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Revision as of 04:55, 22 April 2004
- For information on pipes used to transfer water and fluids, see plumbing and pipeline transport. For many other uses of the word, see pipe.
File:Bongs.png
Bongs
water pipes
A water pipe or bong is a device used for smoking, usually cannabis, in which smoke is bubbled through a chamber containing water. Bubbling the smoke through water serves to cool down the smoke and to trap some of the heavier and more soluble particulate matter, keeping it from entering the smoker's lungs. For this reason, some users claim that cannabis smoke filtered through water is safer than unfiltered cannabis smoke.
Water pipes derive their heritage from the classical Arabic hookah, which was originally designed for smoking tobacco and other flavored smoke producing materials. Bongs differ from hookahs in that they are usually simpler, with a single mouthpiece on the water chamber rather than a hookah's one or more hoses.
A gravity bong is a different smoking device which also uses water. They are almost all home-made and are rarely available commercially. A gravity bong is made of two different containers, most typically a bucket and two-liter soda bottle (when constructed with a bucket they may be referred to as a bucket bong). The bottom of the bottle is cut off, and the cap is made into a device capable of holding the substance to be smoked. The bucket is filled with water, and the bottle placed in the water so the missing side is underwater and the cap, filled with the substance to be smoked, is above it. The substance is lit by one person while another slowly and steadily raises the bottle, careful not to bring the edge of the open bottom above the water level. The increasing volume of waterless-space inside the bottle pulls smoke from the cap into the bottle. The cap is taken off, and one person inhales the smoke inside the bottle, often while plunging the bottle back into the bucket (in order to force more smoke into the lungs).
Similar in design to the gravity bong, but somewhat simpler, is the waterfall bong, which may also sometimes be referred to as a gravity bong (although a bucket-style bong is seldom if ever referred to as a waterfall bong). A waterfall bong usually consists of a plastic bottle with a hole punched at the bottom, and a bowl on top in which cannabis can be placed. The hole is covered by a finger and the vessel is filled with water, then while holding a flame to the bowl, the finger is removed. Gravity causes the water to flow out, in a small waterfall, at a steady pace; and when the water is all gone the bowl is removed and the smoke is inhaled from the hole.
A gravity or waterfall bong, unlike a bong proper, does not necessarily filter the smoke through the water or cool it significantly (although they can be constructed to do so). It is simply a device whose main design feature is a large chamber in which the flow of smoke can be captured, making it easier to inhale a large amount of smoke quite quickly. Its name can be somewhat confusing, because in fact any apparatus that holds water would be useless in a zero-gravity environment, because the liquid would no longer conform to the shape of its container. Gravity bong and waterfall bong usually refer only to bongs where there's a flow of smoke induced by a change in air pressure which is caused by the lowering of the level of the surface of the water held within the device. When the airflow is caused not flux of the water level but by the inhalation of the smoker's lungs, the device is referred to as a hookah, bong, bubbler, or more generally waterpipe.