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Tech

Watch This Guy Take a Hit With a $2,400 Laser Bong

Don't forget your protective glasses when taking a hit from the laser bong!
Smoking weed from a laser bong
Image: Instagram

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Never underestimate the boundless creativity that stoners apply to getting high. Sometimes stoner engineering is delightfully low tech, like figuring out how to smoke weed from a crab leg. Other times, it’s scrappy and DIY, like this device to measure how hard you hit a bong.

Then there’s the laser bong, a piece of stoner technology so advanced that it will probably take NASA scientists decades before they’re able to replicate it.

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Developed by the company Silicon Cali, the laser bong uses a two-watt, 445 nanometer laser to light a bong bowl. This is about 400 times more powerful than the average laser pointer, which has an output of about five milliwatts. Silicon Cali even sells special glasses that are meant to protect your eyes while looking directly at the laser when you take a hit.

"The laser is not that dangerous, it's not going to cut your finger off or anything crazy like that," Justin Zelaya, the founder of Silicon Cali, told me in an email. "It may sting a little bit if you get your hand in the way but kind of like a magnifying glass."

Zelaya told me that he worked with five other people to produce the bong and that their backgrounds range from "Bitcoin core developer to a mad scientist, like myself."

Zelaya said the bong is controlled by small computer so that the bong’s bowl can be spun while you’re lighting it. The glass, which is custom blown in California, is lined with color-changing LEDs. The entire thing is controlled by a phone app.

Each laser bong is being sold for $2,400—which as far as I can see is worth every damn penny. These laser bongs are a limited edition product, however. According to Silicon Cali’s website, only 420 of the devices will be sold.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that only 45 laser bongs will be sold. The actual number is 420 laser bongs. Only 45 laser bongs were available for pre-order.