I’m just going to get my ultimate weed confession out right here at the top: I am a terrible joint roller.
Sure, I can get together a smokable joint in a pinch. Last year, I was on a rooftop terrace in Barcelona, Spain, with rolling papers, a grinder and a jar of Garlic Budder, and I made it work.
But that joint was just my little secret to enjoy in the morning sunshine, listening to the sounds of the wild green parrots while looking out at all the beautiful wrought-iron balconies all around me. If anyone in my elite weed-smoking company were to have seen my joint, I would have been embarrassed.
Like the Beatles lyrics, “I get high with a little help from my friends.” I’m lucky that many of the people I typically hang with all know how to roll joints better than I do. Because of the master rollers in my weed-loving circles, I get away with smoking a lot of Cannabis that I did not have to roll up myself, but I also generally have a backup option.
I typically carry a glass pipe in my purse as a just-in-case alternative. I’ve also been known to stuff cones (a nice joint option because they don’t require licking the seal, which is sort of unsanitary if you think about it).
I have fond memories of my first pipes. When I got my first job at a Cannabis magazine, my then-boss gave me a pipe as a gift. It will always be a favorite, as it represents success in a field that was initially just something I loved and then turned into a job. Early on, I invested in a padded pipe-carrying pouch that could hold my pipe, a little weed and a lighter.
Pipes are my main option for on-the-go smoking, but bongs have also always had a place in my heart for at-home smoke seshes. When I was younger, my friends had a 4-foot plastic bong from Graffix with a scary clown face on it. A friend had to light the bowl for you, and while it did get you super ripped, it wasn’t the best-tasting hit because it was made of plastic. Smoking out of glass just tastes better.
I had some basic bongs back in the day, but my first real bong purchase happened because of my job in weed journalism.
Back then, I got to travel a lot for work. One place I frequently visited was a glass show in Las Vegas. I worked the magazine booth, getting the word out about what we were writing, and I would walk the floor on my break.
This show, CHAMPS Trade Show, featured cool activations, including live glassblowing demonstrations and a glass car demolition derby. There was a lot of glass for sale, and I bought a green bong with a big glass marble and an extra glass swirl around the outside. I got a great deal on the bong because I was at a business-to-business show, and then the shop owner shipped it to my house so I wouldn’t have to worry about breaking it on the flight home. I smoked out of that bong for a long time, but at some point, it must have broken because I don’t have it anymore.
More than a decade ago, at my first job in Cannabis journalism, I was lucky to work in an office where I could have a bong on my desk. Even though we weren’t supposed to smoke in the office, some rules are meant to be broken. We tried to be respectful of the other offices around us, and every once in a while, we’d hit the bong and blow the smoke out the window. When the COVID-19 pandemic closed our office for good in 2020, I inherited the bong. It’s pretty amazing, with multiple chambers to filter the water.
Nowadays, I use another bong from that era, which was sent to me as a gift, as my travel bong. I have a large padded bag for it that I use as sort of a briefcase whenever I’m on a reporting assignment where there might be an opportunity to sample some flowers.
I recently got to do a taste-testing session with my main weed mentor, Cannabis cultivation expert Ed Rosenthal, and everyone was impressed that I brought my own bong. I knew I wouldn’t be able to roll up respectable joints, so I brought my bong to make sure I could sample all the weed on offer that night.
My new favorite bong is from Jerome Baker Designs. When I was a youth, the bongs I coveted were from Jerome Baker Designs. Established in Eugene, Oregon, in the early ’90s, Jerome Baker was one of the leading Cannabis glass companies throughout the ’90s and early 2000s.
In 2003, Jerome Baker, aka Jason Harris, was arrested by federal agents as part of Operation Pipe Dreams, a nationwide crackdown on Cannabis accessories. Harris had his assets seized and was sentenced to one year of house arrest and five years of federal probation.
In 2012, after Colorado’s recreational Cannabis legalization, Harris relaunched the original Jerome Baker Designs and established the Las Vegas Dream Factory at its headquarters in downtown Las Vegas. In 2024, I went to Jimi Devine’s Heat Quest in Las Vegas and smoked off of the bong gifted to him by Jerome Baker. Once I tried it, I decided to fulfill my youthful dream of having one, so I contacted them and paid a visit to the Dream Factory.
I love my bong and how it rumbles when I hit it. I love how stoned I get when I smoke off of a bong. I recently had a party where I was encouraging my guests to hit it. Remembering my glass from days of yore brings me back. These are physical touchstones from my life, artistic tributes that mark my love for a flower.
