Some of my best marijuana consumption came in college. Almost everyone smoked, or at least was ‘down,’ and marijuana on campus flowed like water. This article is for the average college stoner that is looking for tips to puff down in their dorm room. Of course, if you can avoid smoking in a dorm room, that is always advised. Find a friend that lives off campus so you can puff in privacy. However, if you don’t have an off campus friend, or you just can’t take it anymore and need to get high in your room, then you should find this article useful. If you have ANY tips yourself, please leave a comment so that others can benefit from your expertise!
The best place to start is to evaluate your university — are they ‘marijuana friendly,’ or do they crusade against MJ any chance they get? Obviously no college is 100% tolerant, but if your college is full of stoners, chances are your RA is also a stoner, which increases the likelihood of turning a blind eye. Here is an article that I wrote previously, ‘What is the Most Marijuana Friendly College?’ If your university is in that article, you are studying with other stoners. If your university is not in that article, you might want to consider transferring!
One of the most important parts about being a ‘Dorm Stoner’ is hiding your stash. The most common hiding spots in a dorm room are in the vents, HVAC system, above lighting, above ceiling tiles, or inside furniture. The problem with these spots being ‘common’ is that most RA’s look here first! The main thing to do is to be creative. The spot that I used when I was in college was inside a speaker or appliance. I brought a pair of blown 12″ speakers for the sole purpose of hiding marijuana in them. The woofers only had four screws, so getting in and out wasn’t that hard. Contrast that with the TV that I was hiding my stash in — 12 screws and a pain in the ass to get the back on and off. The speaker seemed to create the biggest seal as well; the TV I used had small slits in the back that let some odor out (of course that is easily tamed with some Tupperware or extra baggies).
Also, depending on how large your stash is, the thing that you hide it in will need to be big enough. The main thing to remember when picking a hiding spot is to not make it too obvious or ‘common.’ Use your creativity — there has to be some item in your dorm room that can be hollowed out or opened, and your stash can be hide inside. Wherever you end up hiding your stash, sealing it in baggies, Tupperware, or even heat sealed vacuum bags are always a good idea. Heat seal is optimal, but it is also the most time consuming to get in and out of. When I got home from a long study session or lecture, I would like to get high fast and furiously. The Tupperware seemed to be the best for this style of consumption…
The MOST important thing to keep in mind when you are a ‘Dorm Stoner’ is to control odor. I already hinted about it in the previous paragraphs, and I cannot hammer the point home enough — YOUR DORM MARIJUANA CAREER IS DIRECTLY TIED TO THE ODOR THAT COMES IN AND OUT OF YOUR ROOM! You have to realize that there is a lot to lose if you get caught — not only possible criminal charges, but also lost financial aid, university discipline or expulsion, and of course having to explain to your family why you got kicked out.
The first thing to do is to evaluate your airflow. The easiest way to do this is to put a lighter or candle by the crack at the bottom of your door. If the flame goes toward the hallway, then air is getting out. If the flame goes toward the window, then air is coming in. Remember — this does not mean that air will ALWAYS travel this way. If someone opens a door in the hallway, it can reverse the air flow. I had a friend that was satisfied with the test showing air flow coming from the hallway and then outside his window. He was smoking like a broken chimney when all of a sudden the door from across the hall was opened, and the air started traveling in the reverse direction! The hallway filled with reefer smoke, and needless to say, he was at home attending community college by the end of the week.
The main thing to take away from the flame test is that air is flowing, and that you need to do something about it. The easiest thing to do is to put a blanket/towel at the bottom of the door, and tape the other cracks along the side and top. Put a fan in your window, and in theory, all the air from your room should be traveling out your window. If you are on the first floor you are f’d, as anyone that walks by your window will instantly know what’s up. But if you are on the second floor or higher, the smoke is going to rise after it leaves your window, and you should have no worries. One thing to remember is that some dorms have central air systems, so even though the odor isn’t going out to the hallway, it is still being re-circulated throughout the building. It is harder to pinpoint where the odor is coming from, but if they knock on your door and hear tape coming off the door, and your room still smells, the jig will be up. Make sure to stuff your vents in a similar fashion as your door.
Now that your dorm room is sealed, and there is only one way for the odor to exit your dorm room, you are ready for the next step. Blowing the smoke into a ‘purifying device’ is an excellent way to cover up the smell. I have heard of such devices being called a ‘sploof,’ a ‘blow buddy,’ or as we call them up here in Eugene, Oregon, a ‘prison tube.’ One time Ninjasmoker and I received a very professional model of this device from some inventive college students in Washington, who called it ‘The Doob Toob.’ Unfortunately, we never found a way that people could purchase them, so we weren’t able to give them props, until now!! If you are the creator of the Doob Toob, and you would like to plug your website, contact us via e-mail and we will make it happen for sure.
Essentially, these devices are all the same — you will need a tube (toilet paper roll cardboard, or paper towel roll cardboard works perfect), and some dryer sheets. It’s very simple; place the dryer sheets (1 or 2) into the tube and crimp an end. Then, when you go to exhale, exhale all of the smoke into the tube. When it travels through the tube, and through the dryer sheets, it will be filtered and come out the crimped end of the tube smelling like whatever scent of drier sheet you used. The reason that you crimp the end is so the drier sheets don’t shoot out the other end when you take too big of a rip.
This is not full proof, as whatever you are smoking out of (pipe, etc) will still smell, and if you don’t get all of the smoke into the tube, then it will obviously release into the air and create odor. However, over time you will become a pro with this device, and you will get 90-95% of the marijuana smoke odor to smell like whatever scent of drier sheets you choose to use. When you pick out the drier sheets, remember that the smellier the better. If you can smell them outside of the box, then you are on to something good. Also, we have used toilet paper and paper towels in place of the drier sheets, as long as they were sprayed with cologne or perfume or something.
Another good idea for your dorm is an air purifier. These do not get rid of the odor instantly, but if you are smoking in your dorm room on the regular, you will inevitably create a lingering smell inside your room. I had a friend get kicked out of his dorm room for marijuana use when he wasn’t even there! When he left, he unsealed his dorm room, and the lingering odor permeated his floor. It didn’t take long for the RA and campus security to get in there, and although they couldn’t find his stash, they still had probable cause to kick him out due to an ‘undeniable odor of marijuana consumption.’ When he finally got back to the university level, he used a cheap air purifier, and it totally kept that lingering smell from developing in his room. Air purifiers are not a quick fix; think of them as a long term insurance plan.
Fans are a must if you are going to be a ‘Dorm Stoner.’ One in your window (facing out of course) will do a lot to keep that smoke from building up in your room. Get the most powerful one that will fit in your window; skimping on the cost of your fan is not a good idea, as you want to get the most airflow possible. A ‘wind machine’ is what I used, and they can be found at any quality retailer. These fans pump out the air, and when you blow a hit into one, it pushes the smoke out your window very well.
If you are a rare college student that grew marijuana before campus life, or you know a grower, chances are you can get your hands on a ‘de-ionizer.’ This is a device that will kill just about any smell anywhere. I have to warn people — BREATHING IN DE-IONIZER IS VERY, VERY BAD FOR YOU. Just as it can kill the smell of just about anything, it can also kill you. This is not a device that you can have constantly going in your dorm room while you puff it down. However, in EXTREME circumstances, these things can dominate.
Say for instance you are smoking with a rookie, and he doesn’t exhale into the doob toob. He puts a milky cloud in your whole room, and you know someone is bound to narc you out. If you turn on the de-ionizer and leave it in your room for 2 minutes while you are out in the hallway, when you come back to turn it off everything will smell like burning carbon. Let everything air out for another minute or two and your room will be completely odor free. Like I said, it’s extreme, and not everyone has a de-ionizer, but it’s a guaranteed ‘Hail Mary’ play that could be the difference between you living on campus, or living at home with your parents along with a pending criminal charge…
There are a lot of obvious cover-ups that you can use such as body spray, ‘Febreeze,’ candles, incense, etc. One thing to keep in mind is that not all campuses have the same policies with burning stuff. I know of private colleges here in Oregon that prohibit candles, incense, etc due to possible fire hazards. If that is the case, there are candle products that don’t require flames such as ‘Scentsy’ flameless candles that work really well. And let’s face it guys; you will be a big man on campus if you are the only guy in the dorm hall with above-average flameless candle knowledge (even if your guy friends make fun of you)!
Another thing to take into consideration is noise. We all know that coughing is a part of the stoner lifestyle. In fact, I can tell who every one of my friends is by the sound of their cough, even through walls. So if you are surrounded by other stoners, you won’t have anything to worry about except scavenger smokers coming to reign in on your session. However, if you are surrounded by people you don’t know, or you share a wall with that really conservative classmate, you need to figure out a way to muffle the sounds a bit.
One tip is to know who you are smoking with. For instance, Ninjasmoker has one of the most notorious coughs on the West Coast. It sounds kind of like a dying walrus mixed with an old pickup ignition turning over. There is no way a person like this would ever be able to get away with dorm smoking (sorry Ninja). But if you are smoking with veterans who have decent lungs, and you aren’t trying to take the world’s largest bong hits, then the noise can be easily muffed by white noise. White noise examples would be the sound of water running, the noise that accompanies the ‘fuzzy’ screen on a TV, or a vacuum, etc.
The manner in which you consume marijuana is a big factor as well when it comes to dorm room success. Some forms of consumption put off a significantly larger amount of odor when compared to other methods. Obviously, at the high end of the odor spectrum, would be blunts and joints. I love my joints as much as the next person, but they are a big no-no in the dorm room. Blunts and joints keep burning whether you are taking a hit or not, and all of that smoke is going into the surrounding atmosphere. Add to it the fact that you are burning paper/tobacco, and you have one smelly situation on your hands…literally.
The next on the list would be pipes. Since they don’t involve water filtration, the burning smoke pretty much goes everywhere, and the bowl stays burning after you’ve taken your hit. With a bong or bubbler (next on the list), a person can load one hitters, which can be sucked through into the water. You blow the smoke into a tube (as discussed previously), which in turn is pointed at a fan in the window. If you can get all of the burning material to suck through, and all of the smoke filtered through the tube and outside, then you can do that pretty much all day long, especially if your dorm room is sealed. Of course, if you are smoking with rookies that can’t suck it through, and exhale the smoke out of their nose and mouth before it can get to the doob toob, then you are f’d…But this is a great way to smoke by yourself in your dorm room, or with a reliable friend, because you know what size of a one hitter to load.
The BEST WAY to consume marijuana in a dorm room would be using a vaporizer. The marijuana isn’t burned with a flame, so the odor is virtually non-existent, and the entire vapor is either captured in a bag, or coming out of a mouth piece that can easily be pointed toward the window. I have friends that are currently in college that use a vaporizer and use no other precautions except a window fan. They are expensive for the average college student, but there is no better college expense if you are a ‘dorm stoner.’ Of course, if you can eat your cannabis then that is by far the least odor causing way. However, making the cannabutter is stinkier than any marijuana activity I have ever came across, so chances are that is not a viable option to someone that lives in a dorm.
This of course is not an ‘end all’ list of what to do. If there is something that you think I missed, please add it to the comments section so that others can benefit from your knowledge!
