Here at the cannabis desk, we love nothing more than celebrating spooky season. Between the frights and delights, Halloween is a great time to get high with friends and soon-to-be friends. Combining our love for the season and our love for cannabis, the desk decided to revisit an old project: We made a pumpkin bong. 

The experience — as all bong-making experiences should be — was ad hoc, ill planned and frankly amazing. The day of the craft, we figured if we had a pumpkin and a bowl, we would be ready enough for our cannabis adventure. Were we ever. Earlier in the day, I acquired two pumpkins from King Soopers and an eighth of an indica strain called Ice Cream Cake from Green Dragon. Intrepid writer and stoner Miles Buchan brought tools for carving and pumpkin making.

“The high, though, wasn’t really the point. The evening we made the bong, I got to hang out with people I enjoy, making an awesome craft together that we all got to benefit from.”

When we all finally gathered in my apartment, the cannabis desk quickly got to work while night editor Rachel Baschnagel took progress pictures. Here’s how we made it:

1. We cut open the head of the pumpkin. Unlike previous iterations of the pumpkin bong, we decided we wanted the remaining guts of the pumpkin to provide an undertone of flavor rather than the whole thing, so we decided to empty it before adding some Poudre punch from the tap.
2. We gutted the gourd. It was kind of gross. I’d rather not think about it too much.
3. We cut a hole slightly larger than our mouthpiece for the bong and then stuck it in. I’d recommend finding a glass piece for this, but we used an old Keef-brand drink bottle that I cut one end off of, and it worked all right.
4. I made the bong team bacon. This is unrelated to the arts and crafts, but the snack lifted our spirits.
5. We used one of my rods on my blinds to fashion a downstem out of aluminum foil. After drilling another hole in the pumpkin, we shimmed it in.
6. After opening the top of the pumpkin, we added water, filling the pumpkin above the stem but below the mouthpiece.
7. We tested the bong and then sealed the air leaks with chapstick wax. Tape works too, but we definitely didn’t have any of that.
8. We lit up and hit the bong.

This was actually the first time I hit a bong. After putting the bowl in the downstem, we lit the cannabis, sucked in on the mouthpiece and removed the bowl to push the percolated smoke into our lungs. 

The hits were really smooth. This is perhaps unsurprising because it was a smooth strain coming out of a bong. My taste is not particularly refined, so I can’t make too many comments about the specifics of the hit. What I can say is the strain and the bong delivered a pleasant high that stuck with me until I went to bed that night. It was a cozy feeling that I had no difficulty shaking come the morning.

The high, though, wasn’t really the point. The evening we made the bong, I got to hang out with people I enjoy, making an awesome craft together that we all got to benefit from. The activity was a convenient excuse, and I definitely plan to make more bongs with friends. 

If you’re looking to just get high, there are probably better (and quicker) ways to accomplish that goal. If you want a fun evening that bears tribute to the spooky season, though, I can’t think of anything better than making a pumpkin bong.

Reach Paul Brull at cannabis@collegian.com or on Twitter @csucollegian.