Instead of smoking MMJ, vaporize it!

Inhaling Medical Marijuana is one if the fastest ways to obtain relief, as well as being one of the easiest methods of delivery to titrate. However, many people are understandably hesitant to inhale smoke. Our knowledge of the Cannabis plant and its various cannabinoids and terpenes has advanced rapidly and the dilemma of inhaling smoke has been mitigated. Enter, the vaporizer.

Vaporizers come in many shapes, sizes, price ranges and efficiencies. Vaporizers function by heating the MMJ to a desired temperature. Various cannabinoids (eg. THC and CBD) and terpenes vaporize at different temperatures, but all plant material combusts at a set point. Having researched the vaporization points, researchers have shown that the desired components of Cannabis can be accessed without combusting the plant material. No smoke is created, only vapors.

Seniors MMJ Network recently reviewed a study by Swiss researchers, which set out to determine if vaporizing Cannabis was a safe form of delivery and how effective various vaporizing devices are at delivering the desired cannabinoids and terpenes.

"Inhalation by vaporization is a promising application mode for cannabis in medicine. An in vitrovalidation of 5 commercial vaporizers was performed with THC-type and CBD-type cannabis. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to determine recoveries of total THC (THCtot) and total CBD (CBDtot) in the vapor. High-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection was used for the quantitation of acidic cannabinoids in the residue and to calculate decarboxylation efficiencies.

Vaporizers decarboxylate cannabinoid acids at about 200°C and release neutral, volatile cannabinoids, which enter the systemic circulation via pulmonary absorption from the vapor [22]. The non-pyrolytic vaporization avoids the formation of hazardous combustion products, such as tar, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), carbon monoxide, and other carcinogens (e.g. benzene) [22–25]. Gieringer and co-workers demonstrated the advantages of cannabis vaporization compared to smoking and showed that the formation of combustion products is suppressed almost completely.

Recoveries of THCtot and CBDtot in the vapor of 4 electrically-driven vaporizers were 58.4 and 51.4%, 66.8 and 56.1%, 82.7 and 70.0% and 54.6 and 56.7% for Volcano Medic®, Plenty Vaporizer®, Arizer Solo® and DaVinci Vaporizer®, respectively. Decarboxylation efficiency was excellent for THC (≥ 97.3%) and CBD (≥ 94.6%).

In summary, the 4 electrically-driven and temperature-controlled vaporizers investigated in this study efficiently decarboxylate acidic cannabinoids and release reliably the corresponding neutral cannabinoids into the vapor. Therefore, they can be considered as a promising application mode for the safe and efficient administration of medicinal cannabis and cannabinoids. However, after the present in vitro validation clinical tests are required to confirm the efficiency of vaporizers as therapeutic application tools."

You can find the full report HERE

As you can see from those quick stats, some units are more effective than others at delivering the "full strength" of the vaporized Cannabis. For this study, actual flower aka dry herb / bud / weed, was used. In todays market, you will find a variety of vaporizers for the various forms of MMJ concentrates (oils, shatters and waxes). Vaporizes for "dry herb" and vaporizers for concentrates often use different methods of heating, not all vaporizers will effectively accommodate both. For a good quality vaporizer, you can spend $150-$550, many of the cheaper $40-$80 vaporizers will actually cause some combustion of the plant material, which will cause you to inhale smoke. New products are rapidly coming to market but there definitely are a few "tried and true" vaporizers such as the Volcano and the Arizer products like the solo and air.

Vaporizing is just one of many methods of administration for Medical Marijuana. If you are hesitant to inhale anything, edibles, tinctures or patches might be a more pleasing alternative. Thanks to the legalization of Medical Marijuana in over half of the US, new standards for testing and quality control are being adopted. Gone are the days of guessing the approximate dosage. Today, slight variations can lead to entire batches of products falling outside of legal guidelines and therefore need to be destroyed. When millions of dollars are at stake, companies take the extra time to do things proper. Which is another great reason for the legalization of Cannabis.

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