Need help with a drug issue - Writerly, believe it or not!

[EmeliaBell]

Help - I've got myself in over my head here! My characters are about to smoke a bong, but I've never been near one - how the heck do they work. I need enough info so I can write a reasonably realistic scene! Well, as realistic as drug-fuelled fucking in an erotic story can ever be

~E~

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Help - I've got myself in over my head here! My characters are about to smoke a bong, but I've never been near one - how the heck do they work. I need enough info so I can write a reasonably realistic scene! Well, as realistic as drug-fuelled fucking in an erotic story can ever be

~E~

Can't help ya... I'm as dense as you are in this area.

*sits back and waits for an education*

 

[EmeliaBell]

Can't help ya... I'm as dense as you are in this area.

*sits back and waits for an education*

Guess my guise as an experienced woman of the world has just been blown, huh?

Oh well <shrugs> wotcha gonna do? Want a cup of hot chocolate Selena?

~E~

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I have seen a bong, but I'm sure that doesn't really help

 

[EmeliaBell]

I have seen a bong, but I'm sure that doesn't really help

I dunno - can you explain the workings of it? Like where it lights, or where you put the grass?

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I dunno - can you explain the workings of it? Like where it lights, or where you put the grass?

Nope. Couldn't say one bit.

 

[tickledkitty]

You fill the bottom part of it with water. Then pack the bowl with pot. The person who lights it will hold it in one hand, thumb over the hole in back and light. As they light it, they suck in and take their thumb off the hole. Smoke fills their lungs, and the bong makes sort of a whooshing noise. The person holds the smoke in for as long as they can and then blows it out. Meanwhile, they pass the bong to the next person.

The next person can generally "hit" it the same way without relighting. You do have to relight it once in a while.

BTW, the smoke filters through the water, which is supposed to purify it and make it less harsh.

Helpful?

 

[Shwenn]

It's a tube. At the bottom of the tube is where the "bowl" is attached, it's like a small tobacco pibe coming out of the tube. That is full of pot. The tube is wide enough to surround your lips. It contains water, about a fourth to third of the tube.

Above the water is a small hole, about the width of a pencil.

Now, you cover your mouth with the top of the tube, you cover the hole with your fingertip. Then you light the pot in the bowl on fire with a lighter. You suck. When the tube fills with smoke, you take your finger off of the hole and you suck the smoke into your lungs.

That is how a bong works.

 

[EmeliaBell]

Excellent - thank you. That ought to be enough info.

hee hee - fake your way in drug-taking. A helpful guide for authors.

We should do a series...

~E~

 

[dr_mabeuse]

A bong is basically a big glass pipe, like a tobacco pipe. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are made of all sorts of materials. They can be store-bought and terribly fancy or home made out of an empty beer can and tin foil. The idea is to "carbaurate" the smoke or mix it with a lot of air so it's more easily absorbed by the lungs.

Here's a typical bong, store bought: Picture a glass globe about the size or an orange or a tennis ball. From this, a stem about an inch in diameter and 8" long extends at an angle like the stem of a pipe. On top of the ball is the "bowl", a well with a screen in the bottom of it. You put the pot or hash in the well, put your lips on the stem, and light the pot, drawing in on the bong. From then on, it's just like smoking a pipe, except you don't puff, you drag, inhale deeply, and everyone who takes a drag has to relight. Grass and hash don't stay lit.

Everyone takes a drag and holds the smoke in their lungs for as long as they can usually for the first couple of hits. Then people start laughing usually, and it's harder to keep the smoke in.

And that's it. Just a bowl for the dope, a big empty space to mix the smoke with air, and another hole to suck the smoke through. Some of them have water in them to filter the smoke and cool it, but technically those are water pipes.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Or the obvious answer, with diagrams and everything

 

[neonlyte]

A bong is basically a big glass pipe, like a tobacco pipe. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are made of all sorts of materials. They can be store-bought and terribly fancy or home made out of an empty beer can and tin foil. The idea is to "carbaurate" the smoke or mix it with a lot of air so it's more easily absorbed by the lungs.

Here's a typical bong, store bought: Picture a glass globe about the size or an orange or a tennis ball. From this, a stem about an inch in diameter and 8" long extends at an angle like the stem of a pipe. On top of the ball is the "bowl", a well with a screen in the bottom of it. You put the pot or hash in the well, put your lips on the stem, and light the pot, drawing in on the bong. From then on, it's just like smoking a pipe, except you don't puff, you drag, inhale deeply, and everyone who takes a drag has to relight. Grass and hash don't stay lit.

Everyone takes a drag and holds the smoke in their lungs for as long as they can usually for the first couple of hits. Then people start laughing usually, and it's harder to keep the smoke in.

And that's it. Just a bowl for the dope, a big empty space to mix the smoke with air, and another hole to suck the smoke through. That's a bong.

What's the difference between grass and hash? I presume you don't mean lawn trimmings. I've only ever smoked spliffs, 1970's student sit-in

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Or the obvious answer, with diagrams and everything

I found it on Yahoo answers, too...

Now off to find out how to make a bomb...

(hey! I'm kidding - KIDDING - hear that, any of you CIA/FBI folks? )

 

[xssve]

Relevant information on bongs: they make a characteristic bubbling sound when they're being drawn upon.

The hole you cover with your thumb is called the carburetor, or carb for short, as you draw on the bong, the chamber fills with smoke, and when you remove your thumb from the carb, you inhale the smoke all at once, this is called a "hit".

The bowls on old style bongs were removable, and there were different kinds, ranging from large party bowls to a small funnel shaped bowl about Two Centimeters in diameter on the open end, that can contain enough herb for one hit, and called a "one hitter" or a "one hit bowl", and for many years, the most common type of bowl as it is a more economical way to imbibe the expensive substances that one imbibes from a bong.

The smoke that results from the combustion of these substances, if it is wasted by not being inhaled, is called "reef", and the more expensive the substance, the greater the efforts to avoid "reefing".

A single hit from a one hit bowl is called a "one hit", "a hit" or commonly, "a bong" - i.e., one would typically get together with ones friends to do "some bongs".

Glass bongs are much more common nowadays, and they usually have a molded glass bowl that is non removable, being molded directly to the stem - some bongs have a stem that slides into another stem, and the bong is carbed by sliding the bowl and stem out, called a "trombone carb", or a "slide".

Lastly, bong water deserves a mention - the drawback to a bong is that the water used to filter and cool the smoke becomes quite fragrant fairly rapidly, and not in a good way, the shit stinks, and spilling the bong is huge gaffe. And finally, if one doesn't change the water frequently enough, one risks a serious malady known as "bong breath", that will be subject for comment.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

=
Everyone takes a drag and holds the smoke in their lungs for as long as they can usually for the first couple of hits. Then people start laughing usually, and it's harder to keep the smoke in...

Rather unsanitary, that... *shudder* I think it was aversion to germs that kept me from trying it in the first place.

 

[xssve]

Yes, that's called "expansion", the better the quality of the mojta, the greater the expansion, and the harder it is to keep it contained. Eventually, after enough bongs, one coughs uncontrollably - leading to the expression: "if you cough, you're off", since nobody wants you coughing into the bong, blowing coals and bongwater everywhere.

The fruits of a misspent youth.

 

[Shwenn]

Rather unsanitary, that... *shudder* I think it was aversion to germs that kept me from trying it in the first place.

Bongs are probably the most sanitary way to share pot.

You don't swap spit the way you do with the cigarette or pipe forms.

 

[EmeliaBell]

Is a bong the same as a hookah?

~E~

 

[xssve]

It based on the Hookah, a modern variation - the Hookah has a long flexible tube to draw upon, often multiple tubes, whereas the bong has a rigid tube ranging from and inch and and a half to Two inches average, which seals around the outside of the mouth, i.e., you don't put your lips on it, but otherwise, the principle is similar.

Too many bongs can leave a visible red pressure ring around the mouth which has no name since by unspoken convention, nobody will ever tell you about, but will simply snicker about mysteriously.

 

[Weird Harold]

Is a bong the same as a hookah?

~E~

No, a bong and a hookah are two separate things.

A hookah is also known as a water-pipe and looks more like an old fashioned double-boiler coffee pot than a "pipe." It's also much larger than a bong and much less portable.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What's the difference between grass and hash? I presume you don't mean lawn trimmings. I've only ever smoked spliffs, 1970's student sit-in

Hashish or bhang is the resin of the marijuana plant, which contains most of the active ingredient, the THC. It's far more potent on a per-weight basis than marijuana itself, which is the dried leaves and flowers. Hash is collected by sweeping the fields with canvas cloths and then scraping the gooey tar that collects and drying it into flat bricks. It's a lot easier to smuggle and has a higher profit margin than grass, and in my day was a lot more popular. I don't know why its popularity has fallen off. Maybe the economics favors a bulky, lower-quality product these days.

Used to be able to get in Amsterdam quite readily. The best stuff came from Turkey.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

No, a bong and a hookah are two separate things.

A hookah is also known as a water-pipe and looks more like an old fashioned double-boiler coffee pot than a "pipe." It's also much larger than a bong and much less portable.

Yes. A hookah or nargyle leads the smoke through a tube and under water from which it bubbles up to an air chamber where it's drawn off, hence its other name, hubbly-bubbly. In the middle east, or here at hookah cafes, it's not uncommon to find hookahs with several mouthpieces where 5 or 6 smokers can lie around enjoying a special mix of flavored tobaccos, whose smoke is drawn through flavored waters.

Bongs, to the best of my knowledge, don't have to have water in them, nor do they have to be finger-controlled. They're just there to carburate the smoke.

We used to make bongs for joints out of empty toilet paper tubes in my college days by poking a couple holes in the side of the tube. You'd fit the reefer in one of the holes, cover one end with the palm of your hand, fit your lips to the open side of the tube, and puff away. Worked just fine, I can tell you. The second hole let air into the mix to dilute the smoke, which was the whole idea.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Hashish or bhang is the resin of the marijuana plant, which contains most of the active ingredient, the THC. It's far more potent on a per-weight basis than marijuana itself, which is the dried leaves and flowers. Hash is collected by sweeping the fields with canvas cloths and then scraping the gooey tar that collects and drying it into flat bricks. It's a lot easier to smuggle and has a higher profit margin than grass, and in my day was a lot more popular. I don't know why its popularity has fallen off. Maybe the economics favors a bulky, lower-quality product these days.

Used to be able to get in Amsterdam quite readily. The best stuff came from Turkey.

Yes, there are other less mass-production ways to make Hash that involve extracting the resin through various types of screens or fabrics, but all involve the same principle of separating the resins from the plant material.

I believe, Dr. M, that hash is still popular in Amsterdam, if not the most dominant form of availability. In the U.S., though, the additional steps in processing limits hash availability. As near as I can tell, high-end U.S. smokers instead value boutique strains of weed (various strains of "kush", "haze", "skunk", etc.) that are home-grown from seeds obtained from Canada or the Netherlands. In this link, you can see some of the types available. Also, the wooden boxes with screens shown on the page are for holding your stash. As resins slough off the leaves and buds, they fall through the screens and accumulate in the bottom of the box. This is called "keef", and is collected and rolled into small balls of hash.

 

[cantdog]

What's the difference between grass and hash? I presume you don't mean lawn trimmings. I've only ever smoked spliffs, 1970's student sit-in

Grass doesn't work as a drug if not cooked, somehow, which is why it has to be smoked, or brewed, or baked into baked goods like lasagna or brownies.

Hashish is a processed product, not an herbal looking thing but a brick of resinous material. It's already 'cooked' in the processing, and the resin of grass is where the THC is, so you can eat it and get high, which we did when the R.A. knocked on the door.

Hashish is very concentrated, strong. Some is dark, and an almost olive green, but I have also seen what was called 'blond Lebanese,' a sort of tan color.

One scrapes hash off the block with a sharp object like, say, a penknife. This makes little scrids, like what you might get scraping the surface of a hard cheese like Parmagiana. You can destroy the roomful of you with a mere scrid or three.

It is consumed to pale gray ash when smoked, as dope itself is, but there's no woodsmoke component to the smoke.

Bongs needn't be waterpipes. They have an expansion chamber into which the smoke moves, to be mixed with air, which cools the smoke and makes it less likely to irritate. Grass or hashish can be used in both bongs and waterpipes, but hash is not easy to get.

 

[starrkers]

{snip}

Lastly, bong water deserves a mention - the drawback to a bong is that the water used to filter and cool the smoke becomes quite fragrant fairly rapidly, and not in a good way, the shit stinks, and spilling the bong is huge gaffe. And finally, if one doesn't change the water frequently enough, one risks a serious malady known as "bong breath", that will be subject for comment.

Oh, memories! Of the time someone spilled the bong in a mate's car - the carpet stank for weeks and the owner's paranoia levels went through the roof. He was sure he was gonna get busted before he got the smell out!

Bongs are illegal here, but parts for making them are not. Many a bong has been made using an old plastic OJ bottle, a short length of garden hose and a bought bowl (although these can also be whittled from a block of pool cue chalk).
Sometimes OJ or some other liquid is added to bong water to mask the odour for a bit longer, and supposedly sweeten the smoke.