Is Bong Hits the Next New Olympic Sport?

With all the buzz on the Michael Phelps bong hit photograph, I feel that my own two cent stimulus on this issue might just be appropriate here. Although there has been a growing momentum behind the push to decriminalize marijuana possession and use in recent years, the fact is that it remains an illicit drug. And as the debate rages over just how detrimental its use is, one thing is certain; smoking it is way more damaging than eating it is! No one seems to debate that smoking cigarettes is harmful to your health and others health (in the words of Al Gore "The debate is over").

Filling your lungs (and the lungs of others) with smoke laced with carcinogens is not a real smart thing to do. The functional purpose of a bong is to concentrate and cool smoke into a large chamber over time so that it can be emptied quickly via carburetion (a small hole just above the water line that can be covered by a fingertip). One correctly uses a bong by placing a finger over the carburetor hole, lighting the contents in the bowl, inhaling deeply to fill the chamber with smoke, and just before your lungs fill to capacity you lift your finger off of the hole. When you lift your finger off of the carburetor hole, air is drawn in from the hole rather than from the bowl, so the smoke that has been concentrated in the chamber is emptied out quickly. Since the bowl is lit from the top, and burns from the top down only when air is drawn through it, less of the drug is wasted as second hand smoke (as happens when smoking a joint). The ember in the bowl merely smolders during the time it takes to hand the bong off to another for their turn to "hit" the bong. Occasionally, if too much time elapses between hits, the bowl must be re lit.

The real question in all of this shouldn't be whether or not to ingest marijuana, but how to ingest it while doing the least damage to the body. Since the active chemical that produces the high is not water soluble it cannot be injected or drank. THC is fat soluble however, so besides smoking, it can also be eaten. Cannabis can be baked into many fatty foods like cookies, brownies, meatloaves, etc.. Eating it as a method of ingestion is easier on the body because it does not stress the lungs or heart like smoking does. eating it also allows the body to utilize more of the THC in the plant than does smoking it so eating it makes more efficient use of the drug. It takes far less of it to get much higher when you eat it. And there is no one else that is affected like with second hand smoke.

Which brings out that time tested argument of how the inexperience of youth is somehow a justified excuse for smoking pot. And while there is some merit to that argument, a role model like Michael Phelps should have known better. Or at least his entourage should have given him better advice and guidance. So in conclusion perhaps the lapse in judgement wasn't Michael's as much as it was those around him at the time. Perhaps Michael should choose his close friends a little more carefully from now on.