Inhalation is one of the more popular ways of consuming cannabis due to its speed and ease. Smoking blunts and joints were and still are the most common way of inhaling marijuana. Of course, smoking isn’t the healthiest way to consume cannabis. It’s also counterintuitive since cannabis is most commonly used to supplement treatments for different medical conditions.

Due to the oxymoronic nature of smoking medical cannabis, companies started figuring out new ways to inhale marijuana. In comes vaporizers, which haven’t supplanted smoking, but they have become popular. Here’s the difference between vaporizing and smoking.

How Do Vaporizing and Smoking Differ?

Vaporizing differs from smoking in that it doesn’t burn your cannabis; instead, it heats it up enough to activate the marijuana’s chemicals. Once heated enough, the chemicals are released and mixed into the vapor, after which it’s inhaled. In contrast, smoking is heated up without an upper limit. The idea is to burn the marijuana and inhale the smoke, which contains the terpenes and cannabinoids in the weed.

A person smoking a joint

Which is Better?

Vaporizing was popularized as a healthier way to inhale marijuana than smoking. However, since it’s a recent development, the research on its safety is still developing. Still, there are some apparent benefits that it has over smoking:

It’s Probably Healthier: Though the safety of vaping is still up in the air, there’s general agreement that it’s healthier than smoking. Since vaping doesn’t burn the weed, it doesn’t release as many free radicals or toxins as smoking. Additionally, smoke releases tar, which is anathema for your lungs.

It’s More Efficient: While burning in marijuana activates the chemicals that generate its effects, it also burns away some of those chemicals. Since vaporizing cannabis involves heating it up much less, you don’t lose out on the marijuana’s potency.

Flavor Variability: Cannabis contains chemicals called terpenes that give marijuana its flavor and smell. These have different boiling points, so by heating up marijuana to different temperatures, which you can do with a vaporizer, you can get different tastes.

There are more neutral differences between smoking and vaping too. For instance, smoking results in more relaxing and impairing highs, whereas vaping has more functional highs.

If you have a qualifying condition for medical marijuana in New York, California, or Minnesota, contact us at IndicaMD. We provide medical cannabis cards in Manhattan, Queens, and other places throughout New York, California, and Minnesota.