Drug paraphernalia

A pre-rolled joint with a paper filter on the left. These filters are commonly handmade from pieces of paper if they don't come bundled with filter papers.

"Drug paraphernalia" is a term to denote any equipment, product or accessory that is intended or modified for making, using or concealing drugs, typically for recreational purposes. Drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine are related to a wide range of paraphernalia.

Product types

Aluminum foil

Chasing the dragon, aka foily

"Chasing the dragon" (CTD) (traditional Chinese: 追龍; simplified Chinese: 追龙; pinyin: zhuī lóng; Jyutping: zeoi1 lung4), or "foily" in Australian English, refers to inhaling the vapor of a powdered psychoactive drug off a heated sheet of aluminium foil. The moving vapor is chased after with a tube (often rolled foil) through which the user inhales.

Banknotes (risky "drug paraphernalia")

See also: Needle sharing

Lines of cocaine prepared for snorting. Contaminated currency such as banknotes might serve as a fomite of diseases like hepatitis C

Sharing snorting equipment (straws, banknotes, bullets, etc) has been linked to the transmission of hepatitis C. (Bonkovsky and Mehta) In one study, the University of Tennessee Medical Center researches warned that other blood-borne diseases such as HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, could be transmitted as well.

Gravity bong

Main article: Gravity bong

Diagram of bucket bong in operation

A gravity bong, also known as a GB, bucket bong, grav, geeb, gibby, yoin, or ghetto bong, is a method of consuming smokable substances such as cannabis. The term describes both a bucket bong and a waterfall bong, since both use air pressure and water to draw smoke. A lung uses similar equipment but instead of water draws the smoke by removing a compacted plastic bag or similar from the chamber.

The bucket bong is made out of two containers, with the larger, open top container filled with water. The smaller has an attached bowl and open bottom, and the smaller is placed into the larger. Once the bowl is lit, the operator must move the small container up, causing a pressure difference. Smoke slowly fills the small jar until the user removes the bowl and inhales the contents. A waterfall bong is made up of only one container. The container must have a bowl and a small hole near the base so the water can drain easily. As the water flows out of the container, air is forced through the bowl and causes the substance to burn and accumulate smoke in the bong.

Love rose

Main article: Drug pipe

A love rose being used to smoke crack cocaine

A "love rose" is a glass tube with a paper or plastic rose inside of it, and a bit of cork or foil on the ends to keep the rose from falling out. While ostensibly intended as romantic gifts, their primary known use is as a pipe to smoke drugs such as crack cocaine or methamphetamine. They are commonly sold at convenience stores in the United States, particularly in inner-city locations.

Magnifying lens

Main article: Solar puffing

Solar puffing (also called solar toking or taking solar hits) is the act of using the sun's rays with a magnifying lens or burning glass to heat cannabis for consumption.

Utilization of this method also provides the practitioner the ability to consume a greater amount of THC within a given amount of cannabis because more THC is preserved for inhalation due to a lower heating temperature as opposed to that of combustion. This method is similar to that of vaporization.

Toilet paper

Main article: Parachute (drugs)

This method is used among many pharmaceuticals that are commonly crushed for recreational use. The toilet paper method must use single ply toilet paper or one must separate the layers of double ply. Tissues are also a common go to for this method of drug ingestion. Another common paper used is rolling paper for smoking herbal substances or tobacco. Rice or starch papers known as oblaat in Japan is a method that is becoming more popular. Opioids, amphetamines, benzodiazepines and other narcotics are commonly parachuted. This method's purpose is recreational because the drugs become absorbed all at once when the paper unravels in one's stomach.

Drug designed equipment

Bong

Bongs are an example of user-specific paraphernalia, in this case for the use of cannabis.

A bong (also known as a water pipe) is a filtration device generally used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other herbal substances. In the bong shown in the photo, the smoke flows from the lower port on the right to the upper port on the left.

In construction and function, a bong is similar to a hookah, except smaller and especially more portable. A bong may be constructed from any air- and water-tight vessel by adding a bowl and stem apparatus (or slide) which guides air downward to below water level whence it bubbles upward ("bubbler") during use. To get fresh air into the bong and harvest the last remaining smoke, a hole known as the "carburetor", "carb", "choke", "bink", "rush", "shotty", "kick hole", or simply "hole", somewhere on the lower part of the bong above water level, is first kept covered during the smoking process, then opened to allow the smoke to be drawn into the respiratory system. On bongs without such a hole, the bowl and/or the stem are removed to allow air from the hole that holds the stem.

Bongs have been in use by the Hmong in Laos and Thailand, as well all over Africa, for centuries. One of the earliest recorded uses of the word in the West is in the McFarland Thai-English Dictionary, published in 1944, which describes one of the meanings of bong in the Thai language as, "a bamboo waterpipe for smoking kancha, tree, hashish, or the hemp-plant". A January 1971 issue of the Marijuana Review also used the term.

Bulb syringe

This enema bulb syringe features a bulb-shaped reservoir and a nozzle for delivering small amounts of fluid directly into the rectum.

Cocaine spoon

Chinese snuff bottle stopper with a snuff spoon (also known as a cocaine spoon)

A snuff spoon is a tiny spoon used for nasal insufflation of powdered substances. In the ancient time the spoons were used to ingest psychotropic substances, in the 18th century − tobacco, in the 20th century − cocaine (the spoon is thus also known as a cocaine spoon or coke spoon). Some local statutes in the US treat this spoon as drug paraphernalia, defining it as a spoon that is too small and thus "unsuited for the typical, lawful uses of a spoon".

Glass blades

Glass blades

Main article: Spots_(cannabis)

Spots (also known as spotting, knifers, knife hits, knife tokes, dots, hot knives, kitchen tracking blades, or bladers) refers to a method of smoking cannabis. Small pieces of cannabis are rolled (or simply torn from a larger bud) to form the spot.

The practice originated in the 1970s when drops or dabs of hashish oil were smoked (three dabs of hash oil were considered to be a good standard dose). Generally, the tips of two knife blades are heated, the spot or drop of hash oil, is compressed between the two blades, and the subsequent smoke is inhaled through the nose or mouth.

Another means that is gaining popularity is specially made glass presses heated with a propane or butane torch. In order to facilitate this process, a spottle (also referred to as a bowser, hooter or toker) or hitter is often, but not always, used to funnel the smoke and maximize the amount inhaled. A spottle is generally made from a funnel or cone-shaped container, such as the top (or neck) of a plastic or glass bottle or a gallon of milk/water.

A clandestine kit containing materials to inject drugs, a bottle of a type of lean, promethazine, an antiemetic, and unidentified pills

Food grade N
₂O charger (bottom right), cracker (top right) and balloon

One-hitter

Main article: One-hitter_(smoking)

A one-hitter has been considered drug paraphernalia in certain regions.

Pizzo

Main article: Drug pipe

An oil burner pipe, commonly used in ingestion of free base psychoactive substances though inhalation.

A pizzo – also known as an pilo, oil burner, bubble, tweak pipe, meth pipe, gack pipe, crank pipe, crack pipe, pookie pipe, chicken bone, or ice pipe – AKA “Billy” – is a glass pipe which consists of a tube connected to a spherical bulb with a small opening on top designed for smoking methamphetamine or freebasing crack cocaine as well as other drugs. There are some legitimate uses for these pipes including applying the hole "on the top of an eucalyptus bottle" for inhaling aromas or moisture.

Snuff bullets

Two snuff bullets for snorting drugs in powder form

Free base equipment

For cocaine (in a plastic bag at bottom) to be converted to crack, several supplies are needed. Pictured here are baking soda, a commonly used base in making crack, a metal spoon, a tealight, and a cigarette lighter. The spoon is held over the heat source to "cook" the cocaine into crack.

Contamination

See also: Needle sharing

Banknotes frequently changes hands, increasing the risk of exposure to viruses from past users.

Sharing snorting equipment (straws, banknotes, bullets, etc) has been linked to the transmission of hepatitis C. (Bonkovsky and Mehta) In one study, the University of Tennessee Medical Center researches warned that other blood-borne diseases such as HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, could be transmitted as well.

Bongs that are cleaned regularly eliminates yeast, fungi, bacteria and pathogens that can cause several symptoms that vary from allergy to lung infection.

Re-used uncleaned vapes, and vape sharing, may cause bacterial pneumonia, fungal pneumonia, and viral pneumonia.

A collection of safe drug use supplies commonly used to inject heroin, fentanyl, or other illicit opioids

Legality

United States

In the US, enterprising individuals would sell items openly in the street, until anti-paraphernalia laws in the 1980s eventually ended the practice. With the growth of the Internet, drug paraphernalia sellers have greatly expanded their sales to a worldwide market.

According to the Federal Drug Paraphernalia Statute, 21 USC 863, which is part of the Controlled Substances Act, in the US it is illegal to sell, transport through the mail, transport across state lines, import, or export drug paraphernalia as defined. Possession is usually illegal under State law. The law gives specific guidance on determining what constitutes drug paraphernalia. Many states have also enacted their own laws prohibiting drug paraphernalia. In the 1982 case Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., the US Supreme Court found a municipal ordinance requiring licensing for paraphernalia sales to have sufficiently distinguished marketing for illegal use to be constitutional. Government crackdowns have resulted in the arrest of sellers of recreational drug paraphernalia, such as actor Tommy Chong, who spent time in prison in 2003 for having his name used on bongs for sale via the internet.

Head shops are very much alive and well in the US, however. Generally, though, they have signs near presumable paraphernalia saying "For tobacco use only" or "Not for use with illicit drugs." Many also ban customers for referencing the use of illegal drugs when buying items. Similar policies are used in online head shops, where customers are often made to verify detailed disclaimers of their non-use of illegal substances before buying items.

Reagent testing

Home pill testing equipment is illegal in the US state of Illinois where the (720 ILCS 600/) Drug Paraphernalia Control Act specifically outlaws "testing equipment intended to be used unlawfully in a private home for identifying or in analyzing the strength, effectiveness or purity of cannabis or controlled substances;"

United Kingdom

In the UK, while cannabis is illegal, owning drug paraphernalia is not illegal, but under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the individual may be committing a criminal offense if the items contain traces of drugs.

Under Section 9A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, It is a criminal offense "to supply or offer to supply an object for providing or preparing a controlled drug if a person believes that the article will be used in circumstances where the administration is unlawful. If convicted in a magistrates' court, the penalty is a maximum of six months in prison and/or a £5,000 fine.

Sweden

Injection equipment

In Sweden, pharmacies can only sell syringes and hypodermic needles to people with a doctor's prescription for medical use.

See also

• Drug checking
• Harm reduction
• One hitter (smoking)
• Philadelphia blunt ban
• Paraphernalia
• Recreational drug use

References

• As of this edit, this article uses content from "Routes of Administration", authored by https://psychonautwiki.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Routes_of_administration&action=history, which is licensed in a way that permits reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, but not under the GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed.

Sources

• Childress, David Hatcher (2012). Ancient Technology in Peru & Bolivia. Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 978-1-935487-81-4. OCLC 788245749.
• Hopkins, Tighe (1897). "The Spoon". The Leisure Hour. Vol. 47. W. Stevens, printer. pp. 51–56. OCLC 145390810.