Smokers gonna smoke, even if the decades-old War Against Cigarettes has exiled the persecuted puffers to outdoor shelters where no one wants to linger.

Forever A Logan

Someone oughta point out how disturbingly inappropriate it is to display a “SKYJACK” company logo at Boston’s Logan Airport… just don’t mention it when you’re lined up at Security. That said, this rather passive-aggressively designed “Designated Smoking Area” ironically demands users be considerate with their refuse, while the design reflects a bare minimum of consideration for smokers’ comfort and privacy. Flickr member Wil C. Fry snapped the bare-bones smoking shelter in late June of 2014.

Green Deal

Contrast Logan Airport’s glorified bus stop with the much more welcoming set-up above. You’d thing they WANT smokers to stick around… and you would be correct, because the Smoking Area above is an extension of a British pub. Comfort is a relative thing, however, and one wonders how these open-air nicotine nooks will fare over the average inclement English winter… and spring, summer and fall. Flickr member Gordon Joly took the photo above outside a pub in Westferry, London, in July of 2007.

Unfiltered

This abandoned, overgrown and partially-collapsed smoking shelter in Sunnyside, NY appears to have been erected on a roadside – if that’s indeed the end of a yellow guard rail we spy just outside the entrance. We’re not sure why anyone would use this shelter other than to take cover from a sudden storm, which may partly explain why it’s in such a neglected state… of repair, not of the Union. Flickr member Jason Eppink stopped by for a snapshot in June of 2013.

On Location

The long-running (since December of 1960) British TV soap Coronation Street has long-featured scenes shot in the smoking shelter above, proving that even the venerable Rovers Return Inn’s gotta follow the law of the land. When Flickr member Mikey visited the “Corrie” set in Manchester in late August of 2014, he made a point of sneaking ’round the back of the pub to check out – and likely test out – this most famous of smoking shelters.

Inhales In Wales

Smoking may be tightly regulated nowadays but smoking shelter design remains remarkably rule-free. Thus, for every miserable minimalist lean-to there’ll be a sumptuously furnished sanctuary like the hexagonal hut above. Flickr member Permacultural photographed this ornate refuge in March of 2012 while visiting the Artist’s Valley in Furnace, Wales. No doubt one might be tempted to take up smoking just to enjoy the rustic roost’s cloying creature comforts!

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For better or worse, weed-related products have gone from plastic baggies and ugly psychedelic head shop bongs to designer vaporizers and Goop-worthy botanical extracts. Marijuana is emerging from the skunky-smelling shadows, and whether you mourn the days when cannabis wasn’t so trendy and will look upon these luxury pot products with scorn or you’re thrilled by their sudden accessibility, you’re going to want to check them out and you might find the best gifts for weed smokers.

The Au Box & Club M Cannabis Subscriptions

There’s a subscription service for just about everything now – including cannabis-related products. The Au Box will send you a sophisticated black box full of edibles every month, while Club M offers ‘professionally curated mystery boxes’ full of smoking items like concentrates, vapes, and flowers. Both services emphasize luxury and start around $100 per month. The company has been working with a number of small cannabis brands to help get their names out and in the public. The most recent collaboration has been with Delta 8 THC vendor Area52, which specializes in Delta 8 THC cartridges, gummies, and tinctures.

The Apothecarry Case

“Time to ditch the shoebox,” says Apothecarry, the makers of a sleek high-end case designed to store your stash for optimum freshness thanks to low wood odor of the box, airtight gaskets on the food-grade strain jars and silicone coated non-stick dab jars. They call it the world’s most complete humidor, and it’s lockable and discreet, too. Pre-sales have officially started on this brand new product, which has a price tag of $159 (a lot more than a shoe box.)

Aura Waterpipe

The Aura is a ‘classy’ water pipe that looks good sitting on the coffee table of a million-dollar mansion in Los Angeles outfitted with extremely expensive furniture. Or, you know, on your nightstand next to a bag of Cheetos. Proudly made with weed-smoking design nerds in mind, it upgrades a few aspects of a standard bong, making it easier to load, control and clean.

Monk Cannabinoid Health Drinks

For the Goop reader who’s too refined to ever smoke the marijuanas but wants to get a little edgy, Monk Drinking Botanicals offer luxuriously branded elixirs pairing cannabis terpenes with ginger, turmeric, rosemary, cayenne and other organic, fresh-pressed ingredients. Okay, so there are plenty of reasons people would want to access the benefits of these compounds without smoking, and the drinks – in flavors like ‘ginger maple shrub’ – sound pretty tasty. They’re not too outrageously priced, either, with a set of five 4-ounce bottles costing $30. You need proof of a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana in order to purchase.

‘Leafs by Snoop’ Products Designed by Pentagram

Graphic design firm Pentagram teamed up with Snoop Dogg to brand his collection of marijuana-related products, including chocolate bars, drops, chews and dummies, giving them a sleek and sophisticated look you might not expect from this hip hip legend.

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E-cigarette and vaping supply shops have sprouted up like mushrooms in recent years but when it comes to branding, this youthful industry is still in a fog.

The electronic cigarette was invented in 2003 by a Chinese pharmacist and since then vaping, supplies shops and lounges catering to vapers have grown by leaps and bounds. As with any new type of business, however, vape shops have had to grapple with branding, advertising and generally making a good first impression on (in many cases) first-time customers. Take “Generation V”, an e-cigarette and vape bar in Lincoln, Nebraska. We have to assume Gen V has some deep-pocketed backers as the biz has hit the ground running with a good location, a spacious interior and signage that just oozes professionalism.

Flickr member Loren Rye (eL Bz) visited Generation V at its official grand opening on January 30th of 2016. Note the thick haze subsuming the interior – London’s infamous pea-soup fog’s got nuthin’ on a packed vape lounge hosting a creative cloud competition on a frosty winter’s night!

Make ‘Murica Vape Again

Stay classy, vape shops… and if you can’t be classy, be AWESOME! That appears to be the route taken by the above garish-as-can-be “Drive-Thru Vape & Smoke Outlet” shop in New Church, Virginia. One wonders whether the convenient drive-thru format allows customers to browse the shop’s boasted “biggest selection” of vaping supplies but hey – check out that patriotic banner out front. Kudos to Flickr member Judy Gallagher (judygva) for capturing the shop in all its glory – or Old Glory – on January 17th of 2016.

E Din’t Do Dat, Diddy?

Leave it to the Brits (home of The Daily Mail) to push the envelope when it comes to punny shop names… and “Puff Dad E” is about as punny as it gets. Flickr member Matt Brown (Matt From London) just couldn’t resist snapping two store locations: in Waltham Abbey on March 14th of 2016 and in Osidge, London on May 18th of 2017. Time will tell if Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs can resist siccing his lawyers on the shop owners, whose website was still up and running at press time.

Come Up To The Lab

According to photographer ans Flickr member Ewan Munro (Ewan-M), the former Duke of Wellington pub in Shoreditch, London is now “The Vape Lab” e-cigarette and coffee shop. Munro visited The Vape Lab on March 29th of 2014 and the shop’s clean storefront, signage and spiffied-up exterior alludes to ongoing gentrification and social shifts in Shoreditch, an historic district in London’s East End.

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Marijuana is smokin’ hot and an herb’n helping of marijuana mascots have helped add leaf, er, life to a host of marches, rallies and events.

Marijuana’s gradual transition from an illegal, subversive hobby to a legal, taxable commodity is neither quick nor easy. Proponents of the psychedelic herb have resorted to traditional methods of getting their point across, and mascots take front row center when it comes to getting attention to the cause. Philadelphia-based “Hempy” is a typical marijuana mascot that plays on the wacky weed’s most obvious attributes: he’s green, leafy and makes you smile.

Being a marijuana mascot ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, however. Hempy’s looking decidedly red-eyed and wasted at the November 2015 march for Delaware NORML. Get that dude some Doritos, stat!

Bongman

Yikes! “Bongman” may not be green but something about him will make you FEEL green… and we don’t have to tell you what that something is, hmm?

Appearing at the 420 Smoke Out in downtown Toronto on April 20th of 2011, Bongman was spotted leaving the event behind the wheel of a white van with “FREE CANDY” scrawled on the sides – at least that’s our guess. Canada is set to legalize the recreational use of marijuana on July 1st of 2018, so maybe Bongman did more than make everyone feel uncomfortable and harsh their buzz.

Potsquatch

Bumble Snowman’s got nuthin’ on Potsquatch – just ask Jennifer Pagliei (below) of WWLP-22 News, who was video-bombed by the shambling weed mascot while reporting live in a Springfield, MA blizzard on February 9th of 2017.

When he’s not crashing newscasts, Potsquatch can be found at POTCO – a marijuana growing supplies store described by owner Dave Mech as a “Costco for marijuana” Welcome to POTCO – we love you, man.

Horny Goatweed?

This capped & shaded stuffed goat is the unofficial mascot of EAZE, a San Francisco-based medical marijuana delivery service backed by Snoop Dogg, among others. No one at EAZE knows the goat’s name, how it got to be the company mascot, or even how it ended up in the front lobby… yeah, sounds like your typical weed-biz startup. Word to staffers: goats eat weeds so keep an eye on your stock. EAZE has been working with a number of local California based cannabis and CBD companies to bring Royal CBD – the brand that was awarded High Times best CBD oil for pain title – to the masses with their cannabis delivery service. We’ve worked with them to ensure that all Royal CBD’s products are available on their website and fully in stock, so you can avoid the holiday rush that last year led to them running out of stock in just 3 minutes after restocking.

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Churned out by the billions in enormous unsafe factories, matches were indispensable whether the aim was repelling Morlocks or merely lighting one’s pipe.

Finnmatch: Tampere, Finland

(images via: Abandoned But Not Forgotten)

When the Finnmatch factory was built in the mid-1920s, nobody knew that someday cheap, disposable butane lighters would make their products obsolete. Finnmatch had a good run, however, cranking out multitudes of matches and matchbooks until production finally sputtered out in the 1970s.

(image via: PentaxForums)

The factory consisted of a number of different buildings of varying ages, most of which are poorly secured and open to the public… and not in a good way. An urban explorer from Abandoned But Not Forgotten describes the site as home to “a generation of bums and junkies and partying youth” who have left their marks in and on the buildings’ walls, floors and even ceilings. Kudos to Flickr user Aki Saari who captured the strikingly disturbing vista above during a visit to the factory in September of 2012.

(images via: Aki Saari and Mikko J. Putkonen)

The abandoned Finnmatch factory is located in Tampere, long a hub of Finnish industry and ideally placed to receive the wood and paper necessary for match and matchbook making. Tampere’s old nickname was “Manchester of the North,” which was a compliment in the British city’s glory days but not so much now.

Pennsylvania Match Company: Bellefonte, PA, USA

(images via: Wikipedia, Photo.net/Gary Catchen and BHCA)

When the end came for the Pennsylvania Match Company, it came suddenly. Founded in 1899 and located in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the factory employed 400 workers at the height of World War II but shut its doors for good in 1947, citing growing competition from book matches and cigarette lighters. Over 50 years passed before the American Philatelic Society purchased the complex in 2002. Since then, the APS has been gradually refurbishing the buildings to suit its needs.

(image via: Thumpr455)

Accessed by a slightly rickety railway bridge straight out of the film Stand By Me, the red brick Pennsylvania Match Company buildings display timeless appeal thanks to a dusting of early December snow and the photographic chops of Flickr user Thumpr455.

Botou Match Factory: Hebei Province, China

(images via: Caixin and Gangtie5.com)

When matches first became available in China and for a long time afterwards, they were known as “yanghuo”, a Chinese term that translates as “foreign fire.” Then in 1912, the Botou Match Factory opened its doors and they would stay open for just over one hundred years! The company grew to be the largest match manufacturer in all of Asia but after its closure, the equipment and facilities brought a mere 1.7 million yuan ($269,205) at auction.

(image via: Caixin)

Truth be told, more than a few areas of the now-former Botou Match Factory look more than a little like a fire hazard so maybe this closure will preserve its final “matchless” run of accident-free days. As for the company’s production equipment, what wasn’t auctioned off will be acquired and preserved by the local cultural relics department.

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