Popular Ways to Ingest Cannabis

Photos courtesy of the Florida Cannabis Coalition
Photos courtesy of the Florida Cannabis Coalition
Photos courtesy of the Florida Cannabis Coalition

For those living in states that have legalized recreational marijuana or have medical cannabis legalized, there are a lot of things to take into consideration if you want to use it. Beyond choosing what strain is best for your needs – a sativa or an indica or a strain that is high in THC or high in CBD or a strain that has an equal amount of both – there is also the consideration of how to ingest your cannabis.

The American Journal of Preventative medicine recently surveyed 4,269 people about their cannabis use and how they prefer to consume. The results were not all that surprising:

  • 49.5% ingest via a bowl or a pipe
  • 49.2% smoke joints
  • 21.7% use a bong, water pipe, or a hookah
  • 20.3% use blunts
  • 16.1% eat or drink edibles/drinkables
  • 7.6% utilize vaporization

Those percentages obviously add up to a lot more than 100% and that is because respondents were allowed to choose all methods they use. Many cannabis users choose more than one way to consume marijuana, but an overwhelming percentage – 92.1% – report using combustion-only methods.

For the purposes of brevity, we’ll combine all combustion methods together instead of dividing them into their various sub-categories.

Combustion (Smoking)

By far the most popular way of ingesting cannabis, smoking can include joints, bongs, bowls, pipes, and hookahs as well as blunts. While smoking cannabis allows you to bypass body systems like digestion, therefore allowing you to feel relief faster than, say, edibles, the downside is that combustion burns up most of the therapeutic compounds, making it harder to get a therapeutic dose. There’s also the carcinogenic compounds that may be released when cannabis is combusted.

Vaporization

Vaporization has all the benefits of combusted cannabis but without some of the drawbacks. electronic cigarettes more known as vape pens heat the cannabis until the compounds are released without burning the plant material. However, like with other inhaled methods of delivery, the bioavailability of cannabis still only reaches about 30%, making it hard to reach a therapeutic dose for some conditions without a lot of puffing.

Edibles/Drinkables

The THC metabolite is four to five times more psychoactive than THC. In lay terms, this means a more powerful high from ingesting marijuana in an edible. However, there’s a downside in the bioavailability of THC in an edible, which ranges from about 4% to 12%, which is significantly lowered from the average 30% of smoked THC. There is also the fact that it must make its way through the digestive process, meaning anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes wait time after eating or drinking. But once it hits, it hits hard.

Tinctures

Tinctures extract cannabis compounds using an alcohol soak. The resulting liquid is then placed directly under the tongue. Unlike edibles, tinctures enter the bloodstream immediately and allow for better dosage control. Also, you can choose from a variety of flavors, potencies, and which compounds you would like to use.

Topicals

Topicals are lotions, balms, and oils that are applied directly to areas where you feel pain, soreness, or inflammation to provide relief. The great thing about topicals is that they can often provide relief while bypassing the euphoric high that comes along with other methods. So, if you need relief, but also need to be clear-headed, topicals are a good choice.

Whatever means that you use to ingest cannabis, it is obvious that each has their good points as well as their bad. Choosing the right method for you and the condition you are treating can make all the difference in obtaining relief. Even if you only smoke recreationally, the kind of high you want can play a big role in the method that you choose.

Michael Jacobs
Michael Jacobs

Author
Michael is a marketing and creative content specialist at GotVape.com with  a primary focus on customer satisfaction. Technology and fitness combined with healthy lifestyle obsession are his main talking points


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