Vaporizing- definitely one of my preferrential ways of smoking medical marijuana.
As an alternative to smoking a joint, vaporization avoids the production of irritating toxic and carcinogenic by-products by heating the material so its active compounds boil off into a vapor. A very delicious, vapor, at that. No combustion occurs, so no smoke or taste of smoke is present. It’s been said that long-term use decreases the chances of getting a “smoker’s cough”, and that injesting MMJ this way helps to conserve your stash- and I’ve found both of these things to be true.
Setting up a vaporizer for the first time can be daunting, though. What looks like a pretty simple machine can easily have you confused, wasting weed, and/or burning your fingers. So, I’ve put together a few pointers based on CannabisSearch Facebook submissions:
What is the best temperature to vaporize at?
This is a debatable topic, and is mostly based on personal preference. Although I definitely recommend keeping your vaporizer between 200 and 350 degrees fahrenheit, it’s important to just take some time to get to know your vaporizer, the potency of the marijuana that you’re vaporizing, and your preference for the density of the vapor.
I like to keep my convection “box” vaporizer at about 280 degrees fahrenheit, which is warm enough to for the CBD, CBN, & THC to vaporize without torching my herbs. Being modest with temperature also increases the number of ways that you can use the vaporized pot to make hash oil, edibles, et cetera.
How do I know when there is no more left to vaporize?
There are two primary ways to know when the vaporizer is cashed:
1. Your vaporizer turns off automatically, and it knows you’re high. This is a common feature with these pieces of equipment, and oh how necessary it is! It isn’t very hard to forget you’re toking after a few puffs of some good OG Kush.
2. There is no more vapor pulling through your whip, or filling into whatever container you’re using to injest the vapor.
How much weed do I use in my vaporizer?
A gram or less usually does the trick! Pick out your prettiest little nug and break it up well- solid, “stone like” pieces will not burn as well if you pack them into the vaporizer whole.
Can I still make use of vaporized weed?
Although I’ve known people who actually smoke the vaporized weed, I recommend against doing that. For one, you’re already high, and two- the taste of a cashed joint is putrid. What you can do, though, is turn it into CannaButter for some edibles, dissolve it into Bubble Hash, or even make some Tincture.
Here’s a step-by-step video that I made using a small box vaporizer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTaU0Bo0h5Q&feature=youtu.be
