There are so many different ways to smoke weed these days. With so many different consumption methods out there, we’ve decided to outline a full list of the different ways to smoke weed and concentrates as well as which methods will work best in which situations. Here’s everything you need to know about the different ways to consume weed.
10 Best Ways to Smoke Weed
If you’re looking for new ways to smoke marijuana or to just familiarize yourself with all the possibilities available to you, check out the full breakdowns of your different smoking options below.
1. Joints
Best for: Social settings or people on the go
How to smoke them: Smoking joints involves grinding your weed and rolling it up into a rolling paper and smoking it like you would smoke a cigarette. They usually contain a crutch so you don’t burn your lips and come in all different shapes and sizes with various quantities of weed. They’re usually small and discreet so they’re easy to stash and store, but they’re awesome to pass around in social settings. Joints are also great for lazy Sundays on the couch.
2. Blunts and Spliffs
Best for: Social settings, people with higher tolerances, and people who like to add a little pep to their high
How to smoke them: Blunts and spliffs contain small amounts of tobacco. Blunts are made from cigar wraps and rolled up and smoked like cigars, while spliffs are a mix of tobacco and weed rolled up in a rolling paper and smoked like a cigarette or joint. The presence of tobacco adds a strong body buzz and a mild nicotine high, which can be unpleasant for newbie smokers with low tolerances. However, blunts and spliffs are great in social settings since they’re both easy to pass around and share.
3. Bongs & Water Pipes
Best for: Intermediate smokers looking for strong, powerful hits, lazy days, and at-home social settings
How to smoke them: Bongs and water pipes are tall beaker-like pipes with water at the bottom. They come in various complexities, some with built-in percolators and recyclers to help cool the smoke as you inhale, and they’re all very easy to use. You’ll pack some weed into the slide, and inhale through the top. Smoke will fill the bong or water pipe, and then you’ll remove the slide. From there, you’ll just clear the bong with one big inhale and you’re done. It’s a simple process, but it delivers massive amounts of THC into your system at once, so it’s a great choice for intermediate smokers or sharing with friends at home.
4. Bowls & Pipes
Best for: Beginner smokers looking for a quick, easy, less-intense smoke sesh.
How to smoke them: Pipes come in all different shapes and sizes, including the most popular bowl pipe as well as things like steamrollers, chillums, and spoon pipes. They’re great single-serve smoking apparatuses and offer smaller hits that are much easier to dose, and best of all, they taste fantastic. To smoke them, you’ll load ground flower into the pipe, hold the carb closed, light the flower with a lighter, and inhale. When you’re done inhaling, you’ll release the carb and clear the chamber. From there you can take more hits as needed, or pass it to a friend. Bowls are excellent in small social settings or on your own for a casual, mellow experience.
5. Bubblers
Best for: Medium-sized hits, better flavors, and intermediate smokers
How to smoke them: Bubblers are somewhere in between bongs and bowls. They’re on the small side like pipes, but they have a water feature like bongs to help cool the smoke and make it taste better. To smoke a bubbler, you’ll fill the chamber with a small amount of water and load the pipe with weed. From there, you’ll smoke it like a pipe, enjoying water-cooled smoke. Since bubblers are much smaller than bongs, you’ll get a better flavor out of your weed, too. They’re great for smoking by yourself or with a friend.
6. One-hitters
Best for: Discreet, on-the-go dosing for one person.
How to smoke them: One hitters are small pipes that have capacity for smoking one or two hits of weed at a time. They’re so small and discreet they fit everywhere from keychains to pockets and are great for dosing on the go with discretion. To smoke them, you’ll load up the one-hitter pipe with ground flower, packing it with one hits-worth of weed. From there, you’ll light it up and inhale, like smoking a pipe. You’ll burn through your weed in one hit though, so you’ll ash out the cashed bud and put the one-hitter pipe back into the container for storage.
7. Vaping
Best for: Cleaner highs, more discreet smoke, social settings, personal use, and for both concentrates and flower
How to smoke them: You can vaporize both flower and concentrates with a vaporizer, and they offer a cleaner smoke since they don’t physically combust your products, which can be harmful to your lungs. There are two main types of vaporizer: tabletop and portable. With tabletop vapes, you’ll vaporize your flower or concentrates and the smoke will fill a chamber or a bag from which you can inhale the clean-burning vapor. Portable vapes are similar to vape pens and can be heated up and smoked with the press of a button. Both are great options for intermediate smokers in personal and social settings since the vapor is discreet and unscented and feels like a cleaner high. However, they still hit pretty hard.
8. Dabbing
Best for: Advanced smokers consuming cannabis concentrates
How to smoke them: Dabbing involves the use of a dab rig, which is similar to a water pipe. However, instead of a bowl and slide for flower, it has a banger instead. To dab, you’ll heat the banger with a torch for about a minute and let it cool for about 30 seconds. Then you’ll take a scoop of your favorite concentrate and apply it to the pre-heated banger using a dab tool. It will begin to vaporize, so you’ll cap it with a carb cap and inhale. Dabbing hits extremely hard since concentrates are some of the most potent forms of cannabis available on the market. While dabbing is a little bit complicated, e-rigs and e-nails can be used to help with the heating and waiting to make it a little easier.
9. Hot Knives
Best for: Emergency use only, for both concentrates and flower.
How to smoke them: The hot knife technique is a good option when all your other options fail and you really need a hit of weed or a dab. You can use it to vaporize both concentrates and flower, but there is a higher risk of hurting yourself with this method. To smoke a hot knife, you’ll heat up the tips of two butter knives on the stove until they’re glowing red. From there, you’ll apply flower or concentrates to one knife and sandwich it between the other hot knife. The flower or concentrate will vaporize almost instantly, so you’ll have to do it close to your mouth or nose to inhale as much vapor as you can. You can inhale with a cup with a hole at the bottom to try and catch more vapor while hot knifing.
10. Homemade devices
Best for: Desperate times calling for desperate measures
How to smoke them: You can make a pipe out of practically anything. They’ll definitely serve you well in a pinch, but they come with their own set of risks with long-term use. You should only opt for a homemade device if you just broke your trusty glass and are waiting for a new one. To smoke a homemade pipe or bong, you’ll first need to make one. You can make your own gravity bongs, homemade pipes or bongs, or you can make them from food items, like apples. Once you have your DIY smoking apparatus made, you’ll smoke it like any other pipe or bong that we outlined above.
So there you have it! All of the different and best ways to smoke weed at home or in social settings. How many different ways have you tried, and which one is your favorite?