You can make a very bitter tea with it. I've donated mine to a local brewery. There's not really much access to wet hops around here. So I'm excited to try the beer they're making in a couple months.
I’m waiting for mine to finish exploding and finishing up. My buddy mentioned that they should be full of yellow pollen(?) before collecting? Does your variety just not produce much?
It's also my first year. Trust me my hands were yellow and sticky by the time I was finished picking.
What I've read online says you should pick them when they start getting firmer and having a papery feel to them, and outsides start getting sticky from the resin.
They're so pretty.
...what would happen if I ground one up and smoked it?
Don't know, I don't smoke.
According to a websearch, it tastes like hops.
And I'm getting conflicting reports of a light sedative effect. But that's probably just oxygen deprivation.