10 Popular Ways to Smoke and Consume Cannabis

There were days when teens poked holes in fresh apples or corncobs to create pipes they stuffed with flakes to smoke their paltry shares of a stash. Now, teens are trying to get the same thrill from JUUL-like devices. They may learn in time there are scores of ways to smoke and consume cannabis.

Here are nine-plus ways to smoke and/or consume cannabis:

1. Toking old school: The legacy intake form still wraps strains in paper to form a cigarette-like joint. Who knows who lit the first one? But joints remain the favorite method among users. It’s a little inconvenient to cut the cannabis, roll the papers, and light and relight the joint, so most people prefer to keep the stuff at home.

2. Betting on bongs: Smoking through a bong offers a pure and potent experience on just a small amount of cannabis. The bong experience avoids the irritating carbon combustion of smoking. You feed the bong attachment with ground herbs, fire it, and inhale through the aperture. With the water filtering the smoke, you avoid the smoke’s toxins. But bongs involve sometimes cumbersome equipment that are hardly discreet unless you carry a pocket-size bubbler.

3. Joints made easy: Scores of brands promote pre-rolled joints popular among medicinal marijuana customers and those who don’t want to worry about the paraphernalia involved in rolling your own. They come in packs like regular cigarettes and offer easy and discreet use. They’ve had a bad reputation among veteran users because they often used poor product in the past. But the market is increasing the demand for competitive quality.

4. Open vaping: Vapers are everywhere. Cartridges containing a range of cannabis quality and strains. They appear as e-cigarettes, vape pens, and mod boxes providing a personal and discrete “smoke” without the carbon risk to lungs. An increasing number of locations are banning their use because of the clouds of smoke they produce. But users find the vaping smooth, tasteful, and effective.

5. Yummy gummies: Dispensaries are featuring more cannabis candies. Gummies in various shapes are the most accessible. You’ll also find mints and lollipops. Each of the forms is easy to use throughout the day without drawing attention. They have the additional benefit of clear dosing. And caregivers find administration easy in treating the elderly and extremely ill.

6. Chock full of chocolate: Cannabis candies also come in very popular chocolate bars. Manufacturers use quality chocolate with touches of other flavored to produce candy bars with segments. You break off a segment, pop it in your mouth, and benefit from precise dosing. The real problem with chocolate and other candies is that, because they taste so good, you may inadvertently overdose.

7. Under the tongue: Sublingual application was once limited to therapies for those unable to consume in other ways because of disease, illness, disability, or hospice care. However, an increasing number of customers are attracted to the convenient and private application. Everyone knows about the eye dropper administration of CBD oil, but you can now find liquid THC, a tincture with direct and fast effects.

8. Wax and Shatter: Cannabis concentrates come in a bees’ wax form or crystal shatter. The crisp glassy shatter gets heated on a dab nail until it gives off inhaled fumes for a loaded experience. Wax is pliable concentrate used in dabbing, too. Either concentrate can be added to herbs rolled into joints or burnt in a bong or pipe.

9. Homemade cookies: Dispensaries sell all sorts of edible bake goods containing cannabis. Brownies are legendary, but now you’ll find cookies, cupcakes, and more. Until there is standardized labeling, you risk dosing errors. But just about anyone can bake their own goods at home. You can learn to make cannabis butter, and with that you can make any recipe calling for butter.

Pull it all together!

A recreational or medical marijuana dispensary will sport shelf upon shelf of cannabis-infused, cannabis-derived, and other products. You will find teas, coffees, and wines — too new and without quality standards. And, there are thousands of cosmetics, lotions, balms, patches, soaps, and more, but I am not into consuming them.

If you approach use reasonably, you have enough options to avoid being trapped into one habit or the other. You can smoke freely at home or where others are comfortable with your preparation and smoke. Some swear certain strains just taste better in pipes, and others will show off their bong and dabbing skills. You’ll likely have a stronger experience with bongs or dabs, but it’s lot of equipment to carry around.

If you’re medicating with cannabis, you should let the illness govern how you use. It doesn’t make sense to aggravate your symptoms or create new ones. But a standard approach might pursue the flexibility provided by blunts, pre-rolled joints, vaping, and candies. One way or another you can find what makes you comfortable and allows you to stay under the radar.