The terms blunt, spliff, and joint are often used interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. To make things a bit more complicated, pot lingo varies from place to place.
Are you curious — and maybe a little leery — about how to smoke a blunt? Boy, have you come to the right place!
At Honest Marijuana, we love cannabis and blunts so much that we roll our very own high-quality, organic product just for you! What’s more, we’ve been doing it for years, so we know a little bit about how to smoke a blunt the right way.
In this article, we give you pro tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your blunt-smoking experience.
Our first tip? Make sure you know it’s actually a blunt.
Here’s a look at what it all means in the United States.
What is a blunt, anyway?
Blunts are cigars that have had the tobacco removed and replaced with marijuana. They can also be rolled using tobacco leaf wrappers.
As for the name? It comes from the Phillies Blunt cigar brand.
According to various internet sources, blunts originated in New York as a method for smoking pot discreetly, among other things.
What to know
Here are some things to consider before you get out that tobacco leaf or hit the corner store for a blunt wrap:
- Blunts contain a lot more pot. Cigars are a lot bigger than the average joint, which means they can hold a lot more pot. Smoking an entire blunt is roughly the equivalent of smoking six joints.
- Cigars and their wrappers are highly toxic. Even if you remove the tobacco, high concentrations of cancer-causing nitrosamines and other toxins created during the fermentation process may remain. And because cigar wrappers are more porous than rolling papers, the burning is less complete, resulting in smoke that has higher concentrations of toxins.
- You’re inhaling harmful toxins. All smoke is harmful to lung health, no matter what you’re inhaling. According to the American Lung Association, marijuana smoke contains a lot of the same toxins and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Smoking pot usually involves inhaling deeper and holding large amounts of unfiltered smoke for longer. This exposes you to even more irritants and toxins that damage your lungs and airways.
What about spliffs?
A spliff is a blend of cannabis and tobacco, usually in cigarette rolling papers.
The word spliff is West Indian and is said to be a take on the words “split” — as in split the difference between weed and tobacco — and “whiff,” referring to the smell of the smoke. Or, perhaps, referring to how adding tobacco masks the smell of the pot.
What to know
Adding tobacco means less pot, which is good, right? Not necessarily.
Both marijuana and tobacco smoke can damage your lungs and increase your risk for several serious conditions. Adding tobacco to marijuana just means you’re getting the damaging effects of tobacco, too.
Here’s what you need to know before getting spliffy with it:
- Smoking tobacco and weed together can increase your risk for addiction. There’s evidenceTrusted Source that smoking marijuana with tobacco increases cannabis dependence symptoms. The two appear to balance out the negative symptoms caused by both. Smoked together, they also seem to enhance the enjoyable symptoms, such as relaxation. This makes a person less likely to notice the ill effects, and more likely to keep smoking.
- Unfiltered tobacco smoke increases your risk for lung cancer and death. A recent study found that people who smoke unfiltered cigarettes are twice as likely to die from lung cancer and 30 percent more likely to die of any cause than smokers of filtered cigarettes. A spliff may contain less tobacco than a cigarette, but it’s still unfiltered tobacco smoke nonetheless.
Blunt, Joint, Spliff: What’s The Difference?
We’ve established that a blunt is ganja wrapped in tobacco paper. What about the joint and the spliff, though? How do those compare?
Let’s go back to the same variables we discussed in the blunt section and use them to discuss joints and spliffs.
The variables were:
- Interior
- Exterior
- Color
- Size
- Flavor
Here’s how these variables break down for joints and spliffs.
Joint
Like a blunt, the insides of a joint are marijuana and nothing but marijuana. It can be whatever strain you choose, but it’s always and only Mary Jane.
The outside of a joint (or “exterior” for those of you who are into high-falutin’ words) is rolling paper or cigarette paper. These papers can be composed of widely different materials, including the classic wood-pulp to the more exotic rice to the “duh, why didn’t I think of it before” hemp.
Joints are usually white or light tan because of the rolling paper, but you can also find other colors, like gold, grey, or polka-dot.
Most rolling papers are about three inches long. When rolled and sealed, they typically resemble a cigarette. That said, they can be thinner or thicker depending on the paper you use and how much marijuana you pack inside.
The flavor of a joint will come from the strain used to roll it rather than the paper. This is because most rolling papers are flavorless.
That allows you to experience the full taste of your Yoda OG without the paper getting in the way.
Spliff
Just like blunts and joints, spliffs contain marijuana. But unlike blunts and joints, spliffs aren’t all marijuana inside.
Instead, spliffs contain a combination of marijuana and tobacco — usually less than 50 percent tobacco because, really, if you wanted more tobacco, you could just buy a cigarette.
Spliffs are wrapped in rolling paper just like a joint, so they often look the same to the untrained eye. As for color and size, it all depends on the rolling paper you use.
And, finally, the spliff is a mix of pot and tobacco, so it will taste and smell more like a cigarette than a joint.
In fact, you’ll find that spliffs and blunts taste and smell a lot alike — they do have roughly the same part weed and the same part tobacco, after all.
If you’re still confused about the details, here’s a simple table to help you out.
How To Smoke A Blunt
Smoking a blunt is really pretty simple — just light it and breathe in the smoke, man — but we’ve got some tips that will make learning how to smoke a blunt your best day ever.
1) Assemble Your Supplies Beforehand
You don’t need a lot of supplies to smoke a blunt. But there are few things worse than settling into — yes, into, not onto — the couch only to find you don’t have the essentials for a successful smoke.
Gather your gear — fire, ashtray, sploof, beverage, fave music or movie, cannabis lube (gotta be prepared) — before you find a place to perch so you’ll be relaxed and in the right frame of mind for the experience to come.
2) Inhale, Inhale, Inhale
Like the prime rule in real estate — location, location, location — there are few rules more important when learning how to smoke a blunt than inhale, inhale, inhale.
If you’re not sure you’re doing it right, try breathing through a straw for a minute or two to get the hang of it.
And, remember, if the smoke doesn’t make it to your lungs, you won’t get high.
3) Try Holding In The Smoke
Once you’ve mastered the inhale, kick it up a notch and try holding the smoke in your lungs for longer than you normally do.
This gives your lungs extra time to absorb more of the cannabinoids and terpenes into your bloodstream. That can make for a quicker, more intense high.
And before you try holding your breath until you black out (don’t do that), even just keeping the smoke in for a count of one or two will heighten the experience.
4) Hydrate Like A Champ
This is just a good rule for your daily life in general. But when cannabis is involved, it’s doubly important to hydrate like you just ran a marathon.
Try chugging two cups of water before your smoke sesh, and then make it a point to drink more water after.
Sometimes, we’ll even fill a water bottle with our favorite liquid (NOT alcohol) and make ourselves finish the whole thing within an hour or two after our last inhale.
5) Take It Slow
Blunts are big!
The average length is around six inches (that’s twice as long as most joints). What’s more, the girth (distance around the outside) is about the size of a dime. That’s a lot of marijuana!
So, take it slow and don’t be afraid to stop if you’re already feeling your best high. There’s no shame in quitting midway through. That just means you’ve got more for later.
6) Prepare For The Munchies
If you’re doing it right, you will feel hungry after smoking your blunt.
Instead of harshing your buzz by leaving the house and trying to decide where and what to eat — you’ll inevitably make the wrong decision — prepare for the munchies ahead of time.
Before you blaze that blunt, assemble your favorite food and drink or order delivery within the next half hour.
That way, you can enjoy both the high and the bliss of a large pepperoni pizza without having to peel yourself off the couch.
7) Don’t Exceed Your Limits
If the only running you’ve done is the mile for time back in high school, you really don’t think you’d be able to complete a marathon tomorrow, do you?
The same principle goes for how to smoke a blunt.
If you’re flying high after a toke or two off a joint, there’s absolutely no way you’re going to make it to three or more off a blunt (remember, a blunt is much girthier than a joint).
Plus, it can actually be dangerous to try to finish that much.
Know your limits — and, by all means, push them now and again — but you don’t have to go 10 feet over the line when an inch will do.
I would constitute a blunt as maybe 0.5g of bud at least in a joint, with little to no other filler. This will be tricky to smoke out of a window without any smell permeating your room. simply put, the more you smoke the more it smells.
I’m used to smoking out of my pipe. so everytime I try to hit something rolled I end up looking like an idiot cause I hit it wrong. How do I get a proper hit out of a joint/blunt?