Before cannabis entered the mainstream, there weren’t a whole lot of ways to consume it. If you wanted to get high or medicate, you’d pretty much have to smoke it. Fast forward to present day, and you’ve got plenty of options: smoking, dabbing, edibles, tinctures, capsules, and of course, vaping. In this essential guide, get ready to learn a lot more than just how to vape CBD oil!
We’ll also answer the following questions:
- Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Superior to Smoking?
- What Is Vaping CBD Oil?
- Is CBD Therapeutic?
- Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Popular?
- What Do I Need to Vape CBD Oil?
Before we dive into the guide, it’s important to note that technically speaking, you can’t really “vape CBD oil.” That’s actually a misnomer. CBD oils are a form of concentrates that you take orally. Instead, you’re actually really vaping “CBD vape liquid.” However, most consumers (and businesses) use the terms interchangeably. In fact, most people use the term “CBD oil” rather than “CBD vape liquid.” So for the purposes of this article, we’ll use the more popular terminology.
CBD “oil” is a broadly used term that can technically be used to describe either oral (under the tongue) CBD products or vapable CBD products
Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Superior to Smoking?
While there are pros and cons to each intake method when you’re learning how to vape CBD oil, the pros of vaping instead of smoking are a no-brainer.
- Vaping is better for your health
- Vaping produces a vapor that is up to 95% free of smoke and carcinogens
- You absorb up to 95% of the THC or CBD within the first few seconds of inhaling
- Because vaporizers operate at far lower temperatures than smoking, they preserve the most beneficial compounds. (When you smoke a joint of CBD flower, you’ll immediately lose at least 30% of the CBD. Literally, most of the compounds go up in smoke.)
- Vaping doesn’t produce a smell that lingers
- Vaping is more discreet than smoking
- Vaping allows you to taste and appreciate the terpenes and flavors better (unless you overheat it)
- It’s more cost-effective than smoking — less gets wasted
Without question, the most compelling reason to vape instead of smoke is your respiratory health. While evidence suggesting smoking cannabis can cause lung cancer has largely been disproven, it’s indisputable that smoking — anything — irritates your lungs. Not only does smoking irritate your lungs, it can lead to long-term respiratory issues like COPD and bronchitis.
How to Vape CBD Oil: What Is It?
“Vaping,” as it’s commonly called, is short for “vaporization.” Simply put, vaping CBD oil is an intake method whereby the user inhales vapor derived from CBD oil. CBD oil is an extraction of the cannabinoid CBD from cannabis flowers or hemp.
When you vape CBD oil, you’re heating the active compounds in the oil, which produces the vapor. This eliminates the combustion or burning associated with smoking.
Is CBD Therapeutic?
Before you learn how to vape CBD oil, you’ll probably want to know how CBD oil is therapeutic. While CBD shares many therapeutic properties with THC, it may be more effective (or less effective) depending on a patient’s unique physiology or the condition he or she is treating. For example, it may be more effective in treating seizures or anxiety, and possibly less effective at treating pain.
An increasing body of evidence (primarily from animal studies) suggests CBD is:
- Neuroprotective: CBD may protect nerve cells against degeneration, damage, and functional impairment.
- Anti-inflammatory: CBD may reduce or prevent inflammation, thereby allowing it to lessen inflammation-related heat, swelling, redness, and pain.
- Analgesic: CBD may reduce pain.
- Anticancerous: CBD (in preclinical lab studies) has shown to disrupt cancer cells from invading, metastasizing, and spreading. (Note: This research is still in very early stages, and the effects of CBD varied significantly between cancer types.)
Likewise, growing evidence (again, primarily from animal studies) suggests CBD may be effective in treating several maladies, including:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Epilepsy
- Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
- PTSD
There’s also research suggesting CBD may help people struggling with addiction, including alcohol and opioid dependency.
Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Popular?
The three most common reasons people cite for learning how to vape CBD oil are as follows:
1. Vaping CBD works much faster
Vaping CBD works much faster (almost instantaneously) than other intake methods. Edibles and other oral intake methods can take up to 30 to 90 minutes (or more). As you can imagine, for someone suffering from a seizure needs instant relief. Also, people treating anxiety or pain may not want to wait that long for relief.
2. It’s safer than smoking
As we mentioned, vaping CBD is safer than smoking. It doesn’t produce lung irritants that can lead to respiratory issues.
3. It’s not intoxicating
Unlike THC, CBD can produce highly therapeutic effects without any intoxicating effects. “Intoxicating effects,” are not necessarily a bad thing and can be therapeutic (for example, for pain relief), but not everyone necessarily wants to feel intoxicating effects (at least not all the time).
4. It’s discreet
Vaping also allows users the ability to remain discrete and consume CBD in public. With a tank or a vape pen, a dose is never further away than your pants.
How to Vape CBD Oil: What Do I Need?
When learning how to vape CBD oil, know that there are basically four options:
Pre-Filled CBD Vape Pen
Also called a CBD vape shot kit or CBD vape starter kit, these vape pens have two components, a battery (the vape’s base) and a cartridge. Pre-filled CBD pens are relatively inexpensive and are simple to use. You can buy whatever kind of cartridge you’d like, and all you need to do is screw it onto the batter, and you’re ready to go!
Once you’re done with the cartridge, just throw the cartridge away and replace. What’s handy about pre-filled vapes is that you can easily swap cartridges, so if you want to have a few different strains or flavors available, you don’t need to finish a cartridge before swapping out.
Disposable CBD Vape Pen
Pre-loaded disposable CBD vape pens have just one component; a small standalone device that is about the size of a cigarette. Many cannabis consumers love disposables.
Disposables are cheap. They’re small, convenient, and discreet. They come pre-loaded. You don’t ever need to recharge them between uses. And, they’re easy to use. These devices are ideal if you’re traveling, going out for the night, or need to be discreet.
Of course, there are plenty of drawbacks. The quality often isn’t as high as you’ll usually find with cartridges.
Refillable or “Tank-Style” Vapes:
“Tank-style” refillable vaporizers are easy to spot as they tend to produce big, billowing vape clouds. This style is most popular among former cigarette smokers (and weed smokers) who want to most closely mirror the experience of smoking.
Among cannabis consumers, they’re not as popular as pre-filled vape cartridges or disposables (as they’re a bit more cumbersome), but they do have a loyal following. Because you refill the tank (or chamber) as opposed to replacing a cartridge, you can actually experiment and create different blends based on what flavors or terpenes you’d like to add.
Tank-style vapes have two components: the pen (or battery) and the oil (or e-liquid). Once you’re done, simply refill it.
Table-Top Vaporizers:
Table-top vaporizers are the least popular way to vape CBD oil, but not because they’re inferior to other methods. They’re actually probably the best type of device, especially for flavor enthusiasts. The reason they’re not as popular as other methods? They’re large, expensive, and not particularly portable.
Most table-top vaporizers include a wide range of complex features that you can’t find in portable vaporizers. Table-tops offer the most sophisticated technology of all vaporizers.
They’re great for homebodies (or people who usually only consume at home), medical patients who are keen on extracting the highest amount of therapeutic elements possible, and connoisseurs (or, cannasseurs) who really want to taste the terpenes and other flavors. High-quality table-tops deliver vapor that preserves cannabis’ natural aroma better than just about any other intake method.
Most of these devices are big and need to be plugged into the wall, which of course limits their mobility. So don’t count on taking it out of the house much, if ever. To inhale the vapor, you’ll use either a bag that fills with vapor or a hose-like mouthpiece.
High-quality table-tops — don’t even think of getting a cheap one — allow you to manage the temperature with unparalleled precision, allowing you to vape at whatever temperature you’d like, allowing you to target specific terpenes and cannabinoids. The optimal temperature varies among different terpenes and cannabinoids which makes table-tops ideal if that’s what you’re looking for.
Next Steps
Are you ready to get started to vape CBD oil? Awesome! If you decide to buy a table-top vaporizer, you’ll want to do some research or stop on by Have a Heart and ask for guidance from one of our budtenders.
If you decide to go with a portable vape pen option, just look for a brand you trust and enjoy. Have a Heart has plenty of options. We offer a variety of reusable vapes, prefilled cartridges, and disposable vape pens from producers such as Harmony Farms / Airo Pro, Fairwinds Manufacturing, Northwest Cannabis Solutions, Liberty Reach, Optimum, and Circanna. We offer CBD-only vape oils and CBD-THC blends.
Visit your favorite Have a Heart location or browse the online menu to find your next vape fix!
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