We’ve spoken a lot about CBD oil, such as what to look out for, how to read a label, and lists of ingredients. However, we’ve yet to really discuss the other methods of taking CBD. Since the release of our CBD Vape | 650, we thought it would be worth taking a moment to discuss all things vaping: cartridges, quality, and the science. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll have all the information you need in order to feel confident choosing and trying out a vape product.

Types and Components of Vapes

The first thing to know is that there are several kinds of vapes. They’re all slightly different, so knowing the types is a good place to start if you’re completely new to the scene.

Vapes typically come as disposable or cartridges. Disposable vapes are convenient, but once they’re used up, they’re done. Cartridges, or ‘carts’ hold the cannabis extract, a mechanism for heating the extract, and the tip that you draw from. It screws into a reusable battery, and is tossed when finished.

The obvious benefit of a reusable version is that the battery is rechargeable and can be used with many cartridges.

While a lot of vapes found on the market have fixed temperature and voltage settings, making them easier and more accessible for your average user, more complicated vapes do have adjustable voltages and temperatures, such as box mod vapes. The ideal vape voltage for the LoFi CBD 650 is 3.7v.

CBD Oil vs. CBD Carts

It’s important to note that you can’t vape CBD oil. While the CBD extract in our CBD oil could be vaped, adding a carrier oil like MCT makes it unsafe. The CBD extract in our CBD vape was extracted with CO2 for terpene retention but we still needed to improve our viscosity before it was easy to use. Our solution was the addition of flavourless botanical terpenes.

When it comes to CBD carts, it’s not uncommon for them to crystalize, especially if they have a high CBD content as is common with distillate. If this happens to you, one solution is to put the cart in a sealed bag and put that bag in hot water.

Besides ease of access, the biggest difference between CBD oils and vaping CBD largely comes down to bioavailability and onset. CBD bioavailability, or how much of a substance gets absorbed by your body, differs depending on the method used. While everyone’s body is different and a variety of factors influence CBD absorption, typically, vaping CBD is known for being both the fastest acting and the most bioavailable of all CBD consumption methods. However, it also appears that its effects wear off quicker. While there is some research to suggest CBD’s bioavailability can be increased when consumed with fatty foods (peanut butter, fish, avocado, etc.), this may not be the case for vaping due to how it’s metabolized in our bodies. Metabolism is a bit of a larger topic, so we’ll cover that in greater detail in a section below.

Additionally, vaping, in comparison to other consumption methods, like CBD oils or edibles, can be more challenging to dose specifically. Especially if you’re new to CBD, it’s important to start low and go slow, gradually increasing the dose until you find something that works for you. Due to the differing nature of bioavailability between methods of CBD consumption, if you’re trying out vaping for the first time, your effective dose will probably look different than it had when you were taking CBD previously.

First Pass Metabolism

Typically, when we ingest CBD (either orally or sublingually), it first has to pass through our liver. During this process, called ‘first pass metabolism,’ some of the CBD gets metabolised instead of absorbed. This means that less CBD is being absorbed by your body, and is largely why orally taken CBD (edibles, capsules, etc.) are less bioavailable than other consumption methods.

Since CBD is generally processed in our livers anyway, it impacts some of the enzymes in our bodies dedicated to metabolizing, or breaking down, other substances. Because these enzymes help to break down other medications, mixing CBD with other substances can be dangerous. If you want more detailed information, we’ve spoken about medication interactions in a previous post.

Regardless, because vaping CBD means it goes straight to your lungs, there’s a lot of talk within the community about vaping being potentially safer when it comes to mixing substances. Ultimately, studies into the safety of vaping CBD specifically have yet to be conducted. This means that when it comes to things like medication interactions or other safety things, we just don’t know yet. Always check in with your doctor if you’re considering mixing CBD with other medications.

Health Notes

While there is some research and safety concerns around vaping in general, again, most of it has been conducted outside of the CBD realm, which means that applicability can be challenging to assess. In general, however, it’s common to see conversations around vaping and respiratory issues, and in a (somewhat) post-pandemic world, concerns about vaping and covid are still relevant. However, most of this damage is associated with inhaling harmful chemicals and research into CBD specifically is still under-discussed.

TL;DR

While getting into the world of vaping may seem complicated, we hope that this post helps give you a place to start from. While there are many styles and types of vapes, keeping in mind variables like dosage, medication interactions, and bioavailability are all important to finding something that works for you.