# Bakwe (backward) cigarette smoking

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [May 24, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639 "2010-05-24T23:57:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Vashbul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Vashbul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vashbul)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639/1 "2010-05-24T23:57:58Z")

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In the 1978 column called “Is it possible to swallow a lit cigarette, then take it out and resume smoking?”, it is mentioned that the practice of smoking a cigarette with the lit end inside the mouth is called “bakwe” in the Phillipines.

Where did this factoid spring from? The only bakwe I can find by Googling is an ethnicity from the Ivory Coast. Perhaps the bakwe people smoke that way, and they use the word in the Phillipines to mean “bakwe style”?

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**Author:** ![Vashbul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Vashbul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vashbul)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639/2 "2010-05-25T00:22:27Z")

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Original column referred to above:  
[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/273/is-it-possible-to-swallow-a-lit-cigarette-then-take-it-out-and-resume-smoking](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/273/is-it-possible-to-swallow-a-lit-cigarette-then-take-it-out-and-resume-smoking)

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**Author:** ![Drew\_Kit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Drew\_Kit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drew_Kit)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639/3 "2010-05-29T00:52:28Z")

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When I was an errant teenager, and dope was rarely straight, people would offer ‘blowbacks’. One person would inhale strongly on a marijauna joint, and then place the lit end in their mouth. The second person would then inhale as normal while the the second person strongly blew the smoke in their mouth through the joint into the other persons mouth. Aficionados could often spin the joint in their mouth without the use of their hands. It got you slightly more stoned more quickly, and was basically used to get some time alone, face to face with someone you fancied. However, one person would quickly wind up paranoid and the other person would have serious mouth burns, so as a dating method it was self-defeating.

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**Author:** ![dmatsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3be4f8/32.png) [@dmatsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dmatsch)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bakwe-backward-cigarette-smoking/540639/4 "2010-07-02T18:46:00Z")

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> [@Drew\_Kit](#):
>
> …so as a dating method it was self-defeating.

Speak for yourself! 😃