The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Main:
Pipeweed



IdrilofGondolin
Rohan

Jan 25 2013, 9:50pm


Views: 1756
Pipeweed
I am new here and don't know if this was discussed at all on the LOTR forum but here goes --

What is the point of suggesting that pipeweed is a type of pot? Tolkien calls it a type of nicotiana, so we know it is tobacco and not something that gets you high.

Since pipe smoking is a part of British/English culture and is something one associates with Oxbridge dons, we know that Tolkien was not implying that all these hobbits, wizards, rangers and dwarves were smoking dope. What's the point of PJ's suggesting that they are?


jtarkey
Rohan


Jan 25 2013, 9:58pm


Views: 1360
For fun...
I don't think they over do it at least. It's no secret that I am a fan of "pipe weed", so the Fact that they treat it the way they do always makes me smile.
"You're love of the halflings leaf has clearly slowed your mind"


Veridandir
Rivendell

Jan 25 2013, 10:24pm


Views: 1296
Why not?
I burst out laughing when the scene came up. Great stuff.


Lightice
Lorien

Jan 25 2013, 10:28pm


Views: 1326
Peter Jackson didn't invent it.
You can blame the hippies who became fans of the Lord of the Rings back in the 1970s for that. It's been a running gag in the fandom for decades. And anyway, tobacco does have a funny effect on some people, even though it's not identical with cannabis.


Rostron2
Gondor


Jan 25 2013, 10:51pm


Views: 1279
Yup, this +1
DECADES!!! Yer grandpappy used to tell them jokes, yup yup


Magpie
Immortal


Jan 25 2013, 11:17pm


Views: 1275
I've smoked exactly one cigarette in my life
...and it made me light headed and essentially 'high'.

I don't know if it would have that effect had I smoked them regularly.

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Kassandros
Rohan


Jan 25 2013, 11:21pm


Views: 1263
And it doesn't seem to have that effect on Bilbo or Gandalf.
So it doesn't exactly seem to be just like marijuana all the time.
all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us...


SirDennisC
Half-elven


Jan 25 2013, 11:47pm


Views: 1270
It depends
to someone addicted to nicotine, smoking tobacco helps clear the mind by chasing away the symptoms of withdrawal. To someone who isn't addicted or otherwise doesn't smoke, its effects range from light headedness to nausea (and if enough is smoked, to addiction).

I've always thought if pipe weed isn't tobacco, that it is something akin to it -- that is a leaf rather than a bud -- with opioid rather than cannabinoid properties. Though there is no evidence of this, beyond wishful thinking perhaps.


(This post was edited by SirDennisC on Jan 25 2013, 11:49pm)


Hamfast
Rohan


Jan 26 2013, 1:04am


Views: 1284
Your signature quote should be noted too...
Saruman is certainly implying that smoking it hinders brain function. I quit smoking cigarettes 20 years ago, but I don't ever remember them affecting my mental capabilities. I will go ahead and plead the 5th on what smoking the other substance does to my mental capabilitiesTongue


SirDennisC
Half-elven


Jan 26 2013, 1:26am


Views: 1245
It's not so much
smoking, as the times between smoking when withdrawal leaves one distracted... but I guess I said that already.

aside Ham, you must be older than I thought. Smile


Kassandros
Rohan


Jan 26 2013, 2:21am


Views: 1218
Saruman isn't right about everything, though.
I mean, Gandalf's mind certainly does not seem slowed.
all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us...


zarabia
Tol Eressea


Jan 26 2013, 2:47am


Views: 1226
I agree
I don't think Tolkien meant pipeweed to be taken for anything but tobacco. The argument that tobacco is a New World discovery and therefore wouldn't have been present in a prehistoric Europe doesn't hold water as potatoes are also from the New World. Nobody implies that potatoes are anything but po-ta-toes.Smile

As for the effects of tobacco: tobacco smoked in a pipe is different than tobacco in cigarette form. My dad was a long time pipe smoker, but he never would smoke cigarettes because you inhale cigarette smoke into your lungs. Pipe's are mostly smoked for the flavor; you don't inhale. It isn't nearly as addictive; when my dad decided to quit, he quit.

I don't feel that smoking non-tobacco weeds (so to speak) is immoral, I just don't like to think that when the future of Middle-earth is on the line, Gandalf would let the halflings' weed dull his mind.
"The question isn't where, Constable, but when." - Inspector Spacetime

(This post was edited by zarabia on Jan 26 2013, 2:48am)


Bombadil
Half-elven


Jan 26 2013, 2:51am


Views: 1223
Bomby..¿... is a Frist-Responder to Tolkien.
Read all for books in 1967
And then
"The Summer of Love"
Happened..colorFully in
" Hobitty-Hashberry." SF...

Then Boulder
COOL-arado
1969 and 70..

HUNDREDS OF THOZZANDS Read The Hobbit
while they were smoking.
Old Toby...

When Our Professor died in 1973?
was as if
our "GrandHippie"
Had died.

(Very colorful smoke rings were performed WORLDWIDE
That sorrowful... night..
Bomby Will never forget


Ziggy Stardust
Gondor


Jan 26 2013, 3:25am


Views: 1204
Correction
Blame the hippies of the 1960s.


Ziggy Stardust
Gondor


Jan 26 2013, 3:27am


Views: 1213
Was it PJ's idea?
I was under the impression that pipeweed was a type of tobbacco, not cannabis. It's kind of obvious. Gandalf and Bilbo smoke pipeweed, and as you can see, their minds are not dulled.


Hamfast
Rohan


Jan 26 2013, 3:28am


Views: 1189
Agreed....
and he's also evil. And learning from The Hobbit movie, very judgemental about Radagast's use of mushroomsLaugh


Ziggy Stardust
Gondor


Jan 26 2013, 3:29am


Views: 1194
Have heard this from others as well
I've never smoked anything. I'm a health nut and won't do anything that could put my health at risk. The smell is enough to chase me away. In my 23 years of living I've learned that if it smells bad, it is bad. And I've learned that smoking anything is unhealthy, be it tobbacco or cannabis. Like I I said, I'm a health nut.


Ziggy Stardust
Gondor


Jan 26 2013, 3:30am


Views: 1190
I'll say
I don't think Radagast was into those mushrooms. But what do you expect from an evil wizard?


Hamfast
Rohan


Jan 26 2013, 3:54am


Views: 1211
I was trying to be deliberately provocative....
As I always find this debate fun.

I'm 40 years old btw...I smoked cigarettes between those crazy 17 to 20 years. One day, I found it disgusting and haven't touched them sinceSmile


Bombadil
Half-elven


Jan 26 2013, 10:49am


Views: 1176
Well Bomby will be 63 next week.
By Shire reckoning..

Then....
guess what?

I live in Colorado?

"Love is all
there is"


Lightice
Lorien

Jan 26 2013, 11:58am


Views: 1173
As I recall...
In Reply To
Blame the hippies of the 1960s.
Hippies didn't find the LotR until the 1970's. I may be wrong on this, but at least that was the time when Tolkien himself got a bit disturbed by his own fandom.


sherlock
Gondor


Jan 26 2013, 12:04pm


Views: 1167
My first cigarette made me feel the same.
Or maybe the first few but it goes away. Fortunately, I never smoked much & didn't get hooked. When I met my future husband who had asthma I had to give it up completely which was a good thing. No comment on the other thing you can smoke.mWinkWink


Magpie
Immortal


Jan 26 2013, 3:03pm


Views: 1159
all I can say is...
...the hippie movement was present in the mid to late 60s and I read LOTR in 1967 or 68.

Wikipedia puts Tolkien's huge popularity in the US at the mid-60s.

"By the mid-1960s the novel had become a cultural phenomenon. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings

"Frodo Lives!" was a popular counterculture slogan in the 1960s and 1970s, referring to the character Frodo Baggins from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The term was used frequently in graffiti, buttons, bumper-stickers, t-shirts, and other materials. It was commonly associated with the hippie movement. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Lives!

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dernwyn
Forum Admin / Moderator


Jan 26 2013, 3:07pm


Views: 1159
By 1966 it was a "cult classic"
and outselling many former classic novels on America's college campuses. And Tolkien became a "cult hero".

By 1968 the letters and gifts (and midnight phone calls) to his home became intolerable, and that, coupled with his and Edith's failing health, caused their move to Bournemouth where they hoped to live as "secretly" as possible.

I do like what he had to say about all the hoopla: "Being a cult figure of one's own lifetime I am afraid is not at all pleasant. However I do not find that it tends to puff one up; in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense." (Carpenter's Biography)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I desired dragons with a profound desire"






silneldor
Half-elven


Jan 27 2013, 1:35am


Views: 1109
Well, you old *art!
Welcome to the clubLaughWinkUnimpressedSly














Bombadil
Half-elven


Jan 27 2013, 2:07am


Views: 387
Far OUT!
Berkeley,Boulder,Ann Arbor,Austin, East Village, West Hollywood?

Flower Power ruled
and tolkein
Had a lot to do with it..

The British Invasion started with the Beatles in 1963!
Then we had the Rolling Stonerz?
weird names like Herman hermits
Led Zeppelin?
cream
it seems to each week we had a new British band

Anything British was HIP
and we had this pipe smoking Oxford professor?
Wrote a book
A pipe dream?
a fantasy about little tiny people
barefoot living in holes in the ground
wizards smokin colorful smoke rings...


grammaboodawg
Immortal


Jan 28 2013, 1:30am


Views: 368
As a former hippie
the year was 1971 ;)


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SirDennisC
Half-elven


Jan 28 2013, 2:23am


Views: 357
Real hippies have trouble remembering the precise date for some reason. //
 


grammaboodawg
Immortal


Jan 28 2013, 10:53am


Views: 356
*snigger*
I admit to a couple of attempts at posting what month, then gave up ;)

It was January/February... right?


First draft of TH:AUJ Geeky Observation List - updated list coming soon


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I'm SO HAPPY these new films take me back to that magical world!!



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elevorn
Lorien


Jan 28 2013, 3:55pm


Views: 349
depending
on what type of pipe tobacco you use it can have quite a hit to it. I had some for one of my pipes from brittain and it was quite strong, it had a wonderful flavor but for about five minutes I was kind of lost in my own back yard. Like others have said, pipe tobacco is not a ciggarett, and in fact has a good bit more nicotine in it. though it takes a good deal longer to get into your system as it has to be absorbed through your mouth and not into your lungs. The effects take longer, and last longer. But I have never equated pipe weed with Tobacco, as Tolkien was known tobacco user.


"clever hobbits to climb so high!"
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dreamflower
Lorien

Jan 30 2013, 11:44pm


Views: 314
History
It goes back to the sixties, when LotR was favorite reading for many of the hippies. I don't think any of them really thought pipe-weed was pot. But it certainly was hinted at in parodies like "Bored of the Rings", and so the idea stuck.

I think it's supposed to be funny.


dreamflower
Lorien

Jan 30 2013, 11:50pm


Views: 439
It was the sixties
He may not have said anything until the 70s.

I was no hippie myself (if anything I was a timid wannabe) and I read it in '67.

All my hippie friends were reading it then too. And I clearly recall a picture of Peter Tork of the Monkees, love beads and all, with a copy of The Hobbit that year.