7 Faux Pas to Avoid at Your First 420

On one hand, it is remarkably easy to get high from weed, especially in states where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use. On the other hand, cannabis culture runs deep, so if you aren’t careful, you could offend an established stoner with uncouth behavior.

If you are about to enjoy your first stoner session, you should learn a bit of 420 etiquette to keep those around you happily high. Here are the worst cannabis faux pas you can make and what to do instead:

Smoking Sick

Even before the pandemic, you wouldn’t dare share a drink or a spoon with someone who was coughing or sniffling — so why would you expect others to want to sample your sick spit on a joint or pipe? Even if you are only suffering from seasonal allergies, you should keep your consumption to yourself to avoid contaminating the cannabis. In fact, it might be best to wait until you are totally well to enjoy your first 420, so you can experience the breadth of weed’s aromas and flavors.

Lighting the Greens

The greens are the unlit portion of weed in the bowl of a pipe. Traditionally, the host of the stoner session or the person who bought the bud is granted the honor and responsibility of the first spark, but as the pipe gets passed around, you try to avoid charring any more of the greens than you absolutely need. Ideally, you should spark the bud by the rim of the bowl to leave as much green as possible for those who toke after you. Fortunately, most stoners will forgive you for lighting the greens if it is your first time, and they will doubly forgive you if you bring your own bud from a top Maine dispensary.

Toking Too Much

It is absolutely possible to get too high on cannabis. A weed overdose isn’t life-threatening, but it will make you and everyone around you exceedingly uncomfortable for a long time. Because your THC tolerance is likely to be low, you should be careful how much you consume during your first session. It might be wise to take a single hit and wait 10 minutes or more to see what effects manifest before going in for another dose. This logic is especially important for edibles, which truly are not beginner-friendly ways to enjoy weed.

Disrespecting Your Space

Just because you are high doesn’t mean you get to be a hoodlum. Whether you are in your own home, someone else’s home, a cannabis lounge or a 420-friendly hotel, you need to be considerate of your environment. You should respect any rules of the space without question, and you should try to be on your best behavior, even as you get stoned. Politeness is always appropriate, even amongst the 420 set.

Smoking Tobacco

Not all smoking is considered equal. Members of your 420 session will be lighting up all manner of weed smokables, but that doesn’t mean you have free reign to smoke any old substance, even tobacco. In fact, many stoners revile tobacco, given that the media often mistakenly draws parallels between tobacco and cannabis. In truth, cannabis smoke is dramatically safer than that of tobacco, and polluting the air with second-hand tobacco smoke is a good way to never get another invite to 420.

Pressuring Anyone to Smoke

You might be excited about the opportunity to get high, but that doesn’t mean everyone around you is. Plenty of people hang around 420 sessions without partaking of pot; they might drink alcohol, function as designated drivers or maybe merely enjoy the vibe. The fastest way to get yourself a bad reputation in a stoner circle is to pressure those around you to get high when they don’t want to or to smoke more than they feel comfortable with. Instead, you should let everyone around you do what they want without question.

Mooching

One of the oldest and most ubiquitous pieces of stoner etiquette states: puff, puff, pass. No matter how much weed is available, no matter how many people are partaking in the 420 session, you only get two hits before you are expected to pass long the joint or pipe. If you try to take any more tokes, you will be seen as a mooch, even if you were the one who supplied the weed in the first place.

You can get away with a lot when you are brand-new to smoking weed, but that doesn’t mean you should strive to be impolite. By learning the most important rules of etiquette in the 420 world, you can secure your spot in any stoner session.

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