Speaking as someone who would make a definitive study of one, I was pleased to read that marijuana smoking apparently does very little lung damage:

Via Vulture:

A government study, one of the most extensive examinations ever of the long-term effects of marijuana use, has found that smoking one joint a day for 7 years, or one joint a week for 49 years, does not impair lung function. In fact, “marijuana users performed slightly better on the lung function test” than people who don’t smoke anything. The study did not measure the effects of smoking a joint the size of a zucchini.

I might be able to help out there…

Marijuana Smoking Does Not Harm Lungs, Study Finds (New York Times)

 
If you spire to roll something more complicated than a braided joint, perhaps you may want to test your skills with the Scorpion Joint.

(via KMFW)

My money is on Ninja Squirrel.
 

 
(via the NSFW-ish Gorilla Mask)

 
A Narco Polo comic by former inner-city teacher and public defender, Rob Arthur. Here’s a snippet from Rob’s website:

The Science

One way in which creativity can be described is the ability to find new and novel connections between concepts. In scientific terms the ability to find connections between words is called semantic priming. A 2010 study published in Psychiatry Research found that the use of marijuana induces a state of hyper-priming. (9) When presented with an activation word, subjects reacted faster to distantly-related words when high than when sober. (For a neuroscience journalist’s take on this study go here.) The flow of loose associations promoted by marijuana is a real phenomenon.

Credit goes to Jason Silva for introducing me to this study. His article on marijuana’s “butterfly effect” on thought can be found here.

Marijuana Promotes Creativity: The Evidence

(via Boing Boing )

 
(via Nerdcore)

 
Kiddies, I wouldn’t try making this LEGO bowl at home. Smoking out of plastic and aluminum doesn’t seem too smart. Fun idea. Dangerous execution.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Ice Bong
Burnest Hemingway: For Whom the Bowl Tokes
Smoke on the Water: The Porsche Hookah
 
(via reddit )

 
Redditor “Picklemick” spotted this perfect little “nugbunny” in his bud. He says: “Guys, I just saw this and made it in paint.” I’m still waiting for the herbal image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Maybe if I smoke enough?

(via reddit)

 
Someone needs to patent an ice bong mold quick! I can’t find anywhere on the Internet where one exists.

Don’t say I never gave you nothin’...

(via reddit)

 
Marijuana is usually comically associated with “the munchies” and junk food binging, but a new study from France indicates something researchers weren’t expecting to find: Potheads tend to be skinnier than non-stoners. Via The Week:

What did the study find?
Dr. Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at France’s Louis-Mourier Hospital, looked at data from two studies of U.S. adults from the early 2000s and noted the weight differences between those who used cannabis and those who didn’t. In both studies, cannabis users had relatively low rates of obesity: 14.3 and 17.2 percent. American adults who didn’t use cannabis had obesity rates of 22 and 25.3 percent.

Is this what researchers expected?
Nope. “Cannabis is supposed to increase appetite,” says Le Strat. “So we hypothesized that cannabis users would be more likely to have higher weight than non-users and be more likely to be obese.” Marijuana activist Michelle Aldrich isn’t all that surprised. “It’s true,” she says. “I don’t know too many fat marijuana smokers.”

What’s causing this phenomenon?
“There could be many other reasons why pot smokers have less obesity,” says dietitian Andrea Giancoli. “Maybe they’re inclined to exercise more, be outdoors more, eat more fruits and vegetables.” Aldrich thinks it could be related to the body’s endocannabinoid system — a group of receptors, primarily in the brain, that respond to compounds in marijuana. But the bottom line is that the exact mechanism responsible for this correlation remains a mystery — for now.

One obvious thing I’m not seeing here is that many potheads don’t drink alcohol or don’t drink that much of it.

But if this isn’t reason enough to toke up, one of the oldest people who ever lived credited the chronic for her longevity.

 
If you’ve ever wanted to look like Hercule Poirot while smoking your weed—now is your chance! Etsy seller Hedcraft makes these fantastic hand-blown mustache pipes for $39.95 each.
 

 
(via reddit)

Photo: U-Roy and his magic chillum, mid-70s.

“William Breathes” (a pseudonym) has the best job in Denver. He’s the pot critic for the alt weekly Denver Westword. You might say he’s the Jonathan Gold of weed…

From The Daily:

There are now more medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks. Glossy guidebooks list nearly 300 locations where Colorado’s 125,000 residents who have been prescribed medical marijuana can get their “medicine.” Many offer a free joint to new customers, allowing them to sample exotic strains like Jah Kush, Golden Goat and Romulan Cotton Candy.

Local smokers even have a professional critic to help them navigate the gauntlet of bongs, pipes and vaporizers, or make that essential choice between Super Silver Haze and Purple Passion.

The critic’s pen name is William Breathes; he keeps his real identity secret to ensure he gets the same treatment as any other patient.

His weekly weed purchase is paid for by the Denver Westword, the popular alternative weekly that hired Breathes after its editors realized they were serving one of the most stoned readerships in America.

“It’s a fun new writing area,” Westword editor Patricia Calhoun told The Daily, “and if your publication prides itself on doing strong cultural coverage of art, theater and food, then why not do pot, too?”

Here’s one of his reviews. I like his style:

The Platinum Purps had an orange-rind tartness to it, which would have gone great with the sticky-sweet smell of Tangerine Haze. There was also a solid Triple-D, very floral Flo, and some well done Trainwreck renamed Charlie Sheen, appropriately enough. Other more unique strains out of Scott’s coco mix garden, including Scott’s Blue, the Tange and the Face Wreck Haze, smelled so good I wanted to make a potpourri bowl out of them for my office.

Man, he’s got my dream job. I’ll tell you what, if the LA Weekly wanted to offer me a similar column,I’d write it for free!
 

 
Via Nerdcore

 
To toke or not to toke, or rather did he toke, that is the question. That’s right, you heard me, did the Bard smoke weed?

Not to get all “Lord Buckley” on you finger-poppin’ daddys, but is it possible that Willie the Shake was a “viper”? That’s what a controversial paleontologist wants to find out.

After some two dozen pipes were found buried in Shakespeare’s garden, many containing residues of smoked cannabis, a South Africa scientist named Francis Thackeray, with help from Professor Nikolaas van der Merwe of Harvard University, obtained fragments of these pipes via the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. They handed them over to South African Police forensic scientists for lab analysis. Low levels of marijuana residue was found in the pipes.

Cannabis was known to have been cultivated at the time in England and so it is certainly plausible that Shakespeare partook of the herb superb, but it would take looking at bone samples to say for sure. (Two of the pipes also tested positive for traces of cocaine, but this is a more difficult to swallow than the idea of the Bard smoking the “noted weed,” as cocaine first gets synthesized around the time of the Civil War).

Thackery says that his team could get into Shakespeare’s final resting place—he was buried under a church in Stratford-upon-Avon—unobtrusively, because a full exhumation of the body is not required and the remains would not have to be disturbed at all. Good thing, too, because Shakespeare was notoriously wary of anyone screwing around with his skeleton. A curse is engraved on his tomb that reads:

“Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare/ To digg the dust encloased heare/ Bleste be the man that spares thes stones/ And curst be he that moves my bones.”

 
A bipartisan measure to end federal criminalization of the personal use of marijuana was introduced today in Congress for the first time since 1937.

The ‘Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011’ was co-sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Texas Republican Ron Paul—- along with Reps. Cohen (D-TN), Conyers (D-MI), Polis (D-CO), and Lee (D-CA)—and would stop the Feds from prosecuting adults who use or possess marijuana. The law would remove THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, as well as the planet itself, from the “schedule” of the US Controlled Substance Act of 1970.

“The Marihuana Tax Act” was passed in 1937. Language in the new bill is similar to the language of the bill that repealed prohibition in 1933 and would nullify the conflicts between state laws—like here in California, where for all intents and purposes, pot is pretty much legal—and Federal drug laws.

It’s about time. They’ve been talking about legalizing cannabis since the Jimmy Carter administration. Enough already.

 
This dude must have lungs of steel! One question, where did all the smoke go?

 
(via I Heart Chaos)

 
When I read this, my first thought was “I wonder if everyone currently serving prison time for cannabis possession in America will be able to sing their way out of jail?” Good for this judge and good for Willie Nelson. This just goes to show what a mockery of justice the marijuana laws are in certain states. From Spinner:

Surprise, surprise—Willie Nelson was busted with a personal amount of marijuana on his tour bus last fall. Of course, it probably would’ve been a much bigger surprise if the search turned up nothing, but in this day and age, where many touring musicians have doctor recommendations allowing them to legally “medicate” in home states such as California and Colorado, not many people care. Especially when there are natural disasters, political upheavals and even revolutions to deal with.

Indeed, that’s kinda the stance that even the prosecutor in Nelson’s case seems to be taking. TMZ reports that the prosecutor would be willing to let Nelson’s punishment fit an increasingly popular perception of the crime—rather than let him face up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, if Nelson sings ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’ inside the courtroom, then all will be forgiven and the 77-year-old country singer will have to pay just a $100 penalty.

Both Nelson and the presiding judge must accept the terms for this to happen, but our guess is that Nelson’s expert attorney—Joe Turner, who got Nelson’s previous marijuana charge dropped, in 1994—is tuning up the guitar. Let freedom sing!

Willie Nelson is 77-years-old. There is no way in hell that any “law” is going to come between Willie and his “Willie Weed” (which I have personally sampled and it’s great). Shouldn’t they just issue him some sort of honorary “get out of jail free” card for when he’s touring, good in any state in America?

Below, the American icon sings “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” on the CMA awards show in 1975: