The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

so i scraped a bowl pretty clean yesterday but i'm still out of stuff so i was taking really long hits today to try and burn something. But the lighter (a bic) left this really fine resedue in the sides of my clean bowl; normally I wouldn't have noticed it. Is it unsafe to take really long and hot hits with normal lighters?

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This is a question really want answered because I don't feel like butane is all that healthy and i really don't want those particles in my lungs.

Personally, I'm always very wary of any residue that's not resin. I don't really know what the residue you're describing is (it can't be butane, as it would have evaporated when not under pressure) -- but since it's an unknown residue, I'd play it safe and not smoke it. Boil your piece and clean it well before using it again. (If you're in the UK, then I'd advise you check your supply. There's been a fair bit of spiked stuff going around recently, and mysterious residues can be a warning sign.)

As for your question as to whether or not it's safe to take long hits with the flame applied to your bud -- well... I wouldn't. If you hold the lighter properly (i.e. as upright as possible), you shouldn't get too much butane in your lungs, but the the less you keep the flame on your weed the better. Marijuana burns pretty damn well on its own, so if you've got keep the flame on a bud for more than a second or, chances are that something's amiss. (Usual culprits: damp weed, crappy weed, cashed bowl.)

You don't want to let your weed get too hot either -- THC can (and will) be destroyed by excessive heat, so the less flame the better. Keep the flame on your buds just long enough to get them to catch, then nurse your smoke so that you don't have to relight it.

I also used homemade tinfoil screens for a couple years, I hope I'm not going to die.

Hehe -- looks like my post on aluminum foil bowls might not be the best reading material if you're stoned...

Anyways, it's pretty unlikely that you'll die from using aluminum foil screens. Hell, we've all packed a makeshift bowl at some point in our lives. That said, I wouldn't continue the practice. What's done is done, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you're really concerned, then talk to your doctor -- but unless there's a reason to think that the practice did you harm, I wouldn't worry about. Just don't continue it... (suitable wood pieces are about $15 in most headshops -- buy one of those and cannibalize it.)

Hope this answered your questions.

Yours in Peace,
Julius

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 7:41 am and is filed under Health/Medicine, 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.