Product: Sajama Pipe by Miwak Junior
Price: $80
Place of Purchase: www.miwakjunior.com
Everything cannabis-related has a stigma attached to it. Hell, even the word “paraphernalia” sounds like an illness that would have you locked up in a psyche ward. For decades people have protested the “plaque-of-society” image Reefer Madness painted of the stoner lifestyle. In fact, people are still fighting that stereotype. Although the perception of cannabis has made a tremendous shift over the last five years, the archaic stigma still plagues the cannabis community and business. But thanks to people like Sebastian Boher, an LA based Chilean artist who creates stoneware and porcelain pipes, smoking pot is now a comparable experience to drinking Bordeaux from Reidel wine glasses.
More than bringing fine smoke-ware to the weed market, though, Boher’s intention is to connect smokers to the ritualistic roots of pre-Colombian South American culture. “I wanted to rescue the traditions of ancient cultures,” says Boher, who refers to his oblong pipes as “connectors.” “These cultures used the pipe as a sacred object in smoking rituals which connected people—everyone engaged in smoking rituals with each other. It’s just what people did. These connectors are made to bring back the ancient ritual, tradition and importance of the pipe.”
While keeping Boher’s goals in mind, I figured there was no better way to pay homage to the indigenous-lifestyle than using my Sajama pipe on Thanksgiving. After shoving copious amounts of turkey in my face, I sat at a table with three of my closest friends at the end of the night—slices of homemade pumpkin pie in front of us. We planned to do just as the indigenous did: get really high, tell stories and connect with spiritual energies (and eat dessert, too.).
I packed the hand-glazed bowl piece with Goddess Green Ribbon, a stellar hybrid from Venice Beach, and passed the pipe to my right (smoking etiquette 101: the bowl packer never takes the first hit!).
When the ovoid pipe came back around the table, one friend elbowed her water onto the floor, another had smeared pie on her shirt, while the other laid limp in a silent rage of laughter. All within a 10-minute period, mind you. It was clear my friends were exceptionally stoned—especially from smoking out of a pipe, which traditionally doesn’t provide the same high as, say, smoking from a bong. But I figured their lack of motor skills was the result of the Green Ribbon.
False! The pipe packs a punch—and by that I mean it doesn’t hit like a normal pipe. The hollow interior of the connector creates a large chamber allowing for an impressive sized canna-cloud to form within. The natural cool temperature of the ceramic pipe lowered the heat of the smoke, making the inhale smoother, therefore bigger than normal.
After minutes of analyzing my high I came to the conclusion that the high from the Sajama pipe actually was similar to smoking from a bong, or water pipe. If you use this high-end culturally-infused pipe prepare for a solid toke. Although we were too stoned to tell stories—or remember stories to tell—the pipe definitely functioned as a means of holiday bonding with my friends. Would we have made the Indigenous people proud? Probably not. But at least we’re conscious of the traditions that started with them.
