Answering Pipe's Pot Question

I opened my big mouth in a previous post, "Licking the Spoon" and one of my good Internet friends jumped on it and innocently asked in the comment section:

"So, you say each (pot) smoking method is a bit different. Tell me what you find different when smoking marijuana in a pipe compared to other routes."

"Pipe" is a college professor who has been a good internet friend for twenty or so years. He has often voiced an interest in my pot consumption as he has never personally tried pot. Being a college professor, his inquisitive mind has always asked some difficult questions for me to answer. This is one. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is.

Instead of answering him with a more comprehensive answer in the comments section, I will answer him in today's post

The Pot Culture of the America I grew up in had its beginnings in private social settings. They were private because, well, Pot was illegal and in some states getting busted could mean serious jail time. Right out of the gate, my favorite way to consume Pot was and still is with friends, enemies, strangers on the street. I love the passing of the pipe, the joint, the bong. Many times getting high is not even the point. It is the group sharing time that pleases me.

But that does not answer Pipe's question. .... Not really.

The first time I smoked pot, it was out of a tobacco pipe Snake's Uncle Charlie had thrown away. The years old tobacco taste ruined any thought of getting high. Plus the pot turned out to not be pot, just some leaves from the woods we dried in an oven. We thought it was pot. It was not. All we got for all that effort were severe headaches.

That first experience was quickly forgotten when Snake and I bought some joints from a local kid in Bethesda. He was a Senior in high school, we were punk-ass junior high schoolers. We went over to the NIH campus across Old Georgetown road and hid in some bushes near the Chimp building to smoke. We hung out there sometimes in the summer because the Chimps were often in cages outside or rather inside with their garage doors open. They were a hoot to watch.

So my first bake was from smoking a joint. To this day, it remains my favorite. Properly rolled joints are the most convenient package to carry pot in, I only need a lighter or a book of matches to make the magic happen. There is no extraneous equipment to carry to possibly lose or break. The downside of a joint though is it is the least efficient means to get high.

Then there are pipes. Hands down, a more efficient and potentially frugal way to smoke pot. Depending on the pipe system, a small amount can hit way above its weight when compared to the same hit off a joint. There are so many variations of the pipe systems, I will just say my favorites are a simple pipe that has never had tobacco in it. 

I still have quite a collection of pipes dating back to the 1960s. My favorites are the ones pictured to the right. The wooden one was given to me by a girlfriend in college. The metal one I bought at a Head Shop. Both are well over 50 years old and intended for smoking Hash, I like them because besides smoking hash with them, they are great for small pulls of pot. They are not pipes that pass around a circle well. Not enough capacity. On those occasions a joint is much better. Using a larger capacity pipe invites packing like a tobacco pipe is packed. Too much doob being burned can become less pleasant as the bowl burns down. Even if using a larger pipe, a screen inside closer to the top is advised. The taste and quality of the smoke improves dramatically.

Moving on now. 

Bongs came on the scene 60 plus years ago. My first bong, I made for myself. It worked well for awhile but then I dropped it and the base plate cracked. It began to leak. There is not a much better way to deliver a lung busting hit than with a bong, if punishing your lungs seems an attractive idea. I can take or leave them; but mostly leave them. They have a level of maintenance I just cannot abide. Bong water left unchanged is the nastiest liquid on the planet. They break easily and are a bitch to clean. I still have one I bought at a head shop in Towson, Maryland back in the day. I broke it and repaired it and then put it away somewhere. I haven't been able to find it for over 30 years now. I would like to find it because it is ceramic and shaped like a dragon.

Then I guess I should mention waterpipes, or hookahs, as the hash smoking ones of the Middle East are called. Absolutely the smoothest smoking, but the least portable. I once built a 4 chamber water pipe. Why would I do that, you might ask? Well, because I could and at the time I was all about finding new ways to ingest my favorite substance. My infatuation lasted an even shorter period of time than my use of bongs.

The absolute most efficient bang for the buck ingestion of Cannabis is eating it. Not eating the buds, but the processed THC that can be extracted from it. No smoke in the lungs, no THC loss because of smoke not ingested. Hands down the healthiest way to use it, if anyone would call ingesting cannabis healthy. My wife loves the edibles I make. She gets her helping dose without any coughing. But for me, smoking a joint is the best.

It is time I buttoned this post up. I could definitely go on ... and on ... and on. If Pipe has any questions now, I will answer them in private.

Ya'll have a good day now, hear .........................

_____________________________

There are a gajillion songs about smoking Cannabis. The earliest song I know of  and like is Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man" recorded in 1932. But my absolute favorite song about pot is "Don't Bogart that Joint", originally recorded by Fraternity of Man that was used in the movie, "Easy Rider".

Best pot song ever.

IN- A-GADDA-DA-VIDA

I once listened to Iron Butterfly's, "IN- A-GADDA-DA-VIDA" over and over and over ..... and over while I tripped on LSD for the first time. It was the Spring of 1969. I was16, almost 17. I don't remember them now, but I had thoughts I was positive would change the world. ....... Okay, so what if I forgot them as soon as I came down. At least I touched base with their greatness for a few hours.

Psychedelics did change me. I spent many days during the next few years high on Acid, Psilocybin, or Peyote, whose psychoactive ingredient is Mescaline.

There was a period Snake and I took many trips in a row. We had bought 300 hits of Purple Micro Dot at 25 cents a hit. Our base price was 75 cents a hit or 3 hits for 2 bucks. And some, er actually a lot of some, we gave away. We put a bit of cash back in our pockets and ate the rest like candy. They lasted quite awhile. Towards the end of the supply, we had built up a tolerance so high, it took 8 or 9 hits to get us off. They were not as powerful per hit as say, the Orange Barrels or Strawberry Acid floating around at the time. For first time trippers or the weekend warriors,  we recommended a 2 or 3 hit dose.

The chip on my shoulder I had carried for so long as a very angry punk seemed to fall by the wayside once I began to eat acid. Yeah, I credit those experiences for calming me down some. Made the transition from trouble maker to a productive adult in the future go a lot smoother.

I remember clearly how the music of "IN- A-GADDA-DA-VIDA" created colors in waves ( I found soon, they were called "trails") that  followed my hand movements and sync'd so well with the beat of the song. It was awesome. 

Never had I seen the world through such a different lens. I wore my face out laughing and grinning so much. in order to regain some control, I went outside behind the barracks. I remember getting on my hands and knees with my face inches away from an ant hill. I watched those little bastids for what seemed like forever. All the while, "IN- A-GADDA-DA-VIDA" continued to blast through the open window in Snake's room on the ground floor of the New Barracks at Charlotte Hall Military Academy.

Playing this 17 minute tune for several hours was a physical experience I was able to repeat with other songs while on Acid. But never was the impact more guttural and soul shaking as that first trip listening to Iron Butterfly.

The last times I tripped were in the early 1990s. I was rummaging around some old stuff from my days as a single man. I found a hit and a half of some Orang Barrels I had stashed from a bigger batch I had bought in the mid 1970s. I split them with Bill on July 4th. I figured their potency would be off as they were almost 20 years old at that point. I was pleasantly surprised. Bill and I got wasted so hard, all we could do was walk around the celebrations and milling crowds down in Sanford. I am sure we had goofy looks on our faces. Since I owned a bike shop in town, I was always running into customers and their kids. I remember laughing quite a bit. No one asked if I was alright, so I guess we hid our condition pretty well.

Bill never tripped again. He enjoyed it, but it was more of a bucket list item for him. One and done.

I was not quite done with psychedelics yet. I think it was the next summer when a friend and I went mountain bike touring up around Flagstaff Lake in the Carrabassett Valley, up country Maine. My friend brought some Psilocybin mushrooms, or "Shrooms" as they are referred to by the tragically hip. It was an awesome time, though not quite as intense as the previous LSD experience at the 4th of July party on and around Number One Pond in Sanford.

I have been thinking more and more about ways to cope with the madness that currently has our country by the short hairs. One thought would be to escape. The option of a physical escape is out of the question. I love my country too much. I could escape into the darkest depths of depression that are always lurking around my corners. But no, that is a misery I will do almost anything to avoid. Then I thought about my days of carefree existence. The days when I wasn't angry; the days when I didn't feel trapped by the many chains out there that look to hook us up. Those were the days I experienced an altered state I now wonder why I stopped.

I can think of no better time in my life than now. I am retired and am not overly concerned about having a bad trip as when I was young, numb and new to the drug. I never did have a freak out kind of bad trip. I always kept at least a pinky or toe in the real world. I would expect, should I do it again, my reaction would be the same. 

It's time to get back on that wagon. .......... Wish me luck.

___________________________

The only song that will do of course for today's post is the full version of Iron Butterfly's,  "IN- A-GADDA-DA-VIDA". If I close my eyes hard, I can still sometimes see hints of the trails I was so fond of back in the day.