Cannabis Consumption: The Least You Should Know
From flowers to concentrates, edibles to tinctures, the variety of available products provides quite a few options when it comes to how you choose to consume cannabis. When you inhale from a vaporizer, eat a “magic brownie”, or place a drop of tincture under your tongue, the therapeutic compounds of cannabis are absorbed differently in your system, before reaching your cannabinoid receptors. Simply put, each different method of consumption will produce different effects and experiences.
There are three ways to consume cannabis: inhalation, oral ingestion and sublingual absorption. Each method produces different results and each is accompanied by its own variety of benefits and occasional drawbacks. Besides differences concerning health and safety, each method of consumption will vary in onset, intensity and duration of what’s commonly known as “the high”.
Understanding the various methods of consumption and their different effects allows us to make more informed decisions regarding our personal needs.
Inhalation (Smoking)
Good ol’ fashioned smoking is the method most commonly associated with cannabis consumption. When you inhale marijuana smoke, the various compounds enter your lungs and move through your bloodstream toward your cannabinoid receptors. Effects can be felt within minutes and the typical duration lasts about two hours. Smoking provides an easily controlled and fast-acting form of using marijuana flowers (and some concentrates.)
Although considered safer than tobacco, smoking cannabis can still produce negative effects on the lungs and respiratory system. Foggy Daze provides high-quality, organic cannabis– so you never have to worry about having pesticides, herbicides, fungucides, etc. enter your system from our product!
Onset: Almost immediate
Peak: 10 to 30 minutes after inhalation
Duration: About 2 hours*
Inhalation (Vaping)
By now, you’ve definitely heard of vaping– but if you’re still scratching your head and wondering what this new craze is all about, you’re definitely not alone. Vaporization provides the same quick-acting and generally tractable benefits of standard smoking, while minimizing some of the negative effects previously mentioned.
Vaporizing cannabis is done by using a low heat source– as opposed to the high heat of fire, which we use when we light up a joint or a bowl. This helps to extract the cannabinoids from the flower without the unnecessary inhalation of excess chlorophyll and plant matter. In comparison to smoking, vaporization is often considered more efficient and effective than smoking.
Recent research has indicated that vaporizing cannabis may be a healthier alternative to smoking marijuana. With the amount of technology currently on the market, there is certainly no shortage of options when it comes to vaporizer tools; for specific questions about the options that we offer at Foggy Daze, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We will be more than happy to go through the details of the different pens and cartridges on our menu.
Onset: Almost immediate
Peak: 10 to 30 minutes after inhalation
Duration: About 2 hours*
Oral Ingestion
The oral ingestion of cannabis– absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract through the liver and then into the bloodstream– produces a longer and reportedly more sedative effect than other forms of marijuana use. When ingested, the active compound, THC, is converted into 11-hydroxy-THC, which is more powerful and has stronger pain-relieving properties.
Most often, cannabis will be combined with good or drink to create what we commonly refer to as “edibles.” It seems that many patients in the medical marijuana community have scary stories about a time they went overboard with edibles and are thus wary about giving them another shot– and for good reason– oral ingestion provides a longer and stronger high; personal dosage can be tricky because it takes much more time to feel the full potential of an edible. Our advice: start small! You can always eat more, but you can’t eat less. An average dose is usually between 5 – 20mg, so make sure to check the package labels before eating medical marijuana treats!
Onset: 30 minutes to 2 hours
Peak: 2 hours after ingestion
Duration: 4 to 10 hours*
Sublingual Absorption
The oral consumption of cannabis is most often associated with ingesting edibles; however, alcohol- and glycerin-based tinctures offer another smoke-free technique for use of marijuana.
Tincture drops placed and held underneath the tongue provide a way to imbibe the medicine more quickly than edible consumption and more discreetly than smoking. Tinctures are typically categorized by THC and CBD content. For more information about the difference between these compounds and the different tinctures we offer for each, please don’t hesitate to ask! We love helping our patients find the right medicine.
Onset: About 20 minutes
Peak: 30 minutes
Duration: 2 hours*
*Onset, peak and duration will vary for each individual patient. These projections are estimates, based on average experiences and public data.