Do you know how to inhale weed properly? It’s not quite as simple as “put the joint to your lips and inhale.” If you’ve never done it before—or even if you have—there’s a good chance the pros at our family of dispensaries have a few tools, tips, and techniques that can elevate your experience.
In addition to sharing how to properly smoke weed, we’ll share a list of weed-smoking devices ranging from simple pipes to joints to bongs and beyond. Some of the questions we’ll answer include:
- What are the typical ways to smoke weed?
- How do you properly inhale weed?
- When you’re learning how to inhale weed properly, what are some tips?
- What happens if you accidentally smoke too much weed?
That’s quite a mouthful! Are you ready? Let’s dive right in.
How To Smoke Weed: Tools and Preparation
Let’s begin our journey with the tools of the trade. But whichever tool you choose, this is a good time to point out the advantages of grinding your flower first, either by hand, with a knife or scissors, or with a purpose-made cannabis grinder.
Why? Flower burns more readily and evenly when it’s been reduced to a small, uniform size. You can achieve this by tearing it apart with your fingertips—though some experts frown on this technique as it tends to transfer precious cannabinoids and terpenes to your fingers.
Alternatively, you can use a chef’s knife and cutting board to chop the flower into fine, uniform bits. Kitchen shears can offer a similar result, but for our money, it’s worth investing in a weed grinder: a simple handheld device that reduces whole flower into small, even pieces.
Assuming you’ve ended up with a small pile of freshly ground flower, here are some of the top ways to put it to good use.
Pipes
Arguably the simplest of weed-smoking tools, these devices include a bowl—often fitted with a screen beneath it—in which to place fresh flower for lighting, and a tube through which cannabis smoke is drawn to your mouth and lungs. When packing the bowl, aim for a small amount of ground flower—half a teaspoon at the very most. Otherwise, you’ll end up either drawing far too much smoke (or, just as bad, wasting precious cannabis!).
The basic idea is that you hold an open flame from a lighter or match just above the flower, then inhale just briskly enough to pull the flame down into the flower and igniting it. Some models include a small hole near the bowl called a “carb” or “carburetor.” The idea is that you hold a fingertip over the hole while lighting and first drawing the smoke, then release your fingertip to allow a greater airflow to help draw the smoke into your lungs.
Bongs
A more sophisticated take on the pipe, a bong includes a water-filler chamber through which the cannabis smoke is drawn. The idea is that this cools the smoke, resulting in a smoother and more comfortable user experience. The basic lighting technique is the same as for a pipe.
On most models, you can replicate the effect of the carb found on some pipes by drawing the bowl and attached downstem out of the bong once the smoke has entered the water chamber. Again, the idea is to increase airflow and draw more smoke into your lungs.
Joints and Pre-Rolls
As a tightly rolled cigarette containing ground cannabis flower, a joint offers the user fast-acting effects in a small and portable package. Pre-rolls are just what you’d think: conveniently (and expertly) pre-rolled joints you can pick up at a dispensary.
Because the distance from burning flower to lips is reduced compared with a pipe or bong, smoking joints generally requires a slight modification to technique, requiring a shorter and less intense draw. There’s a tradeoff as well: Because it keeps burning once it’s lit, a joint isn’t as economical as using a pipe or a bong. Then again, you can turn that to your advantage by ensuring you have friends on hand to share the experience with!
Blunts
A blunt is a variation on a joint that uses tobacco leaf as a wrapper, rather than rolling papers. If you’re new to cannabis, it may be worth pointing out that thanks to those cured tobacco leaves blunts may offer more intense effects than with smoking a traditional joint.
How To Properly Inhale Weed
This is a question we often get from new cannabis customers at our dispensaries: how do you inhale weed? The goal of proper inhalation is actually fairly straightforward: To inhale enough smoke to allow you to absorb the psychoactive cannabinoids and aromatic terpenes—but without causing a coughing fit, which could be uncomfortable, cause you to lose precious smoke, or—worst of all—make you feel self-conscious!
One way to visualize the inhalation process is to imagine sipping on a mug of hot tea. Take gentle, brief inhalations—contrary to popular opinion, you don’t need to inhale a gigantic amount of weed smoke into your lungs in order to get high. Rather, many experts recommend using a brief and gentle intake of breath, then holding in the smoke no longer than 2 seconds before gently releasing it.
Why? There’s significant debate as to whether holding in cannabis smoke longer exposes you to greater amounts of tar and other irritants than shorter breath holds. But while it appears that occasional weed smoking isn’t linked to adverse lung function, it also seems that holding in smoke longer doesn’t have any effect besides starving your brain of oxygen.
Whether you’re using a joint, a pipe, a blunt or a bong, the basic technique for inhalation remains more or less the same, though there are exceptions. Some experts advise that you draw the smoke from your mouth directly into your lungs in one smooth inhalation, while others suggest drawing the smoke first into the mouth, and then down into the lungs by breathing into your diaphragm, the thin dome of muscle that sits beneath our heart and lungs.
Is one approach better than another? In our experience, it’s simply a question of taste; try them both and let us know!
Tips for Newcomers to Cannabis
Perhaps the most important tip for newcomers to smoking cannabis: Start low and go slow.
In other words: Take small hits, don’t hold them longer than a couple of seconds, and resist the urge to inhale huge amounts of smoke. When inhaled, THC takes effect quickly—typically within a couple of minutes—and while you can always have more, you can’t have less. Taking even just one inhalation and waiting 10-15 minutes to see how it impacts you is a great way to get to know how your own unique endocannabinoid system and how it interacts with the compounds in cannabis.
Even with moderation, there’s still a chance that at some point in your weed-smoking career, you’re going to have a bit too much. What’s to be done? First of all, don’t panic. An excess of THC is rarely dangerous; just unpleasant. But the worst of the sensations generally subside within an hour or two.
Here are a few things that can help you get grounded if you’ve consumed too much:
- Cool water can help you regulate the negative sensations, as well as counteracting the dry mouth that often accompanies an excess of THC.
- Having something to eat before (and after) cannabis consumption can help dampen its effects.
- Sniff some fresh black pepper: As a study suggests, the terpenes pinene and caryophyllene in peppercorns can help your body metabolize THC.
- A hot shower or nap can be great for helping you come down.
Broaden Your Cannabis Horizons with Mission
As we’ve seen, learning how to inhale weed properly isn’t as simple as it might seem. There are a number of approaches and techniques, and it pays to get familiar with them first before trying them out for yourself. Once you know the landscape, you can branch out with different tools such as pipes, joints, bongs, and others still.
On a related note, be sure to take it slow. While smoking too much cannabis generally isn’t dangerous, it can be unpleasant—and unpleasant experiences are something we’d like to help you avoid!
Are you ready to deepen your cannabis knowledge? If you’re interested in other ways to inhale cannais, start with our guide to vaporizers. You’ll find crucial steps, expert tips, and more to make your journey that much more rewarding.
And if you’re ready to start practicing your new weed-smoking techniques, we can help with that! Start by choosing the Mission dispensary closest to you, where you’ll find a huge selection of fresh flower in every possible strain and style. We can’t wait to hook you up!
