There are still a lot of misconceptions about vaping cannabis. Why has using a dry herb vape become so popular, and how does vaping marijuana compare with smoking weed? What about tobacco smoke?
Does using a vape have health benefits? Are the effects of vaping more harmful for your lungs? The effects of smoking are better known by most people, so let's discuss the differences between vaping and smoking.
Vaping Compared to Smoking
Vaping is when you inhale a vapor created by the heating, but not burning, of dry herb, cannabis oil, or tobacco. There are many different types of vaporizers, and each has its own unique benefits and drawbacks.
With dry herb vaporizers, you're not actually vaporizing the plant matter. You're vaporizing the oils and liquids in the dry herbs, and then inhaling them without combustion or smoke of any kind. You'll experience the effects of the cannabinoids (THC or CBD) of the cannabis.
Cannabis smoke is actually missing some of these active ingredients because some of the THC and CBD gets burned away and wasted. So when you smoke cannabis, you're missing out. To learn more, check out our introduction to dry herb vaporizers.
But the main reason why vaping weed is better than smoking a joint is that it reduces the throat irritation that people commonly experience with smoking. It's also less harmful to the respiratory system and lungs, eliminating most of the toxins in smoke and the combustion process.
However, it is not healthy for pets, especially dogs. Here's the latest research on dogs eating THC.
Different types of weed vaporizers
Dry herb vapes come in a huge range of shapes and sizes, and produce less odor than smoking cannabis. They are usually portable, and sometimes pocketable. Desktop vaporizers have some big differences, and pros and cons. They give great performance, and are great for sharing due to the larger size. But they’re less versatile for cannabis vaping because you can only use them at home.
Generally speaking, the average dry herb vaporizer is easy to operate. All you need to do is grind your marijuana and load the herb into the vape chamber. Then, heat up the device to the target temperature, and enjoy the vapor.
Benefits of Vaping vs Smoking
Vaporizing dry herb is more efficient with your weed, saving you money each session, and has far fewer negative health impacts than smoking marijuana. Vaping allows you to enjoy the complexity of the terpenes in the different dry herbs you can vape, and the flavor comes through more clearly than when you're smoking cannabis.
Another of the things that people love about vaping using dry herb vaporizers is that they have greater control over their vapor output. Smaller vaping devices are not only designed for maximum convenience and portability, they're also intended for situations where you might want low vapor output.
Fine temperature control means you can keep the vapor and odor levels lower if you want to, which keeps things even healthier and more discreet. Smoking on the other hand has a strong smell, and combustion can’t be controlled as easily. Check out our article on the benefits of dry herb vaporizers for more info.
Differences Between Vaping: Conduction and Convection
There are many different types of vaporizers on the market that you can choose, depending on your preferences. Dry herb vaporizers heat up marijuana using a heating chamber made of stainless steel, ceramic or quartz, most commonly through either conduction or convention.
Conduction is when the dry herb is heated up directly, and convection is when hot air is circulated around and through the cannabis. Both heat the material, vaporizing the oils and liquids which creates the vapor that you can inhale.
You can find excellent vapes of both types, and most portable vapes tend to be conduction-style, while it’s easier to find a convection vaporizer that’s a desktop model.
Forced air vapes have a fan that circulates hot air through the weed and then collected into a detachable bag. The vapor is then inhaled using the bag instead of the device itself.
Whip-style vaporizers are similar, and are very familiar to anyone who has ever smoked using a hookah. A heating element is used to heat up the dry or wet materials and the vapor is inhaled using a whip with a mouthpiece attached to one end.
Choosing a Dry Herb Vaporizer
It's easy to see why vaping weed has become so popular. It's a great alternative to smoking that allows people to enjoy everything they love about cannabis with few of the health downsides of marijuana and cigarette smoke. Less odor, better flavor, less throat and lung irritation, and more efficient use of your herb are only a few of the benefits.
If portability and convenience are important to you, have a look at the Furna vape, which introduces a new innovation to the dry herb vaporizer: swappable ovens.
With most dry herb vaporizers, you have to clean and reload the oven any time you want to use them, which can get tricky if you’re on the go, and can’t easily find a place to reload. It makes a portable vaporizer not feel portable at all.
With the Furna vaporizer, you can pack as many ovens as you want before you go, and easily swap a used one for a fresh one whenever you need it. It’s no hassle to clean, and easy to stay discreet. And it even features specialized ovens for concentrates, making it just as simple to enjoy cannabis concentrates with the same swapping system. Check out Furna vapes now!
