【Watch Friends】

Post-vaccine life is Watch Friendsin full swing for many people in the United States, which means a return of summer barbecues and kickbacks.

Even if summer 2021 was a "normal" season, there wouldn't be a shortage of mind-altering substances — but given that we've all survived in the past year and a half, parties may have an even higher stock. What's more, numerous states legalized weedin the past two years, so usage is poised to go up.

All this to say: You may soon be at a party where joints are passed around. Buy a joint tip.

A joint tip is a hollow cylinder, often made out of glass and designed to be placed on, well, the tip of your joint (or blunt, or spliff). Oftentimes you can use them as a substitute for filters when rolling a joint, but you can also place them over an already-packed one. The latter is more useful for party settings, because you can simply slide on the tip when it's your turn to take a hit, then slide it off before you hand it off to a friend.

In this latest phase of the pandemic, we're all more cognizant of germs. While the risk of COVID is lower than ever, especially for fully vaccinated folks, the possibility of contracting it is certainly still here. Even without COVID, cold and flu viruses are still out there too— and have been raging since the country began opening up.

A joint tip prevents you from inadvertently swapping spit with someone, keeping at least some of those sweet, sweet particles to oneself. It's also easy to cleanly share one if you want to: Just wipe the glass with alcohol before exchanging.

Even if you aren't the most germ-conscious, joint tips can be a fashion statement. It's very easy to find plain glass ones, but with a little digging online you can find fun novelty tips like this gold RAW joint tip ringor this sparkly joint holder necklace.

Go forth with your glass or gold tip and puff, puff, pass.

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