When smoking the ganja, there may be some words thrown around by your stoner friends that might not make sense. In honor of 4/20, here is a list of five valuable terms to understand what’s going on in those hazy situations:
- DAB (it’s not a dance)
The only thing dancing when smoking weed is the synapses in your brain. It’s important to know what a dab is because it’s not your average kind of smoking.
Kat Rae, curator of the successful marijuana themed Instagram account dabba_the_hutt, Rae said dabbing is vaporizing cannabis concentrates.
“It’s more potent than normal cannabis buds and dabbing can be done in various ways,” Rae said. “The most common method is smoking the concentrates out of a vape pen or a rig which requires heat to vaporize the concentrates. In contrast to smoking normal cannabis flower, dabs have a higher THC content which means you’ll feel the effects faster and they will feel a lot stronger.”
- BOWL (it’s not for cereal)
The term bowl is essential to the smoking of marijuana. Without it, there would be nowhere to ignite the weed. A bowl is a feature on a pipe, bong or any smoking device that contains the weed. You’ll often hear people say, “Let’s load a bowl,” which basically means, “Let’s stuff weed into this hole so we can light it on fire.” Once the weed is packed down into the bowl, it is ready to be lit and enjoyed by all.
- CARB (it’s not in bread)
Even though you might be eating carbs after smoking weed, it’s important to know how to use a pipe to get high. On a pipe, there is usually a little glass bubble with a hole in it near the bowl. This is called a carb.
“A carb on a pipe is a tiny hole that the smoker covers and uncovers to control the air flow,” Madi Sword, senior at CSU, said. “When the carb is covered, more concentrated smoke will be inhaled. When the carb is uncovered, it allows more air to enter the pipe and is often used to clear the pipe of the remaining smoke in the chamber into the smoker’s lungs”.
- CHERRY (it’s not the fruit)
The term cherry is another word in the pot jargon dictionary worth knowing. When someone says, “It’s cherried,” this means that the marijuana in the bowl is smoldering. This term gets its name from the bright red color the marijuana makes when it’s in this state. When the drugs are smoldering, this means that the longer you wait to take the next puff, the more weed is being burned away. So, it’s important for the pot smoker to inhale the cherried bowl quickly to keep it smoldering so that passing the smoking device will go faster.
- ROACH: (it’s not a bug)
This is one bug you won’t want to get rid of.
“A roach refers to the unsmoked weed at the end of an extinguished joint or blunt when the heat of the weed comes too close to the filter,” Front Range Community College student Elyssa Hamilton said. “When you put out the joint or blunt, it is still smokable, but the weed in it is denser, sticky and covered in tar. It’s probably not the best thing to consume, but it comes in handy when you don’t have any more weed left.”
Collegian Arts and Culture reporter Evan Vicchy can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @evanNOTkevin7.
