Pot pipes

How pot water pipes work

Smoke is a heated mixture of gasses, vapors and solids. The vapor is almost virtually all water vapor. The rest of it, at least in the case of ANSI issue marijuana circa 1975*, is as follows:

Gas Phase: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, HCN, acetone, ammonia, toluene, acetonitrile, isoprene, benzene, dimethylnitrosamine, and methylethylnitrosamine

Particulates: tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, phenol, o-cresol, m-p-cresol, 2,4 and 2,5-dimethylphenol, 1-methylnapthalene, 2-methylnapthalene, napthalene, benzoanthracene, benzopyrene

Out of this miasma, what you want is the tetrahydrocannabinol, the long and pedantic name for the infamous THC of legend. The rest of it is crap (with the possible exception of the cannabidiol, which is a close, but less active relative of THC). Now, when you pass all this stuff through some water, you lose some of the water soluble constituents. Luckily, neither THC or any of its active relatives are water soluble. A bunch of the other stuff, however, is, and passing the lot through some water reduces the presence of those constituents in the smoke. This is a good thing as many of the water soluble constituents are carcinogenic and or toxic. Note that the lower the concentration of the constituents in the water, the better this works - so put new water in your bong once in a while.

Now, as previously mentioned, THC isn't water soluble, and that's why you use water in a bong. THC is somewhat soluble in alcohol, so using alcohol in a bong will somewhat reduce the amount of THC that makes it to you. THC, BTW, is quite fat soluble, and so using any kind of oil in your bong, aside from being gross and messy, will drastically reduce the THC in the smoke that reaches you (bound again, by the same equilibrium based constraints on functional effect).

But wait, what about the cooling effect? Ice bongs work better, right? Well, ice water in a bong cools the smoke down and leads to a denser filling of the post-water chamber (so you get more smoke), but I'd bet - and I'll note that I'm just guessing here - that this cooler temperature probably reduces the effectivness of the filtration because of the general decrease in solubility at colder temperatures.

How to build a pot pipe

You need:

• A plastic coke bottle
• A small piece of piping, 5-10 cm of lenght
• A socket from a socket set that will fit in the end of the pipe
• A knife

Instructions:

1. Make a hole for the pipe, about 1/3 way up bottle and insert pipe so pipe is bending down into the bottle.
   Try to isolate the edges of the hole around the pipe, it will prevent sucking the unwanted additional air into the bottle. Use any elastic material, from a folded piece of paper to a chewing gum.
2. Put the socket at the end of the pipe outside the bottle, this will be the bowl of your pot pipe.
3. Make air-hole in the bottle, below the mouthpiece, it will be used to pull the smoke out from the bottle during the last phase of the toke.
4. Fill the bottle with water so that it doesn't reach the pipe hole and that the bottom of the pipe stays under the surface.

Ok. The socket is where you put your mix (tobacco and your crumbled solid) and the second hole acts as an air-hole. When you have filled the socket with your mix, you light the mix and suck through the bottle top while holding your finger over the air-hole.

To clear the bottle, either suck all the smoke out or take your finger off the air-hole and blow the smoke out.

So there you have it, a simple bong.

Where to buy pot pipes

Just choose the one You like and click on the image to see the datails.