
Fear of a White Lighter - samclemens
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/white-lighter-marijuana-legend-myth-folklore-superstition
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Para2016
From article: "So when marijuana smokers would use white lighters to pack down
their bowls, the lighter would get stained with ash and resin, which the cops
could then use to bust them"

Yea I'll buy that. I smoked cigarettes but not weed for a few years and the MJ
smokers I knew didn't like white lighters for that reason. They didn't say
they were unlucky though.

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NTripleOne
I don't get that, "You're under arrest for having smoked weed in the past even
though you have nothing on you!"

Makes no sense.

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Doxin
'You're under arrest for having murdered in the past even though you have no
murder weapon on you!'

I'm not at all in favor of criminalising recreational drugs, But arresting
someone for having done something illegal without them currently doing said
illegal thing makes sense.

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NTripleOne
Murder is a (mostly) provable thing though, you can't prove someone smokes
weed because their lighter is a little charred.

I'm also pretty sure it's not even the act of smoking weed that's illegal,
it's the possession (at least that's the case in the UK) - you can't nab
someone for possession because they possessed at some point in the past,
because that is - by definition - no longer possession.

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dandelany
This superstition is the reason I _only_ buy white lighters :) other colors
seem to disappear when someone borrows one and forgets to return it. But no
one forgets to return the white lighter, because they think it's unlucky!
Their bad luck is my good luck.

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lojack
My unscientific theory is that white lighters are less likely to work. The bic
lighters that have all the cool designs on them are actually a plastic wrap,
and as they get older the wrap tends to peel away and eventually reveals a
white lighter. So, it stands to reason that if you have a white lighter it is
probably older, and older lighters are more likely to be low on fuel.

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rdtsc
I think it's people building stories and rituals related to their addiction.
Other drug users do it, gamblers do it...

Or maybe to put it less negatively, the more people think about something they
enjoy, the more likely they are to create folklore about it.

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Neliquat
I always just figured it was a filtering/signaling mechanism. People who have
the habit are more likely 'down', white lighter = narc, etc.

