Pipe smoking

Sandro Pertini smoking a pipe.

Pipe smoking is the practice of tasting or inhaling the smoke produced by burning a substance, most commonly tobacco, in a pipe. It is the oldest traditional form of smoking.

History

Protohistoric Catlinite pipe, probably Ioway, from the Wanampito site.

A number of Native American cultures had pipe-smoking traditions, long before the arrival of Europeans. Tobacco was often smoked, generally for ceremonial purposes, though other mixtures of sacred herbs were also common. The narrow calumet (called "peace pipe" by Europeans), was smoked in ceremony to seal covenants and treaties. Tobacco was introduced to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century and spread around the world rapidly. In Asia during the 19th century, opium (which previously had only been eaten) was added to tobacco and smoked in pipes. Madak (the mixture of opium and tobacco) turned out to be far more addictive than orally-ingested opium, leading to social problems in China which culminated in the Opium Wars.

According to Alfred Dunhill, Africans have had a long tradition of smoking hemp in gourd pipes, asserting that by 1884 the King of the Baluka tribe of the Congo had established a "riamba" or hemp-smoking cult in place of fetish-worship. Enormous gourd pipes were used.

In the 20th century, pipe smoking has been adopted as a preferred method of inhaling a variety of psychoactive drugs, and some claim it is a more intense method of ingestion. Smokeable crack cocaine has a reputation for being more addictive than cocaine's insufflated form. Similarly, methamphetamine has gained popularity in a crystalline form which when smoked in a pipe lets the user avoid the painful nasal irritation of snorting. When not applied to a cigarette or joint, the liquid form of PCP is typically smoked in a pipe with tobacco or cannabis.

Pipes

A selection of various pipes on a circular pipe rack

Pipes have been fashioned from an assortment of materials including briar, clay, ceramic, corncob, glass, meerschaum, metal, gourd, stone, wood and various combinations thereof, most notably, the classic English calabash pipe.

The size of a pipe, particularly the bowl, depends largely on what is intended to be smoked in it. Large western-style tobacco pipes are used for strong-tasting, harsh tobaccos, the smoke from which is usually not inhaled. Smaller pipes such as the midwakh or kiseru are used to inhale milder tobaccos such as dokha and kizami or other substances such as cannabis and opium.

Water pipes

Water pipes bubble smoke through water to cool and wash the smoke. The two basic types are stationary hookahs, with one or more long flexible drawtubes, and portable bongs.

Culture

Pipe sculpture in Przemyśl, Poland

The customs, vocabulary and etiquette that surround pipe smoking culture vary across the world and depend both on the people who are smoking and the substance being smoked.

For example, in many places in Europe and North America, tobacco pipe smoking has sometimes been seen as genteel or dignified and has given rise to a variety of customized accessories and even apparel such as the smoking jacket, and the Pipe Smoker of the Year award in the UK.

The ceremonial smoking of tobacco or other herbs, as a form of prayer, is still practiced in a number of Native American religious traditions.

Cannabis culture has its own pipe smoking traditions which differ from tobacco pipe smoking. For example, unlike tobacco smokers, cannabis users frequently pass a single pipe among two or more partners.

In recent years, "hookah bars" have appeared in college towns and urban areas in America and Europe.

Famous pipe smokers

A number of real and fictional persons are strongly associated with their habit of pipe smoking.

• Albert Einstein was known for smoking a pipe. He once said, "I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs."
• Lord Bertrand Russell lived to age 98 and remained active to the end.
• Sherlock Holmes is explicitly described as pipe smoker
• Another allegedly fictional character, St. Nicholas alias Santa Claus, is described thus (1839): "The stub of a pipe he held clenched in his teeth".
• Joseph Stalin with a pipe was a common image: "Photos of him appeared daily in the Soviet press, now in genial pipe-smoking profile, now walking with his comrades..."
• J. R. R. Tolkien loved pipe smoking; The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings have several detailed scenes of characters engaging in it, and even describe distinctive blends of manufactured pipe tobacco products.
• Sandro Pertini (President of the Italian Republic 1978-85) lived to age 93.

More examples can be found in the Pipe Smoker of the Year list.

Health effects

Main articles: Health effects of tobacco and Effects of cannabis

The overall risk of early death is 10% higher in pipe smokers who have never smoked cigarettes than in nonsmokers.^{[citation needed]} Pipe smokers who are former cigarette smokers have a 30% greater risk of heart disease and a nearly 200% greater risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Pipe smokers have higher rates of lung and other cancers, as well as of tooth and bone loss.

Gallery

• Click on image for larger view
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  Gerrit Dou: self-portrait with long-stemmed clay pipe (1645).

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  Man smoking kiseru, an early one-hitter. Cover illustration of the novel Komon gawa ("Elegant chats on fabric design") by Santō Kyōden, 1790.

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  Author Anne de Vries smoking a pipe

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  Georgian composer, Meliton Balanchivadze smoking pipe. He lived 75 years

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  Glass pipes for sale at Seattle Hempfest, in 2007.

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  Arab man smoking pipe, late 1800s.

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  Calumet (sketch): ancient Native American "peace pipes".

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  Lord Harold Wilson.

See also

Substance-specific pipes

• Cannabis pipe
• Opium pipe
• Tobacco pipe
• One hitter (smoking)
• Midwakh
• Kiseru
• Sebsi
• Chillum

External links

• Pipe Smokers: A pipe smoking community, focusing on pipe reviews, tobacco reviews, and all things pipe smoking.
• Pipedia A Wiki type website dedicated to pipe making.
• Pipes: Logos & Markings: Pipe brands by pictures.
• Pipe Smoking A history of pipe smoking and its modern day practice.