Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an opium pipe.

1937

‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 115: This particular outfit, or ‘layout,’ consisted of six bowls and four stems, three small traveling lamps that burned peanut oil, a dozen yen hoks, (like a crochet hook, but finer and more flexible, used for preparing the opium pill) and three yen shee gows, steel instruments for removing the yen shee or ash from the inside of the bowl.

2. a pipe used for smoking marijuana; thus a pipeful of marijuana [? imported by veterans of the Vietnam War (1964–75), where pipes, rather than cigarettes were the preferred means of smoking].

1971		Current Sl. VI 3: Digging the bowls, v. To smoke marijuana from a pipe.
1985		(con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 36: This time I take the bowl when it comes around.
1997		(con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 72: Jerry filled a bowl and lit it.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 7: I clear my pipe with two loud raps on the mahagony table [and] stuff the bowl with homegrown.

3. a pipe of crack cocaine.

1993

R. Shell Iced 127: It’s the same feeling I keep chasing after; rock after rock, bowl after bowl.