A major part of why I started the Dope Girls project back in Spring 2016 was because smoking weed still felt marginalized (and super masculine, but that’s a whole other story). Any time I spotted a lighter with the telltale blackened bottom, or heard someone respond to “Do you smoke?” with a prognostic “Cigarettes?”, I knew I was among my people: folks who got high. I tended to ask party hosts for permission before sparking a joint (always outside: a hallmark of non-stoners), and attracting a tiny circle of interested parties around me.
However, as is by now abundantly clear, cannabis is more popular in 2020 than ever. Wider-ranging legality is a massive contributor to that, along with pop-cultural visibility and weed’s overall, uh, gentrification. Now when I roll up to parties (much less frequently these days, but that’s more a symptom of my rapidly deepening introverted tendencies), I have to smoke in secret—not out of shame or to avoid bothering anyone with the funk, but because I prefer to get more than a single toke in. Until I achieve my childhood dream of becoming a trophy wife, I just don’t got funds like that.
But as Good Morning America exalts the advent of the “weed mom” without a lick of subversive awe, and Goop hawks luxury pipes, one true signifier of stoner culture still remains in the periphery: bongs. Edibles, tinctures—even cute, patterned, vegan-ink rolling papers—all seem par for the course. So why do bongs have yet to join the mainstream?
As I said before, I mostly prefer staying home these days. However, I am not quite in the full-on recluse club, so I love hosting small get-togethers. I own a bevy of ~aesthetic~ bowls and pre-rolled cones for jays, but my ultimate favorite smoking device is the Summerland Ceramic bong. (Full disclosure: the company bought ad space in a Dope Girls magazine long after I became a fan.) I got it three years ago for myself after it became clear my then-partner wasn’t picking up on my obvious hints. Somewhere between opening a second bottle of wine and dealing a new hand for Uno, I break it out and … you wouldn’t believe what happens next.
I roll with a pretty progressive crew who aren’t exactly newcomers to cannabis. However, I continue to be shocked when I learn another 30-something aficionado needs a patient doula in order to imbibe with the bong. As a device designed for high-flying users with potentially limited coordination, its usage is less complex than, say, one of those robotic wine bottle openers all my recently married pals are apparently mandated to acquire. So, what’s the deal?
For many, it’s an early experience that forever links bongs with getting far too faded. I, too, spent a good amount of time in the Chi Phi house during my University of North Florida days with a well-mannered brother in a well-pressed button-up helping me light the house’s four-foot bong. And then, you know, sitting in my parked car with my eyes vibrating out of my sockets for hours before I felt sober enough to drive home. I also recall bringing my then-roommate to the Chi Phi house, whose experience ended with her immobile in my back seat, so high we couldn’t decide between dropping her back at our dorm room or the school clinic. (We chose the dorm room; she was fine.)
Another pal of mine who asked to be identified as just B, a writer-type in the Brooklyn area, recalls similar early bong experiences. “My first bong experience was smoking out of a four-foot-long, ice-cooled contraption named Chief Master Guru,” he says. “I got so high that while we were watching ‘Cops’ I thought I was a guy in a U-Haul getting arrested. It was a lot.”
Bongs have evolved, in the 15-ish years since my Chi Phi days, from hyper-macho erections to aesthetic, tidier options. Yet the complications endure.
“My first bong experience was smoking out of a four-foot-long, ice-cooled contraption named Chief Master Guru. I got so high that while we were watching ‘Cops’ I thought I was a guy in a U-Haul getting arrested.”
Even green adults wrangling bongs smaller than toddlers can have a tough time navigating their ins and outs. From my dating days, I can count more than a few non-stoner suitors who—despite my warnings to take it easy and simply “sip” the smoke versus clearing out the whole damned chamber—spent a little longer than felt comfortable sitting silent and stationary on my couch, chests rapidly rising and falling.
A friend, Jared, who works as a reporter in New York, says he’s run into similar hesitation when visitors show up. “Virtually every time [people hesitate], which is why my girlfriend and I normally don't present it to company,” he says. “It's intimidating! One, it's complicated to the uninitiated, way more so than a pipe or joint. Why does a slide move? Is that water? What if I do this wrong? But two, and more importantly, it's an intense experience! I only bust it out when it's asked for.”
It’s true that pulling on a joint or piece presents a finite inhalation opportunity—bongs, however, have depths. Some of those depths—assuming a certain kind of lung capacity—may be reached easily but recovered from much more slowly. For many, these accidentally-intense experiences can be enough to turn them off of the medium forever.
Perhaps paramount among the reasons that many smokers stay away from bongs? They aren’t exactly discreet.
Trey Smith, editor, producer, and “weed guy” at VICE, agrees that bongs just might be too bulky—and a little overly obvious—to properly catch on the way pipes or other smoking mediums have. “First off, bongs are not at all convenient,” he says. “Hard to hide, and you gotta clean them before they get all gross—and no one likes cleaning for the most part. There’s the changing water part, too.”
A one-hitter (“bat”) disguised as a cigarette (so common I saw them sold at hip clothing boutiques in my former neighborhood of Greenpoint back in 2013; today you can get five for $8 on Amazon) may not raise many eyebrows while strolling down a busy street. But even a more petite bong necessitates a bit of a hidey-hole—which means they aren’t exactly portable.
“One, it’s complicated to the uninitiated, way more so than a pipe or joint. Why does a slide move? Is that water? What if I do this wrong? But two, and more importantly, it’s an intense experience!”
It doesn’t help that, in much of the country, public consumption is still not legal. “Can’t really bring a bong anywhere or smoke one just out and about,” Smith adds. “Plus, if a cop finds you with one, there’s no explaining it away like you could with papers or blunts or the ability to throw it down the drain, like a pipe.”
As Smith notes, cleanliness is another enduring issue. It’s true that most bongs—even Roor bongs, which a childhood friend of mine, whom I consider an expert on the topic, calls “the Gucci of bongs”—are made of clear glass. A couple sessions in, and they look dingy, ravaged by resin collecting inside the see-through chamber. Unless you obsessively clean, bongs tend to make you look like a slob. Add to that the fact most heavy smokers aren’t notorious for spic-and-span households, and it isn’t the most attractive asset to break out for company—let alone have on display.
Yes, there exist bongs like my Summerland babe, which can hide their swampy hygiene truths. Unfortunately, even then, New York Times columnist and cleaning guru Jolie Kerr recommends changing out a bong’s water every single time (or, at least, every other time) you use it. “If you’re sharing, you should clean after every use—just, like, wipe the lip with a rubbing alcohol wipe—to prevent things like flu and herpes,” she says.
With that logic, though, all stoners should be wiping down any smoking device, regardless of water, between uses. Surely glass pipes from festivals past looked icky after a few sessions—but that didn’t halt bowl ubiquity. And with the plethora of opaque options for sale, “looks gross quick” smacks of a lame excuse to pass on bongs.
Okay, true, there’s the investment aspect. Although Summerland dropped prices significantly since my $200-ish purchase, you can spend half that for a beautiful bowl worthy of a permanent bookshelf perch. (Miwak Junior—which also financially supported Dope Girls, long after I bought my first bowl from the brand—immediately comes to mind.) It’s still rare to run into an “adult-looking” bong.
“I feel like you never really see cute bongs or clean bongs or any of that,” Lauren, a 32-year-old in Texas, says. “Maybe on ‘Broad City,’ but their bongs were still stereotypical in their shape and overall look. I think that has a lot to do with the association of early stoner movies and the perception of the characters in them. When is the last time you saw a hot, smart person rip a bong on TV?”
Absolutely fair. Bongs can feel a bit like relics—harkening back to a time during which smoking weed was a defining personality trait, not just a way to unwind after spending a day at your square job and reclining on a “responsible,” $2,000 sectional.
“If a cop finds you with [a bong], there’s no explaining it away like you could with papers or blunts or the ability to throw it down the drain, like a pipe.”
“They go along with the image of the stoner who doesn't really do anything but watch porn in a basement and get high,” my friend B agrees. “The ~elevated stoner~ vapes—or whatever. Different highs, same drug, different stigma, etc.”
Though far from mainstream, dabs continue to enjoy popularity in more inner stoner circles. Dabs can, on first blush, look pretty serious; to the untrained eye, they appear very complicated and very illegal. “Dabs I see people making an exception for cause the payoff is much higher in terms of how stoned you get vs. flower in a bong,” Smith says. I cannot personally attest, as a wimpy person who lives in the deeply illegal state of Georgia, but those claims check out.
Despite the various attributes that make bongs intimidating for first-timers, one recurring truth about them keeps surfacing: they definitely give you bang for your buck. It’s hard to argue with the science that says marrying smoke-cooling water with suction and even the tiniest weed nug can result in a potent high. And, if you don’t wanna get that ripped, another option: toke more gently. Despite stereotypes, bongs do have a spectrum of stoned capabilities.
In sum, bongs really are for everyone. As long as you follow cannabis writer Liel Klein’s advice, that is: “If you're not super experienced with [bongs] or don't have much of a tolerance they're even more-so for you,” she says. “One hit will do wonders! But also consider your lung capacity and general limits.”
And if someone’s conservative parent drops by unannounced? Add a bouquet of fake flowers and you’re in the clear.
Words, Beca GrimmIllustrations, Lan Truong Language
