This is a great question. The short answer is: people like it different ways! Using inhalation (combustion, vaporizing) methods has some distinct advantages. Because of the pulmonary vasculature being fed by an extensive system of blood vessels, the time to onset of cannabis effects when items are breathed in is the quickest of all the intake methods (quick fact: administering medications via the lungs/ pulmonary route is the 2nd quickest method of drug administration, 2nd only to directly injecting a medication via IV). However, these meds get flushed out pretty quickly and so re-dosing is usually needed within 1-2 hrs. Let’s compare this to ingestion/ edibles; because the cannabinoids have to be absorbed by the stomach and the blood vessels of the gut, time to onset of effects can be anywhere from @45 minutes to almost an hour & 1/2. However, people like eating cann. edibles, especially for sleep as duration of symptoms is often 6-8 hrs. When using topical cannabis agents, some patients report feeling an initial pain relief within minutes, then as the cannabinoids are transferred from the local capillary beds to the central systemic circulation, a second "hit" from the cannabinoids some time later. And so, patients use these examples of pharmocodynamics/ pharmocokinetics to try out different cannabis preparations. I hope this helps!
drpark
I agree with Dr. Park that it also just comes down to personal preference. Some people find smoking cannabis to be a relaxing activity and some people choose not to smoke and instead vaporize, or eat an edible such as gummy bears, mints, or brownies for example.
The reasons why people smoke marijuana vary;
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Low Tech/ No Batteries – all you need is rolling paper and a lighter. The effects of cannabis are quickly activated by smoking and inhaling however, this produces carcinogens, so people have started the migration away from smoking and toward the trend of using vaporizers.
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The effects of smoking cannabis lasts longer than vaping.
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The activation time is faster than eating edibles.
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No sugars/calories vs edibles and the prep time is much shorter.
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And the main reason why I believe people smoke cannabis is because it is easy to control the dosing. For example, you can easily weight out a gram of flower to smoke and you know the effect that strain should have.
Personally, I would recommend using the https://vapexhale.com to vaporize concentrates or flowers versus smoking cannabis because of the health risks associated with smoking.
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