Vaping is becoming a very popular activity for people of all ages, although the demographic of vape users definitely skews younger. Between nicotine, marijuana and CBD, there are tens of millions of people who vape.
When it comes to marijuana, it has become more popular as its legalization or deregulation has increased in countries like the United States. Even states that still have it as a controlled substance are starting to legalize it for medical use. Cannabis offers several useful medical benefits for people suffering from issues like chronic pain, cancer, glaucoma, and more.
In the past, people would smoke a joint or cigarette with marijuana leaves, but smoking carries additional risks to your health, even if it isn’t nicotine. The smoke carries ash and other carcinogens that slowly damages your mouth, throat and lungs over time. That’s why more people are turning to vapes, as the vapor they produce is less damaging to your health in the long term.
When it comes to marijuana, you can use either the cannabis flower itself or the THC oil that can be extracted from it. There are benefits and drawbacks to using either, and which one you prefer will depend on the reasons why you want to vape marijuana in the first place. Here’s a quick guide to vaping cannabis flower and THC oil, and which one may be better for your situation.
What Is a Cannabis Flower?
Cannabis flower refers to the actual plant of marijuana. Traditionally, it has been what the majority of cannabis products used. When you roll a joint, you are using marijuana flower that has been ground into loose leaves. With some vapes, you can also vape marijuana flower directly. You can either use a piece of the flower intact, or grind it into loose leaves like you would with joints.
There are good reasons why you may want to vape the whole flower. When you use the plant without refining it into an oil, you get as many of the natural chemical compounds it contains as possible. However, the process for heating the leaves into vapor does take longer, and there can be some wastage of the materials.
What Is THC Oil?
THC oil is made by extracting the THC compound from the plant, and infusing it into a carrier oil. There are different methods of doing this, depending on the cost of equipment or ease of processing. Big manufacturers have specialized equipment that can create a much more pure and potent THC oil extract. You can do it yourself as well, but the results won’t be as good.
The benefit of vaping THC oil is that it is extremely easy and efficient to use. You can get THC oil from sites like thehempdoctor.com pre-loaded into special cartridges that are made to fit your vape device. You just put it into the device, and it’s ready to use. There is also virtually no loss or waste of material, and it can be heated into vapor much quicker and more efficiently
Is Vaping Cannabis Flower Better than THC Oil?
There are a few noteworthy pros and cons to vaping either the cannabis flower or THC oil. They include the following:
Entourage effect
With cannabis flower, you get the benefit of all the chemical compounds, such as THC, all at once. This provides the benefit known as the entourage effect. It refers to the phenomena observed through clinical trials where using all cannabinoids together boosted the effects of the others, so they are more potent together than when taken in isolation. This can mean that vaping cannabis flowers may have a more potent effect.
On the other hand, some THC oil can be made as “full spectrum”, which means it still contains as many of the chemical compounds found in the raw plant as possible. Some do still get lost in the process of making the oil, so it does not have as much of the same effect as the raw plant.
Concentrates
However, it is also possible to make THC into what is called a concentrate. It is basically a highly pure and concentrated form of THC oil. The benefit of it is that, as far as just THC is concerned, it is even more potent than vaping cannabis flower. The drawback is that it will have even less of the other effects that come from the rest of the chemical compounds found in the natural flower.
Efficiency
If you ever just want to take a couple of quick puffs from your vape, that’s easy to do with THC oil. It does not require as much heat to turn the oil into vapor when compared to the flower. This means you can vape quickly, but it also means that your device does not need to use as much power or energy, which can help save on battery life.
Size of devices
With THC oil, you are not constrained by the size of the device. You can get small and discreet vape pens for a low cost. They can also carry a moderate amount of oil, since it is a liquid and can take whatever size and shape of a cartridge to fit the design of the device.
Vaping the flower whole requires the device to have a larger chamber for the bud to be useful. That can mean you need to buy a bigger and more expensive device that can fit the flower and have enough heating power to turn it into vapor.
Your preference for vaping cannabis flower or THC oil will depend on what you want to get out of it. If you want more of the medical benefits of marijuana and don’t care as much for the efficiency or cost of vapes, cannabis flower may be your best choice. However, if you care more about the size, efficiency and cost of the device itself, you would likely prefer to use THC oil.