A bong, also commonly known as a water pipe, is a smoking device, generally used to smoke cannabis, tobacco, or other substances. The construction of a bong and its principle of action is similar to that of the hookah, which is also called "water pipe." A bong may be constructed from any air- and water-tight vessel by adding a bowl and stem apparatus (a slide). The word bong is an adaptation of the Thai word baung, a cylindrical wooden tube, pipe, or container cut from bamboo, and which also refers to the bong used for smoking.

Bongs have been in use, primarily by the Hmong, in Laos and Thailand, for centuries. One of the earliest recorded uses of the word in the West is the McFarland Thai-English Dictionary, published in 1944, which describes one of the meanings of bong in the Thai language as, "a bamboo waterpipe for smoking kancha, tree, hashish, or the hemp-plant." A January 1971 issue of the Marijuana Review also used the term. The rationale behind the use of a bong is the claim that the cooling effect of the water helps to reduce the chance of burning the mouth, airways, and lungs, thus many claim that using a bong to smoke is safer.

The water can trap some heavier particles and water-soluble molecules, preventing them from entering the smoker's airways. Thus the mechanics of a bong function similarly to those of a laboratory gas washing bottle. This "filtration" can lead to the belief that bongs are less damaging than other smoking methods.

However, a 2000 NORML-MAPS study found that "water pipes filter out more psychoactive THC than they do other tars, thereby requiring users to smoke more to reach their desired effect". In the study, smoke from cannabis supplied by the NIDA was drawn through a number of smoking devices and analyzed. An inhalation machine, adjusted to mimic the puff length of cannabis smokers, drew smoke through a standard bong, a small portable bong with a folding stem, a bong with a motorized paddle that thoroughly mixes the smoke with the water, and two different types of vaporizers.

Comparisons to traditional non-filtered smoking methods were not included in these experiment.

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