# Smoking tea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2000, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006 "2000-03-21T21:54:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/1 "2000-03-21T21:54:00Z")
A girl I once knew swore you could get high from smoking plain ole Lipton tea. Aside from that lyric in “Mama Kin” I had never heard of this before. Anybody ever tried it? ---
**Author:** ![Ursa\_Major](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/2 "2000-03-21T22:00:00Z")
I guess you could get a pretty good caffine high that way. I don’t know if smoking it is any better a delivery system than drinking it, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/3 "2000-03-21T22:14:00Z")
That’s what I thought, too. But if it IS possible, what chemicals in the tea give you the buzz? ---
**Author:** ![Gr8Kat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gr8kat/32/18668_2.png) [@Gr8Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gr8Kat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/4 "2000-03-21T23:04:00Z")
According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, copyright 1973, tea is slang for marijuana. * * * “I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy [The Kat House](http://members.aol.com/gr8kat1/KatGen/home.htm) [Join the FSH Muscular Dystrophy Webring](http://members.aol.com/gr8kat1/KatGen/fshwebring.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/5 "2000-03-21T23:47:00Z")
My brother got caught smoking tea – plain old orange pekoe. My mother busted in on him when she smelled it, because it smelt like chiba to her. She hollered her head off and he said, “No, mom, it’s just tea, I swear.” And apparently, the kid there smoking it with him was named Tepley. From then on he was known as Tepley Tea. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2000, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/6 "2000-03-22T00:32:00Z")
Well, some crazy Australians tried it, but without any ill effects (or at least none reported.) [Regimental History of The Royal New South Wales Lancers 1885-1985](http://www.ozemail.com.au/~bobcat2/historyframe.html) Click on Chapter 10 in the left-hand frame. > [@](#): > > Of course it was impossible to maintain these scales in such an operation as the pursuit up the Philistine Plain in November 1917, but the Army Service Corps did wonders in keeping food up to the column, while a certain amount of stores was captured from the Turks. At Beersheba, tinned meat, peas, raisins, rice, grain and tibbin were taken and each halt yielded something. Tobacco was very scarce and for a time the men were reduced to smoking tea. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2000, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/7 "2000-03-22T00:57:00Z")
You can get a slight buzz from smoking anything. Smoke contains carbon monoxide, which is recognized as oxygen by the lungs. This leads to an oxygen deficency in your blood, and makes a person feel lightheaded and a little silly. However, according to some of the more adventurous (stupid) boys I knew in high school, the buzz only lasts a few minutes (at most) and is followed by a blinding headache that is not worth the trouble. Oxygen deprivation and the placebo affect combined are responsible for dozens of variations on the “Smoking such-n-such packs a buzz” urban legends. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2000, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-tea/9006/8 "2000-03-22T17:13:00Z")
Try smoking some peppermint. Let me know what you think that it smells like.