The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

Dear Julius

I've heard that you can more or less conceal your "stoned" appearance by doing the following things:

[ed: formatted for web]

1. Brushing your teeth
2. Washing your hair and/or washing your face
3. Changing your shirt
4. Using Visine

Is that true?

Hmmm. There's not a really easy answer to this, so I'll have to go over these methods one at a time. Pull up a couch and/or beanbag chair, and get ready for a lengthy post.

Let's take a look at the first one: Brushing your teeth -- does it help cover the use of marijuana? Well -- if you're going to be talking to people at close range, where they might conceivably smell your breath, and if you've recently smoked a sizable quantity of marijuana, then brushing your teeth might prevent them from smelling it on your breath. Furthermore (and perhaps more importantly), brushing one's teeth will help eliminate any aftertaste from the mouth. Not only will this make your food taste better (unless you like the taste of pot), but it also might give you bit more confidence when dealing with people after your smoke session.

What about washing your hair to cover the smell? This one's actually solid. The smell of smoke tends to linger in hair, so washing your hair will help get the smell out. There's no need to lather, rinse, and repeat though; simply rinsing off your hair with water will help. Washing your face, on the other hand won't lessen any of the odor. Instead, it will lessen the smell that you smell. This "ghost" odor (ghost, since you're the only one close enough to smell it) can certainly add to your paranoia and can affect your sense of smell. By getting rid of the ghost odor, you ensure that you'll be able to smell when something actually does smell of pot, thereby preventing those "OMG everyone can tell!" moments.

Is changing your shirt/jacket/etc a good idea? Oh hell yes. Most modern fabrics positively love to soak up the smell of cannabis, so if you can, change your shirt/jacket after you toke up. If you smoke frequently, it might be a good idea to invest in a "smoking jacket" -- a piece of outerwear you wear only when smoking. This is particularly useful when changing the rest of your clothes is not an option (although never underestimate the benefits of a quick change when it comes to not smelling like a pothead.) In general, you should try and change as many articles of clothing as possible -- doing so will drastically cut down on the familiar "burnt pot" smell.

That brings us to the infamous Visine. I'm gonna be honest -- I'm not much of a fan of Visine. Yes, it'll reduce redness, but it does so at a cost. As it's a vasoconstrictor (i.e. makes blood vessels smaller), it can have a drying effect on your eyes. Since cannabis in and of itself can also produce a drying effect, using Visine might make your eyes irritated. Although I've never heard of anyone damaging their eyes using Visine to combat marijuana's red-eye, I'd steer clear of it all the same. If (like me), your eyes feel dry when you smoke, a simple re-hydrating eye drop will do the trick. I personally use Refresh Tears -- it's cheap, and it makes my eyes feel great (it also can help lessen the red-eye effect on its own.) Red-eye can be a giveaway, but if possible, it's best not to use any medicine to fight it unless there's a compelling reason to do so -- it's completely harmless on its own.

So there you have it. Most of what you said will indeed help conceal the recent use of marijuana. (And I've got a few tips/techniques of my own that I may post later.) That said, I'd rather live in a way that doesn't require me to hide when I've used marijuana -- there's no shame in smoking a plant.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Experiences, Q/A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.