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Bong Science 101
by Binky
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Smoke is a heated mixture of gasses, vapors and solids. The
vapor is almost virtually all water vapor. The rest of it, at least in
the case of ANSI issue marijuana circa 1975*, is as follows:
Gas Phase: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, HCN,
acetone, ammonia, toluene, acetonitrile, isoprene,
benzene, dimethylnitrosamine, and methylethylnitrosamine
Particulates: tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, phenol, o-cresol,
m-p-cresol, 2,4 and 2,5-dimethylphenol, 1-methylnapthalene,
2-methylnapthalene, napthalene, benzoanthracene, benzopyrene
Out of this miasma, what you want is the tetrahydrocannabinol,
the long and pedantic name for the infamous THC of legend. The rest of
it is crap (with the possible exception of the cannabidiol, which is a
close, but less active relative of THC). Now, when you pass all this
stuff through some water, you lose some of the water soluble constituents.
Luckily, neither THC or any of its active relatives are water soluble. A
bunch of the other stuff, however, is, and passing the lot through some
water reduces the presence of those constituents in the smoke. This is a
good thing as many of the water soluble constituents are carcinogenic and
or toxic. Note that the lower the concentration of the constituents in
the water, the better this works - so put new water in your bong once in
a while.
Now, as previously mentioned, THC isn't water soluble, and
that's why you use water in a bong. THC is somewhat soluble in alcohol,
so using alcohol in a bong will somewhat reduce the amount of THC that
makes it to you. THC, BTW, is quite fat soluble, and so using any kind
of oil in your bong, aside from being gross and messy, will drastically
reduce the THC in the smoke that reaches you (bound again, by the same
equilibrium based constraints on functional effect).
But wait, what about the cooling effect? Ice bongs work better,
right? Well, ice water in a bong cools the smoke down and leads to a
denser filling of the post-water chamber (so you get more smoke), but
I'd bet - and I'll note that I'm just guessing here - that this cooler
temperature probably reduces the effectivness of the filtration because
of the general decrease in solubility at colder temperatures.
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