Parents, would you be able to spot marijuana paraphernalia if you saw it? What about hash or hash oil?  Make sure you know what today's kids are using to smoke cannabis, and make sure you'll recognize it if you see it.

Marijuana is generally sold dried and is sometimes compressed for easier transport. Better marijuana will often look almost covered in tiny crystals.

Hash, or hashish, is a more concentrated form of marijuana. What it is is the collected resins off of the marijuana leaves. The THC content of hash is generally much higher by weight than the THC content of green marijuana. Hash can be oily or even dry and crumbly, depending on where it came from and how it was produced.

Hash oil is an even further concentrated form of hash. Hash oil generally has the highest quantity of THC by weight. It is often sold in small glass vials, or in the tops of metal beer bottle caps. 

Cigarette rolling papers are used to roll joints. This is probably the most commonly used form of paraphernalia. 

Cigars are sometimes emptied out of their tobacco and restuffed with marijuana to form a blunt. 

One of the simplest ways to smoke marijuana or hash is simply through a small pipe. The smoke from a pipe can be very hot and irritating.  

A variant on the common marijuana pipe is the water bong. A bong channels hot smoke through a layer of water, cooling and hydrating the smoke. This cooler smoke is less irritating to the throat and lungs, and can be inhaled more deeply. 

Creative smokers will use any number of devices to smoke with.  

Although I could not find a picture of this one, if you find butter or steak knives with blackened burnt tips, they may have been used to smoke hash. The blades are heated on the stove and then two knives are pressed on a crumb of hash to burn it for smoke. 

The preceding pics represent just a fraction of the available paraphernalia out there, but these are many of the more commonly used types of smoking gear.

If you see rolling papers around, the odds are high that the carrier of the papers is smoking joints - and if your son or daughter has a bong hidden in their room - there is little other explanation for what they are doing with it.

Whatever your thoughts on marijuana use or abuse, you should be informed and educated about the pros and cons of cannabis (yes there are pros), and be ready to have a frank and honest discussion with your kids, hopefully before you find paraphernalia hidden about!

If you do find something, remember that many kids experiment with marijuana, and very few of these kids go on to have any serious problems. Don't panic, do talk.  

Good luck.