Marijuana use has several dangers that I pointed out in the post just before this one. Marijuana users realize many of the risks and some try to reduce them. One dangerous part of marijuana use is the smoke with its many combustion particles, so some users try marijuana tea or brownies. It turns out to be hard to regulate the high when using these methods. The effect often is delayed for unpredictable time periods, so users take too much.

A new method of reducing risk involves using a marijuana vaporizer, which heats the marijuana to a high enough temperature to vaporize resins that provide the high. The person inhales no smoke (no products of combustion). To see whether marijuana users see any benefits in vaporizers, a colleague and I surveyed almost 100 vaporizer users. As a group, they liked the vaporizer they had used, they perceived the vapor as not harsh and irritating (unlike marijuana smoke), they considered the vapor less dangerous to their health than marijuana smoke, they liked the absence of the tell-tale smoke smell, and they found that they needed less marijuana to get high. Also, some said using the vaporizer helped them quit smoking because they no longer mixed tobacco and marijuana together (tobacco does not vaporize effectively). On the negative side, they reported some hassle and delay in getting the device going each time.

Our findings will come out soon in the journal “Substance Abuse.” You will hear more about vaporizers in the news in the future.

Marijuana vaporizers seem to fit the category of methods of harm-reduction. However, it is not completely clear that using them is actually safer than smoking. Our study examined only perceived effects. Actual effects on health are hard to study because marijuana use is generally illegal.

If you used marijuana, would you try a vaporizer? Would you expect it to reduce the health risks of using marijuana?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology