be comming from the burning plant.
 
The pyrophoric flints are made of misch metal, an alloy of iron, and rare earths, mainly cerium, neodymium, and praseodymium.

I doubt there would be any much at all coming through the bong/doobie, and I dont think rare earths are all that toxic anyhow.

Navarone pretty much nailed it on the head there.
 
Interesting thread, and great post by navarone!

I've always wondered about this with jet lighters. If you hold a jet lighter on a blocked pipe/cone for too long, you get this really evil half sweet tasting.... SHIT taste in ya throat that makes you wanna throw up... :P
 
Great post :)

I would also like to add that lighter-grade butane does have impurities, and the impurities differ from brand to brand. That's why there is premium butane and simple Ronson.
 
you're also assuming that the butane is combusting 100%, but that's not exactly true. No chemical reaction has 100% yield because the reaction takes place very quickly. Burning things rapidly allows electrons to rearrange in many different configurations, not just the most energy efficient. The more slowly the reaction takes place, the more pure the product will be.

but yeah... the burning plant has the worrisome chems anyways, so i'd say it's all in the process
 
While /Navarone/ basically summed it up, I doubt that the butane in lighters is pure. It's probably the dirt cheapest distilled butane possible, and I wonder if it IS possible, over a lifetime of smoking, for there to be some detrimental health effects?

Not that you could ever study such a thing really - way too many confounding variables.

But think for one second, as somebody mentioned already - Shitty Ronson (or worse) butane vs. something like Colibri.

You would not want to make a honey oil with ronson. How does this bode long term for your lungs?

/Navarone/ probably summed it up though. Great info BTW, nice job. Good to be on a forum where intelligence is respected + encouraged ;)
 
Matches? Blasphemy!

I kind of doubt its a whole lot worse than living in a house with/cooking on a gas stove 3 meals a day.
 
I use my good ol' BIC. The best lighter on the market if you ask me, at least in terms of reliabilty.

Still, using a Zippo as opposed to a normal lighter will leave a bad taste in your mouth.
 
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