Pipe smoking is the practice of tasting (or, less commonly, inhaling) the smoke produced by burning a substance, most commonly tobacco or cannabis, in a pipe. It is the oldest traditional form of smoking.
Regular pipe smoking is known to carry serious health risks including increased danger of various forms of cancer as well as pulmonary and cardiovascular illnesses.
A number of Native American cultures have pipe-smoking traditions, which have been part of their cultures since long before the arrival of Europeans. Tobacco is often smoked, generally for ceremonial purposes, though other mixtures of sacred herbs are also common. Various types of ceremonial pipes have been smoked in ceremony to seal covenants and treaties, most notably treaties of peace (hence the misnomer, "peace pipe"). Tobacco was introduced to Europe from the Americas in the sixteenth century and spread around the world rapidly. [1] In Asia during the nineteenth century, opium (which previously had only been eaten) was added to tobacco and smoked in pipes. Madak (the mixture of opium and tobacco) turned out to be far more addictive than orally-ingested opium, leading to social problems in China which culminated in the First (1839–1842) and Second Opium War (1856–1860). [1]
According to Alfred Dunhill, Africans have had a long tradition of smoking hemp in gourd pipes, asserting that by 1884 the King of the Baluka tribe of the Congo had established a "riamba" or hemp-smoking cult in place of fetish-worship. Enormous gourd pipes were used. [2]
In the twentieth century, pipe smoking was adopted as a preferred method of inhaling a variety of psychoactive drugs, and some claim it is a more intense method of ingestion. Smokeable crack cocaine has a reputation for being more addictive than cocaine's insufflated form. Similarly, methamphetamine has gained popularity in a crystalline form which when smoked in a pipe lets the user avoid the painful nasal irritation of snorting. When not applied to a cigarette or joint, the liquid form of PCP is typically smoked in a pipe with tobacco or cannabis. [3]
Due in no small part to successful campaigning against tobacco use, sales of pipe tobacco in Canada fell nearly 80% in a recent fifteen-year period to 27,319 kilograms in 2016, from 135,010 kilograms in 2001, according to federal data. [4] By comparison, Canadian cigarette sales fell about 32% in the same period to 28,600,000,000 units. [5]
Pipes have been fashioned from an assortment of materials including briar, clay, ceramic, corncob, glass, meerschaum, metal, gourd, stone, wood, bog oak and various combinations thereof, most notably, the classic English calabash pipe.
The size of a pipe, particularly the bowl, depends largely on what is intended to be smoked in it. Large western-style tobacco pipes are used for strong-tasting, harsh tobaccos, the smoke from which is usually not inhaled. Smaller pipes such as the midwakh or kiseru are used to inhale milder tobaccos such as dokha and kizami or other substances such as cannabis and opium.
Water pipes bubble smoke through water to cool and wash the smoke. The two basic types are stationary hookahs, with one or more long flexible drawtubes, and portable bongs.
Spoon pipes (glass pipes or glass bowl pipes) have become increasingly common with the rise of cannabis or other narcotics smoking. Spoon pipes are normally made of borosilicate glass to withstand repeated exposure to high temperatures. They consist of a bowl for packing material into, stem for inhaling, and a carburettor (carb) for controlling suction and airflow into the pipe. These pipes utilize a two step process. First, the user inhales while lighting the smoking material and holding down the carb, allowing smoke to fill the stem. Then, the user releases the carb while inhaling to allow air to enter the stem and smoke to be pulled into the user's mouth.
The overall health risks are 10% higher in pipe smokers than in non-smokers. [6] However, pipe or cigar smokers who are former-cigarette smokers might retain a habit of smoke inhalation. [6] In such cases, there is a 30% increase in the risk of heart disease and a nearly three times greater risk of developing COPD. [6] In addition, there is a causal relationship between pipe smoking and mortality due to lung and other cancers, as well as periodontal problems, such as tooth and bone loss. [6]
However, all tobacco products deliver nicotine to the central nervous system, and there is a confirmed risk of dependence. Many forms of tobacco use are associated with a significantly increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality due to tobacco-related diseases. [6]
The customs, vocabulary and etiquette that surround pipe smoking culture vary across the world and depend both on the people who are smoking and the substance being smoked.
For example, in many places in Europe and North America, tobacco pipe smoking has sometimes been seen as genteel or dignified and has given rise to a variety of customized accessories and even apparel such as the smoking jacket, and the former Pipe Smoker of the Year award in the UK, as well as the term kapnismology ("the study of smoke"). [7]
A number of people and fictional characters are strongly associated with the hobby of pipe smoking.
More examples can be found in the Pipe Smoker of the Year list.
A tobacco pipe, often called simply a pipe, is a device specifically made to smoke tobacco. It comprises a chamber for the tobacco from which a thin hollow stem (shank) emerges, ending in a mouthpiece. Pipes can range from very simple machine-made briar models to highly prized hand-made artisanal implements made by renowned pipemakers, which are often very expensive collector's items.
A bong is a filtration device generally used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other herbal substances. In the bong shown in the photo, the smoke flows from the lower port on the left to the upper port on the right.
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Cigarette smoking is the most common method of tobacco consumption. The term cigarette, as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette, but the word is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette or a herbal cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, different smoking method, and paper wrapping, which is typically white.
A hookah, shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco, flavored tobacco, or sometimes cannabis, hashish and opium. The smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.
"Drug paraphernalia" is a term to denote any equipment, product or accessory that is intended or modified for making, using or concealing drugs, typically for recreational purposes. Drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine are related to a wide range of paraphernalia.
A vaporizer or vaporiser, colloquially known as a vape, is a device used to vaporize substances for inhalation. Plant substances can be used, commonly cannabis, tobacco, or other herbs or blends of essential oil. However, they are most commonly filled with a combination propylene glycol, glycerin, and drugs such as nicotine or tetrahydrocannabinol as a liquid solution.
A chillum, or chilam, is a straight conical smoking pipe traditionally made of either clay or a soft stone. It was used popularly in India in the eighteenth century and still often used to smoke marijuana. A small stone is often used as a stopper in the stem. The style of pipe spread to Africa, and has been known in the Americas since the 1960s. A chillum pipe is used in Rastafari rituals.
A chibouk is a very long-stemmed Turkish tobacco pipe, often featuring a clay bowl ornamented with precious stones. The stem of the chibouk generally ranges between 4 and 5 ft., much longer than even Western churchwarden pipes. While primarily known as a Turkish pipe, the chibouk was once popular across the Ottoman Empire and in Iran as well.
A kiseru (煙管) is a Japanese smoking pipe, traditionally used for smoking kizami, a finely shredded tobacco product resembling hair.
Tobacco products, especially when smoked or used orally, have serious negative effects on human health. Smoking and smokeless tobacco use are the single greatest causes of preventable death globally. Half of tobacco users die from complications related to such use. Current smokers are estimated to die an average of 10 years earlier than non-smokers. The World Health Organization estimates that, in total, about 8 million people die from tobacco-related causes, including 1.3 million non-smokers due to secondhand smoke. It is further estimated to have caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century.
A midwakh' is a small smoking pipe of Arabian origin, in which dokha (دوخة), a sifted Iranian tobacco product mixed with aromatic leaf and bark herbs, is smoked. The bowl of a midwakh pipe is typically smaller than that of a traditional western tobacco pipe. It is usually loaded by dipping the bowl into a container of dokha flakes.
Cannabis smoking is the inhalation of smoke or vapor released by heating the flowers, leaves, or extracts of cannabis and releasing the main psychoactive chemical, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is absorbed into the bloodstream via the lungs. Archaeological evidence indicates cannabis with high levels of THC was being smoked at least 2,500 years ago. As of 2021, cannabis is the most commonly consumed federally illegal drug in the United States, with 36.4 million people consuming it monthly.
A smoking pipe is used to taste the smoke of a burning substance; most common is a tobacco pipe. Pipes are commonly made from briar, heather, corncob, meerschaum, clay, cherry, glass, porcelain, ebonite and acrylic.
A one-hitter is typically a slender pipe with a screened narrow bowl designed for a single inhalation, or "hit", of smoke or vapor from a small serving of heated cannabis flower, tobacco leaf or other dry, sifted herbal preparation. It is distinguished from western-style large-bowl pipes designed for strong tobaccos that are burned hot and tasted but not inhaled. Instead, by properly distancing a lighter flame below the opening, inhalant users operate at vaporization temperatures, minimizing combustion waste and toxicity.
An opium pipe is a pipe designed for the evaporation and inhalation of opium. True opium pipes allow for the opiate to be vaporized while being heated over a special oil lamp known as an opium lamp. It is thought that this manner of "smoking" opium began in the seventeenth century when a special pipe was developed that vaporized opium instead of burning it.
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled with a small rectangle of paper into an elongated cylinder called a cigarette. Other forms of smoking include the use of a smoking pipe or a bong.
Dokha is a tobacco product, consisting of dried and finely shredded tobacco flakes mixed with herbs and spices. It originated in Iran during the 16th century. Unlike hookah tobacco, dokha is not cured with molasses. Users smoke the tobacco blend in small quantities using a pipe called a midwakh. Because the midwakh pipe is used almost exclusively for smoking dokha, the terms are often used interchangeably.
Muʽassel, or maassel, is a tobacco mix containing molasses, vegetable glycerol and various flavourings which is smoked in a hookah, a type of waterpipe. It is also known as "shisha".
The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in the Americas in shamanistic rituals. With the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century, the consumption, cultivation, and trading of tobacco quickly spread. The modernization of farming equipment and manufacturing increased the availability of cigarettes following the reconstruction era in the United States. Mass production quickly expanded the scope of consumption, which grew until the scientific controversies of the 1960s, and condemnation in the 1980s.
SmokinginCanada is banned in indoor public spaces, public transit facilities and workplaces, by all territories and provinces, and by the federal government. As of 2010, legislation banning smoking within each of these jurisdictions is mostly consistent, despite the separate development of legislation by each jurisdiction. Notable variations between the jurisdictions include: whether, and in what circumstances ventilated smoking rooms are permitted; whether, and up to what distance away from a building is smoking banned outside of a building; and, whether smoking is banned in private vehicles occupied by children.