Beginner Guide for Smoking Weed for the First Time

People use marijuana or weed for lots of reasons. Many use recreationally to create a sense of well-being or to alter the senses. At the same time, some people use it for medicinal benefits. The benefits of marijuana for medical purpose are not hidden from anyone. It’s scientifically proven that marijuana can alleviate depression, stress, anxiety, nausea, glaucoma, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and many more medical conditions.
While smoking marijuana for the first time can be unsettling and overwhelming. Many first-time weed smokers have questions about how to smoke, what the effects will feel like, and how they can have the best possible experience. To get the answer to all of your questions and whatever your reason for learning to smoke marijuana, we have the best tips for the first-time weed smoker.

Preparations Before Smoking Marijuana for the First Time

Before smoking marijuana or weed for the first time, consider the following tips for a smoother and better experience.

Consult a Marijuana Professional

Before your first-time smoking marijuana, you can consult a marijuana doctor. They are professionals with lots of valuable information about the right kinds of weed to smoke for the first time. Depending on why you are smoking cannabis, doctors will recommend certain medicinal and recreational strains.

Clear your Schedule

First-time weed smokers feel heavy-bodied. You will never be able to function for regular routines after your first time smoking weed. And don’t smoke weed right before you have to go somewhere.

Bring Water

One of the common side effects of smoking weed is dry mouth or “cotton mouth.” When you smoke weed, your mouth’s receptors stop producing saliva. Remember, dry mouth will disappear once the THC is out of your system.

Bring Some Snacks

After a dry mouth, another common side effect of first smoking is feeling hungry, “the munchies.” You’ll have to load up on your favorite snacks beforehand so that you don’t need to drive while you are high.

How to Smoke Marijuana?

Some of the common ways to smoke marijuana include joints, blunts, bongs, and pipes. Let’s find out to use each one of them:

Joints

• Take the marijuana and remove the seed and stems. Then crush the marijuana using an herb grinder or your fingers.
• If you want to use a filter, take a small piece of thin cardboard and fold it “accordion-style” into a tip.
• While holding the rolling paper lengthwise, fill it with the crushed marijuana, and place your filter on one end.
• Pinch the filled paper between your fingertips and make a tube shape.
• Light the tube from one end and inhale from the filter end.

Remember, many commercially available rolling papers, particularly those labeled as fast-burning, bleached, or flavored, may contain harmful pollutants and chemicals which can result in damaging your lungs. Therefore, it’s good to go for rolling papers that are unbleached, unflavored, and unrefined. Moreover, if you are worried about chemical exposure, you can use the paper-free smoking method, like a bong or pipe.

Blunts

• Take the marijuana and remove the seed and stems. Then crush the marijuana using an herb grinder or your fingers.
• Use a blade to slice open the blunt lengthwise, and unroll it with your fingers if you use a blunt wrap.
• If necessary, empty the tobacco from the middle of the blunt.
• Wet the wrap by dipping your fingers in a bit of water.
• Fill the wrap with crushed weed.
• Roll the wrap between your fingers to form a tube shape.
• Use a lighter to light one end.

Pipe

• Take the marijuana and remove the seed and stems. Then crush the marijuana using an herb grinder or your fingers.
• Gently pack the bowl with crushed weed. Remember, not to pack the bowl too tightly.
• Light the bowl from the lighter and inhale from the mouthpiece.
• If the bowl has a carb, cover it with your finger while you light it and first inhale. It will build up smoke in the pipe. After that, lift your finger off the carb to “clear” the pipe and inhale the smoke.

Bong

A bong, or a water pipe, is a smoking device that uses water to reduce the heat and filter the smoke. Because of the cold smoke, people tend to take larger hits and produce more smoke than the other three methods, such as joints, blunts, or bowls.

Bongs consist of a bowl and a cylinder glass piece called a “downstream.” When you hit a bong, smoke travels downstream and is filtered through water before traveling up the bong’s neck to the mouthpiece.

While some people believe bongs are the healthiest marijuana smoking method because the water in a bong reduces the dry heat. The effect of a bong is often described as being cooler and smooth compared to joints.
To smoke from a bong:

• Pour water into the water chamber to submerge the bottom of the downstream
• Take the marijuana and remove the seed and stems. Then crush the marijuana using herb grinder or your fingers
• Gently pack the bowl about halfway with weed.
• Put your mouth on the mouthpiece, then light the bowl as you suck in with your lungs
• When the chamber is filled with smoke, inhale to clear the smoke.

What Are the Side Effects When Smoking Weed for the First Time?

Not everyone experiences the same effects after consuming cannabis for the first time. Experiences and outcomes vary from person to person because everyone has different health conditions. Apart from the health conditions, some other factors determining the first experience are the strain consumed, the amount of THC in the product, a person’s metabolism, how much they ate or drank, and a wide array of other internal and external aspects.
While everyone has a different experience with cannabis, the most reported effects include the following:

• Altered time perception
• Dry mouth
• Happiness
• Improved sleep
• Increased appetite
• Increased heart rate or blood pressure
• Red or itchy eyes
• Reduced focus
• Reduced hand-eye coordination
• Relaxation

Effects of cannabis smoking set in within seconds to minutes of inhaling. In most cases, the results last for two to four hours, with the peak coming around hour two or three.

My MMJ Doctor Takeaway

Not every state allows the recreational use of marijuana, so it’s better to check with the state law before smoking marijuana. If you are a patient, remember that almost every state allows the medical use of marijuana, but you need a medical marijuana card. You can consult with My MMJ Doctor for the medical use of marijuana. We would love to help you as we have helped thousands of patients across the USA.