Can You Put Weed in a Hookah: Everything You Need To Know
The wonderful burst of relaxing and euphoria-inducing nicotine in a puff of hookah is exceptional. The way the thick cloud of smoke feels in your mouth combined with the delicious taste of your shisha only serves to compound the enjoyable sensations of hookah.
In fact, it feels so good that it can be hard to imagine a better feeling. But time and time again, people everywhere try to invent or imagine new additions and variations to hookah to further increase the undeniable pleasure of a great hookah session.
And one of the most common approaches that people consider when trying to find new and novel ways to enjoy their hookah is by adding one of the most popular relaxers of choice: weed.
But many people aren’t really sure if you even can put weed in a hookah; after all, it is a different and unique way of smoking that doesn’t work with everything.
If you have ever wondered about putting weed into your hookah but have too many questions and concerns, then you have found the right place. Here is your MOB Hookah guide to putting weed in your hookah.
Cannabis Refresher Course
Before we hop into the details of smoking cannabis from a hookah, it feels appropriate to do a brief overview on hookah, in general, first, as a refresher for our stoners in the audience and as a quick lesson for those with little or no experience with cannabis.
Cannabis is a plant that is grown in regions that hover in the 65-85 degrees Fahrenheit range. Cannabis is technically a weed, hence the nickname “weed,” and you smoke only the flowers of the female plants (yes, there are technically male and female cannabis plants).
Cannabis contains hundreds of different chemicals, but the two that are the most important for understanding the effects and benefits of marijuana are CBD (cannabidiol), and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol).
These two compounds are called cannabinoids and determine the overarching effects of any particular strain of weed. CBD is a cannabinoid that does not cause you to become “high,” but can help to promote calmness, has anti-inflammatory properties, and can also be used to help support overall wellness.
THC, on the other hand, is the cannabinoid that is primarily and largely responsible for causing you to feel “high.” THC can give you feelings of euphoria, lightness, heightened appetite, improved focus, and feelings of relaxation.
All strains (i.e. the different breeds) of cannabis feature different ratios of THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids that impact how it affects you when you smoke it or consume it.
Can You Put Weed in a Hookah?
Short answer: yes. But, just like with almost everything, there is a little bit more to it than that. There are a few extra considerations to keep in mind with smoking weed from a hookah, including a few different methods and several additional things to think about.
Here are just a few things to think about when smoking weed in a hookah.
Does Hookah Vaporize Weed?
The way a hookah works is slightly different from other methods of smoking weed.
As you likely already know, hookah doesn't actually combust the shisha when you smoke. The coals simply provide heat which basically bakes the shisha to the proper temperature to produce smoke. This is a part of why you typically use wet shisha in your hookah.
There is no weed equivalent to shisha. Shisha is the type of tobacco that is traditionally smoked in a hookah, made with chopped dry tobacco that is then combined with molasses and flavorings, creating a wet mixture. Marijuana, on the other hand, is simply smoked as the ground flower of the female plant, yielding a dry mixture just like regular tobacco.
This means that weed, like traditional tobacco, is typically combusted to produce the smoke that you inhale. In a hookah, your weed will not be combusted, but rather cooked and vaporized, which has a few impacts on your smoking session.
The first and foremost effect that this has on the smoking experience is a decrease in the potency of cannabinoids in your smoke. This means you will have to put relatively more weed into a hookah to get the same effects as you would from a lesser amount of weed smoked through a different method like a joint of a bong. This is because certain cannabinoids need to be heated to a specific temperature in order to be potent.
The second impact that this can have on your smoking session is a shorter and less consistent session. The shisha mixture is relatively good at maintaining a steadier rate of vaporizing into smoke, which means you cook your shisha at the same rate throughout the smoke session. With weed, however, the dry mixture is more susceptible to burning unevenly and producing harsh or unsavory smoke.
These are two considerations you absolutely must keep in mind to get the best weed smoking experience from your hookah.
How To Put Weed in a Hookah
Now that we know the ins and outs of weed in a hookah and how the experience changes and may require different levels of attention, we’re ready to teach you how exactly to put weed into your hookah.
There are two prevailing methods that people use to smoke weed out of a hookah. The first method that you can try is packing your hookah bowl only using cannabis.
This method is popular for people who are simply trying to get the effect of weed but want to experience it through a hookah. To prepare this method simply, all you have to do is grind your weed and pack it into your hookah bowl the same way you would pack shisha.
Sprinkle your ground weed into your bowl loosely to allow airflow, tightly wrap tin foil around the top of your bowl, and pierce holes in the top for the coals, and you are ready to go.
The drawbacks to this method are simple, just like its preparation: the weed will be more likely to burn unevenly, quickly, and can sometimes provide a harsh smoke since it is not wet. Another drawback is you will not get any of the delicious shisha flavors in your smoke that hookah smokers love.
Another way, and the more popular option, is to mix weed in with your shisha. For this method, begin packing your shisha exactly how you normally would, except once your bowl is about halfway full, layer in your weed, and then top it off with more shisha.
This helps you to reduce the uneven burn that can happen with pure weed, as well as still give you all of the flavor that you would expect from traditional shisha.
Extra Considerations for Weed in a Hookah
There are a few other best practices to follow when smoking weed from a hookah. Make sure to clean your hookah well both before and after smoking weed in your hookah to prevent ghosting of the weed flavor in your hookah. This ghosted flavor can negatively impact future sessions.
You should also be wary of using an Egyptian-style bowl when smoking only weed from your hookah. Ground pot is much finer than shisha, and can fall straight through the holes at the bottom of an Egyptian-style hookah bowl and into your base.
Putting Weed in Your Hookah: The Takeaways
Despite what you may believe or have heard elsewhere, you can definitely put weed in a hookah. There are a few extra considerations to make, however.
Weed is dry where shisha is wet, which makes smoking weed alone in a hookah slightly harder, and more likely to produce a shorter, harsher tasting session.
You can try mixing weed and shisha in your bowl in order to decrease these likelihoods, while also getting all of the delicious shisha flavors in your smoke that you are used to in a hookah experience.
If you are looking to get a new bowl just for your weed hookah sessions, any other accessories or items for your hookah, or a whole new rig, check out MOB Hookah. We have everything you need from bowls to hoses, shisha to vases, and everything in between.
And if you liked this guide, check out our blog for more helpful hookah guides, reviews, and research.
Sources:
Marijuana: Facts about Cannabis | Live Science