Smoking bowls. Why is this not a thing in the U.K?

[Trazodon't]

I'm a lifelong smoker and usually just smoke a spliff maybe the occasional pipe but the term smoking a bowl seems to be so common in the U.S.A. I don't know why we in the U.K haven't adopted this method of smoking as a regular method. Any ideas?

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations Trazodon't,

...the term smoking a bowl seems to be so common in the U.S.A. I don't know why we in the U.K haven't adopted this method of smoking as a regular method.

I'm puzzled! What's most important between what suits a consumer's needs best vs what's a popular choice? Not to mention why SMOKE when there's VAPORIZATION?...

Any ideas?

M'yeah. Lets begin with fundamental basics:

These are various trichome snapshots captured previously to "grinding". Ideally i'd prefer grinding to be optional, maybe i should check what it looks like when shreaded into a fine dry powder... Anyway, the ultimate goal is to separate noble molecules naturally collected in trichome glands from the rest of vegetal tissue, using a path of lesser transformation.

This means that even fancy/expensive vaporizers (which i like to call "Hot Dry Air Ovenizers") would actually fail to meet my personal requirements, because of excessive "baking" (and hence extraction from the vegetal substrate). E.G. YMMV...

This is my solution anyway:

A vaporist pipe re-configured for pulse-mode "1-Hitter" type consumption using a blue-flame torch...

3 times the fun for half the cost of a Volcano.

Good day, have fun!!

 

[ChipTrippyFox]

I think it comes down mostly to the culture associated with it. Since there is a large geographical separation between the UK and NA there isn't much cultural influence between the two.

If I'm not mistaken there is also a large amount of people in the UK who will mix their joints with tobacco. If you've ever tried putting tobacco in your bowl (mainly a pipe) you will probably know that it's not really the greatest sensation. Considering there's quite a lot of people who mix the two, they likely associate them together to the point where they don't really even consider it an option to have green on its own so rolling becomes the norm.

I also theorize that there isn't as much supply so this also makes mixing more appealing. This is just a guess though, I could be wrong.

That all being said, I've never been a fan of joints really.
They stink and they're wasteful. I will share a joint if it's offered to me but I rarely roll one for myself.

However ever since getting into vaporization I much prefer that method over smoking in any form. It's way easier on the lungs and it seems to make the stash last much longer.

 

[Trazodon't]

Both good informative answers. I think I'm going to give vaping a go . Sounds like a no brainer. I've always put nearly a full cigarette in my joints and that's obviously not doing my health any favours.

 

[mrbenn]

I'm one of those who absolutely loves a joint with tobacco but it has to be hand rolling tobacco and rolled medium thickness and preferebly full of Indica hash. As for bowls, I don't know why that's never kicked off here? I think we're too busy trying invent other mad ways at smoking it. I mean really, who the hell thought of the "bucket contraption?" And hotknives blow the head off you and it's like a social gathering in the kitchen round the cooker, get some exercise too. Amsterdam coffee shops are full of them and noone uses them. They should make "bucket rooms" in the cafes. People would flock.

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations MrBenn,

...mad ways at smoking it. ... ...hotknives blow the head off you and it's like a social gathering...

Then simply consider this is my prefered type of "hot knife":

The difference being that nobody gets accidentally burned passing it around, and there's no need to find a stove nor gather in a kitchen...

Good day, have fun!!

 

[Trazodon't]

I'm one of those who absolutely loves a joint with tobacco but it has to be hand rolling tobacco and rolled medium thickness and preferebly full of Indica hash. As for bowls, I don't know why that's never kicked off here? I think we're too busy trying invent other mad ways at smoking it. I mean really, who the hell thought of the "bucket contraption?" And hotknives blow the head off you and it's like a social gathering in the kitchen round the cooker, get some exercise too. Amsterdam coffee shops are full of them and noone uses them. They should make "bucket rooms" in the cafes. People would flock.

Haven't smoked a bucket for ages. What an over complicated way to get a smoke.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

^Is a bucket just a gravity bong? I love grav bongs, they're really quite simple imo.

 

[Trazodon't]

^Is a bucket just a gravity bong? I love grav bongs, they're really quite simple imo.

Bucket full of water then a decent size bottle with a gauze and your weed on top. Draw the bottle out of the water as your burning the weed so the bottle fills with smoke. Remove the gauze and put your mouth round the top of the bottle then plunge it back into the water forcing all the smoke out and into your lungs. Cough a bit then relax. If that's what a gravity bong is then yep there the same

 

[Cream Gravy?]

Yep, that's what we call a gravity bong here in the States. I love grav bongs, reminds me of college. My friends had one setup in their sink in the living room and when they had parties, we'd all take turns ripping .1g of weed. Really zonks you hard 8)

 

[thujone]

Watching the smoke slowly percolate in a bucket bottle was a great ritual and it was a great way to toke since you had really delicate control over how the bowl burned. I linked a video before about cutting glass bottles with string, only problem is it's tough to put a shotgun hole in with string so glass buckets weren't a good idea to try drunk unless you wanted to end up with a mouthful of bucket water!

 

[binny]

Vaporizing is not so bad when compared to smoking.
Tobacco contains nicotine which is a carcinogenic substance, so vaporizing is not harmful.

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations Binny,

Vaporizing is not so bad...

Agreed, in fact this is an understatement. Vaporizer implementations may succeed translating into a complete reversal of situation where cannabic consumption implied the inhalation of some toxic combustion by-products before and this used to compound numerous nuisible contaminants for trivial purposes at best, starting with the economical cigarette/"joint" format based on burned paper & glue, the one filled with vegetal matter invariably seasoned with pesticides...

...vaporizing is not harmful.

There are no absolutes, use what works best for your situation. Personally i find excess containment along a cannabic path would only add delays which eventually induce hesitation, which impairs operator skills which impacts on error frequency overall... Hence on the probability of combustion incidents anyway. While containment as in dry bags invites abuse because it's a bold advertisement awaiting for the moment it's emptied: who wants to waste noble molecules after all!! In addition i also found Hot Dry Air Ovenizers result in baking leading to tar/cauldron residues on the long run:

Me about extracting from 172 g of spent HA leftover...

A solid weighting approximately 0.5 g resulted from slow evaporation (at room temperature in a dark place) and it's still utterly repulsive because of the intense cauldron/tar odour: its "perfume" is that of an ashtray...

(2013-Feb-19)​

So all things need to be put into perspective - but there's still growing agreement that vaporizers are worth an effort to convert from the plain old self-vilifying smoking habit indeed, m'well YMMV.

Good day, have fun!!

 

[Phobos]

Vaporizing is not so bad when compared to smoking.
Tobacco contains nicotine which is a carcinogenic substance, so vaporizing is not harmful.

If the air/vapors mixture inhaled is too hot, the airways are still gonna get irritated and damaged by the heat.
Ofcourse without tobacco one is at least leaving out the carcinogenic stuff and the super addictive nicotine, huge plus.

To be noted that cannabis does release carcinogenic stuff when burning, just not as much as tobacco.

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations Phobos,

If the air/vapors mixture inhaled is too hot, the airways are still gonna get irritated and damaged by the heat.

Valid preliminary point, actually it turns out all too often that wasted energy eventually translates into unwanted temperature rising at unwanted locations. Consequently it would be wise to account for this most basic factor early during conception, ideally... Hence lets start keeping in mind that such rise of temperature is nothing more than a reflecting echo of transformed energy once it's been absorbed (while heating a cannabic substrate, for example). In other words avoid heating matter which doesn't need to be...

At that point it boils down to some energy budget where input power is proportionately adjusted to the workload. This way most of the residual heat transported by a cannabic stream can be simply/conveniently captured later with dust inside a tiny swab of moist cotton.

In water specific heat capacity is such when taken from the corona of a blue torch flame it could be called a "potentiator" despite it's rapid transformation into a heat trap, past the cotton mass. This picture shows visible water droplets generated via clean-burning butane:

And that's an HA v2.1 (aquarium) pump used in my original experiment to implement extra safety while illustrating what's involved:

Moist air (saturated with mildly-warm moisture) no longer represents a threat to living tissues when it reaches the MouthPiece. M'well, if/when operating my customized VG pipe correctly anyway!

Clean-burning butane during the pre-heat phase at minimal succion force (e.g. just what it takes to prevent self-extinction from otherwise accumulating hot exhaust gases) doesn't just pre-heat a cannabic bowl: it also fills the path ahead with a mixture of Hot Dry Air previously potentialized with H₂O and CO₂. Those potentiators carry an additional amount of energy into the cannabic load and then, once heat got depleted (over cannabic vaporization) the rest dissipates inside my flexible PVC Tubing Extension which behaves as an improved heat damper (if/when compared to typical electric Hot Dry Air alternatives). In other words the problematic vector is turned into it's own counter-measure, not to mention that airflow turbulence promotes even more heat-loss along that very same pathway.

Notice where i put cotton:

All that remains to do is conform to pulse mode operation in order to deal efficiently with some remaining issues implementing the shortest path of lesser transformation.

YMMV, please don't be shy sharing more working solutions!

To be noted that cannabis does release carcinogenic stuff when burning...

Combusted or not heated vegetal tissue certainly releases unwanted substances, trichome glands much less i believe.

Good day, have fun!!

 

[Cheezed]

Bucket full of water then a decent size bottle with a gauze and your weed on top. Draw the bottle out of the water as your burning the weed so the bottle fills with smoke. Remove the gauze and put your mouth round the top of the bottle then plunge it back into the water forcing all the smoke out and into your lungs. Cough a bit then relax. If that's what a gravity bong is then yep there the same

Us brits also had the 'lung', which was the same as the 'bucket', but with a plastic bag selotaped to the bottom of the bottle. 100% portable - used to keep one in the school bag at all times. Dirty as fuck!