Me Time Stories: Traditional Glass Smoking Pipes or Vape Pens

I was walking around a large convention the other day with every type of glass smoking pipe you could imagine. You could buy bongs that were six feet tall, sherlock pipes, dab rigs, one hitters and more. There were glass bubblers that were so intricately designed and expensive that you would probably think twice about actually smoking weed out of them. A bong designed to look like Megatron, the decepticon from the Transformers cartoon, even sold for $50,000. 

Alongside all of the traditional glass smoking pipes were these contraptions new to the world of weed ever since the wave of legalization started making its way across the country. Every other booth was filled with vaping technology. There are vaporizers for dry herb and there are vaporizers for oil concentrates, kind of like e-cigarettes. Some of them look just like e-liquid vaporizers, but others look like pens, hence the name vape pens. So, it is only logical to ask whether weed is better in some beautifully crafted thick glass pipe, or whether this uniform technology is the way of the future.

First off, glass hand pipes are pretty. It stood out to me while I walked through aisle after aisle at this convention just how much these hand blown glass pipes catch the eye next to the vaporizers. Hand blown glass pipes come in all shapes and sizes with beautiful lattaccino spirals and marbles blown right into the glass. A unique glass pipe will have a myriad of colors that can change as you smoke out of it. People are used to traditional glass smoking pipes and understand that sometimes glass breaks or chips. Metal, silicone and glass pipes all need to be cleaned as well. In the end, we are just comfortable with them. We know what to expect from our chillum or our glass water pipe.

With vaporizers, there can be multiple heat settings, batteries need to be recharged and they all look the same for the most part. I have never encountered a dry herb vaporizer that did not infuriate me with its inability to provide a consistent smoke session. You also just have to take everybody’s word for it as to what is in a concentrate oil. When you smoke herb, you know what it looks like and know what you are smoking. Especially with all of the cannabis lab testing these days, smokers are just a little more comfortable with a solid glass pipe.

While trends in vaping may linger for a while longer and there will probably always be a certain group of consumer that stick with vaping, smoking out of glass pipe will never fall out of fashion. With the latest vaping crisis at hand, it is more likely that new users will skip the vape pen and move right back to a glass pipe. Like I said, dry herb vaporizers just do not work very well. If you want to smoke dry herb, well quality glass hand pipes are still one of your best choices.

Dry herb vaporizers emit this strange rubbery smell to them too. It gets in your mouth. Keeping a beautiful glass bong or bubbler nearby will always be an important go to, for me at least. Trends in smoking pipes will likely continue to fall in and out of fashion, but glass hand pipes are likely to remain a reliable go to for consumers around the world.