Is Vaping Weed Is Healthier Than Smoking?

Vaping cannabis is a modern alternative to smoking joints. Vaporizing the cannabis is heating the dry herb flower material to a temperature below the combustion point. It produces a stream of vapor, which is sucked in through the mouthpiece. There are many different kinds of vapes used for this, but the most common ones these days are **[dry herb vape pens]

Is [ smoking marijuana ]) better than smoking cigarettes?" Better" is subjective. They are entirely different, so it depends on what you expect from the experience - but they can all do damage to your lungs! This is one reason that vapes or “vaporization” of marijuana have become increasingly popular over the past few years. But what’s vaping, and is it safe?

Which is less harmful?

Based on the available evidence, smoking joints seems to be more harmful than vaping. However, that does not mean vaping isn’t without some risk.

People who atomize marijuana with vapes believe it has health benefits and finds it safer and less harmful than smoking joints. Besides, cannabis vapes are designed explicitly for inhalation and are free of deleterious tobacco-toxins.

But what do the researchers say? Will vaping reduce the intake of potentially harmful toxins such as tar and carcinogens found in marijuana joints? From the few studies done over the years on the vaporization of marijuana, they all conclude that the same thing. That vaporization does produce fewer carcinogenic compounds than smoking marijuana. Although cannabis smoke is often thought of as less toxic than cigarette smoke, both share many carcinogens.
A 2007 report in [ science daily ] showed that “marijuana smoke contains significantly higher levels of several toxic compounds – including ammonia and hydrogen cyanide – than tobacco smoke.”

So it is logical to assume that it can cause similar lung and respiratory problems.

One of the first studies to compare smoking with vaporization, based on self-reported symptoms of smoking, showed less effect on breathing through atomization.

Advantages of vaping

The most obvious reason to consider vaping over smoking is healthy, but there are other added benefits. Vaporized cannabis allows you to taste different varieties of cannabis and control the temperature, its generally more conveniently and more discreet than smoking.

  • More pronounced taste: vapor usually produces a more pronounced flavor than smoking. You can get a better taste of the terpenes and cannabinoids of each strain, and smoking kills the taste and nuance of each strain.
  • Temperature control: Most [ weed vaporizers ]) have adjustable temperature settings that let you control the temperature throughout the process. Finding the optimal temperature for smoking pot requires trial and error, but it can produce a range of effects, from mild and uplifting to a more intense euphoric experience.
  • It’s safer than smoking: vaping is better for your health, according to current research, and you don’t need an open flame. If you are health-conscious but want to hit some herbs, it is easy to switch to vaping.
  • No lighters/matches: vapes don’t need an external heat source, so you’ll never get caught in the out without a lighter, and additionally, there’s no risk of burning yourself or anything else for that matter.
  • Discreet: One of the great attractions of vaping marijuana is that it doesn’t produce as much odor. If you vape at lower temperatures, then the vapor smells much less than smoke, so if you want to avoid drawing attention to yourself, then using them is a wise choice.

The disadvantage of vaping

There is limited data on the long-term effects of vaping because it is still relatively new.

Vaping is still putting something into your body, and that does have risks:

  • There have been several reports that vaping may have long term health risks and damage the lungs, but it is still unknown yet. This is why in 2019, health authorities started investigating if an outbreak of severe[ lung disease could be associated with e-cigarettes] and other vaping products. This was later linked to an additive in some THC-containing e-cigarette or vaping products. However, dry herb vaporizers were not related to this.
  • When your vaping free radicals are released into the body, these can promote the development of cancer.
  • Weaken the immune system.
  • Delay brain development in fetuses, children, and adolescents.
  • Future research may show that vaping can have other long-term health effects that scientists have yet to discover.
  • Some have also reported exploding batteries due to faulty batteries, but many of these were in inferior products not made well.

Advantages of Smoking

The main benefit of smoking compared to vape is that it usually has a more powerful overall effect. Nor does smoking require much investment. Plus, the whole smoking ritual can be addictive – roll up a joint or pack some herb in your favorite glass bong, which is another reason why some people still smoke the old-fashioned way. Finally, smoking is relatively inexpensive to maintain, and it’s easy to roll up your joint or a cigarette, and its the most portable way to smoke.

  • No investment required: Smoking does not require an up-front investment unless you are buying a large glass bong. It is much cheaper to buy some cigarette paper, and all you need is that your weed a roach, and a lighter. It doesn’t get much more straightforward.
  • Smoking is a ritual: the whole process of rolling, packaging, and smoking can almost become a ritual. For some people, breaking this routine can be difficult.
  • No learning curve: Smoking is accessible and doesn’t require a lot of practice. Anyone can light a joint or bowl. Vaping weed can be a little trial and error. Finding which temperature is best for the different strains of herb you want to hit requires some time investment to acquire the experience and knowledge.
  • Low maintenance costs: Pipes or vape require some routine maintenance, such as cleaning. On the other hand, in addition to having to roll joints, the maintenance cost of the joints is relatively low.
  • If you forget to recharge it and run out of power, your vape is useless.

The disadvantage of smoking

In the long run, smoking will do a lot of harm to the body:

  • Reduce sperm count
  • Increased risk in pregnant women that their child could have a congenital disability
  • Increases the risk of cataracts
  • Impairs immune system function
  • Exacerbating systemic inflammation
  • It can cause cancer in almost any part of the body, including the lungs, kidneys, and stomach
  • Trigger an asthma attack
  • Causes obstruction of veins and arteries
  • Increases the risk of stroke
  • Reduces a person’s overall health, which can lead to other compounded medical issues.

Is vaping weed better than smoking?

“Better” is very subjective, but the majority of studies would indicate it does less harm. For example, if you’re looking for a safer, more discreet way to smoke, or if you’re a medical marijuana patient, it might be for you. But smoking is the cheapest way to do it. Just keep in mind the downside that comes with it.

The choice is yours, but every smoker should at least try vaping to see if they like it. The difference between smoking marijuana and smoking vaping marijuana can be huge. With a good vape, the taste will be more mellow, with different varieties of taste more noticeable. Terpene connoisseurs who start using [ vapes ]will find it hard to return to putting their precious buds in joint instead of enjoying every drop of flavor.

I went through and deleted all links to products. Please do not do that again.

That is all.

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okayi know

From my personal experience yes it’s a lot better, just avoiding dry throat from weed combustion is enough to defend it as my favorite way of consuming cannabis

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Here is our experience, FWIW. I think it is apples and oranges and depend on your goal.

We do four methods:

Vape oil pen: when traveling this is just easier. My husband flies a lot, or did before the pandemic, and a vape cartridge is easier to take and never taken away by TSA, at least yet. Will use this when I am just absolutely lazy and do not want to deal with rolling a joint or loading the PAX. Or when I cycle around on my touring bicycle.

For ever we used the PAX and loved it. Then the PAX malfunctioned recently and we had to resort to rolling joints. This was new to us. Yes, we are the old folks who drank and never got in with the pothead crowd. Oh our regret today!

Joints

And an electronic dab rig. Focus Cart V

Now my take on effects:

The vape oil pen hits hard and tends at times to make my chest hurt. We go for strain specific and clean carts. Bloom, Bonanza, Craft Reserve, and a strain specific one grown in NM we pick up in Albuquerque called Everest. What I noticed one day vaping in the house, my bad I know, but the sunlight was streaming in through a window casting that hazy look, it is alway dusty here. I noticed this ghost like cloud just lingering in that ray of sun for a good long while after I vaped. Like 5 minutes. That concerns me as this is something I do not want coating my lungs. And that alone has decreased the vape oil considerably.

PAX: this is great for terpenes. I didn’t realize how much cannabis we were wasting though and how much of the effects we were missing.

Joints: oh glory! Nothing is more pleasing than a joint. The whole rolling process and the social aspect with my husband. What I have noticed, and I noticed this years ago when we smoked one with our son, is that nothing clears up my asthma like a joint. My dad told me in the ‘old’ days his mother and her friends would sit on the porch and smoke their ‘asthma’ medicine. I had thought the PAX or oil pen would help and it wasn’t until we started using joints that we both realized how wrong we were. We also are finally getting the feeling the descriptions of strains using a joint. So, I would agree to disagree on smoking triggering asthma. I can actually clear my lungs with a join way better than my nebulizer treatment with DuoNebs. I cannot do that all the time as I might need to drive somewhere, etc. Cannabis smoking is not the same as nicotine smoking. We don’t even cough but we do smoke high quality organic cannabis. If it does make us cough I can pretty much bet it has been grown with something like Miracle Grow.

Dab Rig: this is okay and we just use this when we have shatter or wax. But it is a pain in the butt to clean. We did do herb in it, but with the joint, we don’t bother. Plus, I have issues with hand grip and am afraid I am going to drop this spendy little gadget.

I truly do not think one is better than the other. But as a medical professional I am very leery of over use of the oil pens. You are getting a whole lot of sticky oil in your lungs and that is not good.

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I have a Extremely rare lung condition and have a multidisciplinary team of 14 doctors in Calgary Alberta , they communicate with the Mayo clinic.
I told them I have started vaping since legalization 2 years ago about 7 days a month (I work 2 weeks on one week off)

According to all these doctors who are lung specialist


Yes vaping is extremely less harmful, so much so that my amount of vaping they arnt to worried about. That being said putting anything in your lungs aside from air is bad but at this rate it’s not gonna cause me an issue, although they siad I should switch to edibles but the high is different and they understand that.

They just said if I do get a double lung transplant I can’t vape anymore.

Now if your want medical study’s go google for journals but I’m not gonna link anything right @Myfriendis410

Any link is okay so long as they aren’t selling something. I think it’s a worthwhile topic too.

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I’m looking
 Unfortunately the popularity of vape cartiages and E-vapes is clogging my search

And the harmful effects of high concentration of oils or black market cartiages that end up causing major harm /death.

Okay here we are, i actually have the full journal because im taking online university and my girls in nursing so we can access alot.
Most wont have this acess and i can not share but i will share highlights later
But vaperizing flower is currently the safest method of consumption and that’s why I own a volcano =)

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I bought an ‘Alternate’ by Vivant. It’s turned out to be a good travel unit and I should get it out and start using it. It’s very portable and I like the terpene profile that comes through although my wife says it has a ‘plasticky’ note.

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Here you go for everyone who doesn’t have access to medical journals.
Buy a Volcano or a Mighty/Craft and smoke Safe

In a series of studies the vaporizing of cannabis samples was systematically tested to show its advantage over smoking. When a variety of smoking devices (including water pipes) were compared, specifically examining THC and solid smoke tars, it was found that only vaporizers were capable of achieving reductions in tar relative to THC when compared to direct smoking of cannabis.7,8 A follow‐up study tested a vaporizer that was found to deliver THC while completely eliminating three specific toxins (naphthalene, benzene, and toluene) in the solid phase of the vapor.9 The study also detected a ≄56% reduction in tars and a qualitative reduction in carbon monoxide, but did not test for any other chemicals.10 In a more recent study,11 GC‐mass‐spectrometry was used to analyze the gas phase of vaporized cannabis for a wide range of toxins, particularly concentrating on the highly carcinogenic polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The vaporizer that was used was the VolcanoÂź.12 It consists of a heater, a ventilator, a filling chamber, a valve, and a balloon. During operation the balloon is inflated with hot air and cannabinoid vapors. Using cannabis plant material as the sample, vapors were found to consist overwhelmingly of cannabinoids, while the combusted control contained over one hundred additional chemicals, including several known PAHs.

Although a large variety of vaporizing devices is available on the market, the Volcano is one of the few devices that have been tested scientifically to some extent. It is a herbal vaporizer, intended for the vaporization of whole cannabis plant materials (i.e., flowertops), but numerous unexplored variables could affect the efficiency and output of vaporization. These parameters are variations in temperature; differences in specimen density, weight, content of water and essential oils, and consistency of material in the filling chamber; differences in the variety and potency of cannabis used; and use of different preparations such as crude flowertops, hashish, hash oil, etc. Because of the paucity of data it has so far been difficult to show that the Volcano vaporizer can be used as a reliable tool for the reproducible administration of THC or other cannabinoids. A solution to this would be in the use of pure cannabinoid preparations of known concentration to guarantee an exact and reproducible loading of cannabinoids.

In this study the Volcano vaporizer was evaluated as a novel method for the administration of THC. Pure cannabinoid preparations were used in order to obtain quantitative results in terms of efficiency and reproducibility of THC delivery into the balloon of the Volcano. By changing parameters such as temperature setting, type of evaporation sample, and balloon volume, the vaporization of THC was systematically improved to its maximum yield, while preventing the formation of degradation products. Factors that resulted in loss of THC by condensation, that is, storage time of the balloon and use of the filling chamber, were evaluated. The inter‐device reproducibility of THC vaporization under optimized conditions was determined. Finally, the results of this study were used for the clinical administration of THC by vaporizing. The amount of exhaled THC was determined and compared to the dose, which was inhaled through the Volcano.

Our results indicate that the Volcano is a convenient device for the administration of THC by inhalation.

The Volcano¼ vaporizer was validated for the efficient and reproducible delivery of delta‐9‐THC, and was found to be able to deliver an average amount of about 54% of applied dose of THC into the balloon for inhalation. THC recoveries from smoke was found to range from 34% to 69% in a variety of studies using different types of smoking procedures.19-21 Because the plant material is not burned in the Volcano, no significant harmful cancer causing combustion products are expected and the noxious intake, when compared to smoking, is greatly reduced.10,11 Using the Volcano device for pulmonary administration of THC, a delivery is reached that is comparable to smoking, but without the presence of degradation products or harmful byproducts in significant amounts.

Loading the Volcano with Cannabis plant material or pure THCA resulted in a residual amount of THCA in the vapor in the order of 5% relative to THC. Not much is known about biological effects or metabolism of THCA, and therefore the use of THCA as sample for intended clinical administration of pure THC should be avoided. Older studies at least indicate that THCA is not psychoactive in monkeys.22 Although in our study cannabis plant material was used only for comparative reasons, it is clear that a variety of cannabinoids and other compounds such as terpenoids are present in the vapor.

With pure THC as the loading sample, temperature setting and balloon volume were optimized for a maximal, reproducible delivery of THC without formation of detectable amounts of degradation products. Using the highest temperature setting together with a balloon volume of 8 L was found to yield optimal results. Balloon volumes over 8 L were not tested because of restraints in the clinical trial protocol. The target temperature of the Volcano was found to be not completely accurate and stable. Possibly this is a contributing factor to the relative variability in the delivery of THC, which was about 15% at setting 9. However, this is reasonable when compared to the variability that has been previously found in smoking studies of cannabis plant material.19 Accuracy of temperature control therefore does not seem to be of crucial importance under these conditions, although a more accurate temperature control might result in an even lower variability in THC delivery.

In the range of 2–8 mg of THC, the delivery was found to be linear with the amount of THC used. Prolonged storage of the balloon before inhalation resulted in an increasing loss of THC by condensation inside the balloon and after 3 h almost no THC could be recovered from the vapor in the balloon. However, if the content was extracted within 5 min after vaporization not more than 2% of THC present was lost. Vaporized THC was visible inside the balloon as a thin gray mist which was absent in placebo balloons, so during the clinical trial balloons had to be blinded with a black plastic cover.

During the clinical administration, it was found that about 35% of total THC was exhaled directly after inhalation and was therefore not absorbed by the lungs. When the efficiency of delivery during vaporizing and incomplete absorption by the lungs is considered, the final administered dose equaled about 6–8 mg of THC of the total amount of 20 mg loaded. The subjective effect upon the subjects seemed to be in accordance with such a dose as described in other papers.So it seems that a final uptake of 30–40% was reached (relative to loaded amount of THC), which is comparable to the efficiency reached by smoking of cannabis.
-Copyright © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

@Myfriendis410 yes you should but if you don’t like it or the wife doesn’t then look at a Mighty or a Crafty. Due to Covid we don’t need a new portable but thats the route we will be going as we use a Boundless CFV before due to it being the cheap version but still being convection method.
@Not2SureYet
@Bulldognuts
@dbrn32
@MattyBear
@Hellraiser
@imSICKkid

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To note this study uses straight THC and compares it to flower but then for the rest of the study it focuses on the straight THC used in the volcano.
They found tjat the highest setting and an 8L bag is the best for administration efficiency.
That being said i have personally used a volcano and the vapor is so thick and harsh at that setting, it also destroys terps so i recommend 5.5 setting personally. The nice this is we as growers dont need it to be ultra efficient because we often grow a fair amount of supply, so enjoy the smoke as much as it is safe for you and dial it back.

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@JrsGarden This above may interest you

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Hey people
 I was wondering if you can do anything with the left over vaped material. Anything left for edibles? Hope everyone is well.

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I use my AVB for edibles. I grind it fine and mix it with apple sauce or cottage cheese. Another way is to toast an English muffin, add Peanut Butter. Sprinkle AVB. For dosing i would start with one teaspoon first and adjust from there. Do not, I repeat do not take too much. Start off slow and increase in 10% increments. Everyone is different in dosing and timefame. For example I dose about 1 tablespoon and it takes about an hour to kick in. It lasts about 6 to 8 hours. Have fun :+1: :blush: but remember start slowly.

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Hey @Pistol AVB stands for?

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Solid advice on dosing :+1:
:v:

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Already vaped bud or some people say ABV. Already been vaped but that’s also alcohol by volume. Which can confuse some people.

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Thank you
 I assumed but you know how that goes!.. LOL

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Good information Nicky. Thanks

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