Cannabis is the most commonly used prohibited drug around the world and Australia is no exception. Cannabis is very popular down here, and according to a Sydney Morning Herald article, based on the recently released Global Drug Survey 2017, Aussies use more bongs for smoking Cannabis than any other countries around the world.
That makes us the undisputed Bong World Champions. Not a bad effort considering that bongs are actually illegal in Australia.
I moved to Australia 14 years ago from Europe and even though I had heard of bongs and knew what they were, I had not used one.
I imagined them as a delicate glass equipment that is expensive and takes a lot of taking care of. However, that very first bong I came across while settling in down here, was made out of a Fanta bottle, a short piece of garden hose and a copper cone.
The whole thing would have cost less than 10 bucks… including the Fanta.
I noticed that over time when someone sources a patch of Cannabis in Australia when it comes to smoking it, they think of building a quick makeshift bong sooner than rolling a joint.
Having said that, bongs are not as popular around the world though, with only 9.4% of all survey participants using them as their main method of Cannabis consumption.
Joints are the most popular way around the world to consume Cannabis, with 71.7% of all participants indicating it as their main consumption method.
On top of the bong world title, the survey also revealed that 15.2% of the female and 17.9% of the male Aussie survey participants used Cannabis more than 300 days in the last 12 months. That is not a bad news as not surprisingly Cannabis (and Magic Mushrooms) came out of the survey as the safest drugs.
We are not much of a fan of the ‘wake and bake’ with only 9% of the Aussie participants lighting up within an hour of waking up, compared to the massive 21.9% of the Americans.
Also, the data shows that Australians have picked up the unhealthy habit of mixing their Cannabis with tobacco, with 45% of the Australian survey participants indicating they do just that.
It is not a regional trend though as only 23% of the New Zealanders reported mixing tobacco into their Cannabis.
Smoking tobacco carries a lot of known health risks and there is no benefit to smoke it with Cannabis. I hope that number will drop significantly in the coming years.
To put the survey in perspective for you, it included 115,523 participants from 50 countries with 5750 participants from Australia.
I have a bachelor degree of Agricultural Science and have studied plant production for 8 years. Meanwhile, I learned so much about plants that it was hard to miss the outstanding (quite incredible) qualities of this hugely versatile plant.
After university I went on to build a career and recently I had the opportunity to return to this most passionate area of my life and have been writing about a wide variety of topics on Cannabis and Hemp.
- Nimbin Medican – Educating Australians About Medical Cannabis - January 28, 2020
- Pill Testing and Roadside Drug Testing – When is it Appropriate to Test for Drugs? - August 2, 2019
- The Australian Cannabis Summit in Review - July 16, 2019
Why do people overwhelmingly use bongs and also mix with ‘spin’ (tobacco)? Because cannabis is so f***ing expensive in Australia lol