Vape pens are simply a pen-shaped and pen-sized e-cig.
While it is true that there are small handful of devices that are made specifically for marijuana use, they are for an almost unbelievably small niche market, as I’ll describe.
A concoction similar to nicotine vape can be made with marijuana, but (surprise!) since it’s illegal there is no controlled manufacturing, no distribution network that extends past immediate opportunity, etc.
People who make BHO might use pens, but people who make BHO are unlikely to find many buyers, and most likely would rather use their product than sell it. Why? Well, it takes an astounding amount of weed to make a few grams of BHO. That means that it’s expensive and it gets used up fast. Very few stoners are going to buy a quarter pound of good weed ($1000-1500 in today’s market), do the work to reduce that to just the THC, and then sell it to anyone who wants a really fucked up evening and is willing to spend several hundred dollars to power-smoke weed.
And making the oil mixtures is even more difficult. If anyone is interested, there are all kinds of videos on youtube where people demonstrate their own methods and techniques for making both BHO and marijuana vape, and you can see that it isn’t exactly fiscally sound, even from a user standpoint.*
Unless the OP’s son and GF are heavy fucking stoners who make their own BHO (and people who are using wax (BHO) are pretty obviously stoned, as a good dab hit is about equivalent to a couple of joints), the vape pens described are for nicotine oils.
*ETA: Dabumentary is a fairly good yet concise look at BHO.
Yes, vaping usually implies nicotine unless otherwise qualified. It is mostly synonymous with ecigarette, although the latter may more often look like an ersatz cigarette, while a vaper may look more “scifi.” Generally the cigarette-types have a disposable cartridge and require drawing breath, whereas the others are refillable with fluid and require a button ignition.
I have not personally encountered any marijuana-based inhalers and am not particularly sheltered. It seems that the advantages of this delivery system aren’t enough to put it above other methods. “Hash oil” (which is not hash) is becoming more popular, so you might see it more in these devices, but I don’t think it’s supplanted joints, pipes, bongs, vaporizers, etc. Point is: teenagers taking about vaping makes me think nicotine.
The proponents and detractors both don’t rely much on science. There is evidence that they are less harmful than cigarettes, but harm-free isn’t implied. If they are under 18, your concern may be justifiable, but it is probably better than smoking, and you should figure out the best way to bring it up.
If they are making their own, the OP should be irate if it’s in the garage. Manufacturing can blow up the house if done wrong!
No, it really can’t. You’d have to be trying to make BHO with an 8’ long, 1’ wide pipe with rust and cracks all over it and then using caps made of a different (and even more brittle) material and an enormous butane canister while smoking cigarettes and practicing your “flame swallower” act. The biggest danger from making BHO (by which I mean the most common injury) is undoubtedly freezing a hand or fingers, and that’s easily prevented by wearing gloves or oven mitts when you do it. I know people have been hurt, but really, unless you’re stupid enough to use butane around open flames or sparks, it’s no more dangerous than using a gas grill to barbecue or using a double boiler to prepare food.
Yes, it really can. That documentary you linked to talks about it near the 6:30 mark. It’s not the tube part I’m worried about, it’s the heating and evaporating a butane solution over a hot plate that I’m worried about.
Butane extract of marijuana. I had no idea that’s what “oil” is. (Yes, I vape PG/VG/flavor, and yes, I’m occasionally given a raised eyebrow and suggestion that what I’m vaping may be illicit, and no, it isn’t.) That’s…rather insane. I’ve had (orally ingested) *acetone *extract of marijuana (prepared by a professional chemist in a lab with a hood and professional safety measures in place) and…woah. I mean…woah. Much more like acid than like weed, and lasts for hours. I don’t have that kind of free time anymore.
I’m still not quite clear on how it goes from crumble or shatter or whatever to the liquid that goes into a vaporizer pen. Is it dissolved in PG/VG, or actual fatty oil, or what? And for the love of all that’s holy, what does that shit do to your atomizer?
Ah, yes, I’m very familiar with the smoking crack look!
People are calling them “Hookah” in the Black communities on the South Side of Chicago, probably because “vaporizer” used to mean a device meant to vaporize the THC in dried marijuana.
It makes me a little twitchy and the pedant in me wants to correct people when they say it, but I guess it’s no more incorrect than electronic “cigarette”. If anything, the mouthpiece of a (liquid, “pen” style, tank and atomozer) vaporizer is shaped much like the mouthpiece of a hookah pipe…
Kind of a ridiculous stat, IMO. Kids that walk are more likley to eventually run. Kids that really like riding bicycles are more likely to ride motorcycles, maybe. People who like using a drug in a diluted form are more likely to use the drug in a more concentrated dosage, etc.
It’s always good to quantify the stuff that “everyone just knows because it’s so obvious”, but there’s no cause and effect here that I can see.
Well, your logic assumes that people that eventually take up smoking will regardless. While studies have shown that the incidence of teenage smoking has been on the decline over the last decade. So your logic there kind of fails.
But this CDC study indicates that vaping may lead to an increase or a slowing of the non-smoking trend among teens. Not necessarily a good thing and something that the OP may want to consider.
Again, not likely to blow up a house unless someone is a friggin’ idiot. For one thing, the butane canisters most people use are about the size of a half-liter water bottle and that doesn’t have the necessary force to blow up a house. Could the canister explode and set the house on fire? Sure, if you’re a friggin’ idiot and you get it near an open flame or spark. My advice is to not do that.
As for the evaporation process, it’s as safe as kittens, unless, again, you’re a friggin’ idiot.
Shatter does not become juice. The two processes are different; that’s why I linked to both videos. Wax (shatter, crackle, etc.) can be smoked using the type of vape pen that incorporates a wick and a heating element. All of the combustible material is vaporized, so it really doesn’t do anything bad to the vape pen. I know of people who have used the same $20 vape pen for dabs for a couple of years.
So back in the 70s we had pot oil (green), hash oil (brown), cherry oil(red) and honey oil (clear). Used ethanol or methanol for a solvent to make green and brown oil, an acid was added to turn the oil red and Ether to separate the chloroform out to make the clear oil.
We smoked the so called dabs on the end of a cigarette .
So now they use butane as a solvent to make wax.
And E-cigarettes are used for smoking the wax ?
I thought a vaporizer , electric or butane powered was for an economical way for smoking the high grade bud .
I would lay odds that in the UK, within a couple of years, it will be illegal to ‘vape’ anywhere that it is currently illegal to smoke, and sales of the devices or the oils will be restricted to over 16s
I think that we don’t actually want ordinary members of the public to have concentrated DEADLY POISON on their persons.
Why on earth do we need a new poisonous scurge on the planet ?
If people want to quit smoking, let them use nicotine patches and keep their nicotine (and other poisons) to themselves, thank you!
I don’t think we want to create a slippery slope to tobacco smoking…
tobacco smoking provides carbon monoxide, which itself is drug like… That means that people who start vaping may then find tobacco smoking “MORE BETTER”. SO people may well move from being a non-addict - to being an e-cigaratte /vape addict, to tobacco smoke…
The only realistic way to die from nicotine poisoning is to inject it. There are many things that will kill a person if they are injected into the bloodstream.
So far, somewhere around eight million people have switched from smoking to vaping. That is why the tobacco companies have all bought ecig brands. That is also why the pharmaceutical companies want to push patches and gum (which don’t really work for most people.)
Nicotine is actually a useful drug. The scare stories are not based on fact, they are based on “what if” speculation – “What about the children” type of scare tactic BS put out by those with a huge financial interest in people continuing to smoke and get sick and take lots of expensive prescription drugs. They have duped many nanny-state busybodies into spreading their misinformation.
So, in your perfect world, people must choose either to stop using a substance they find pleasant, or get sick and die from smoking. Nice.
It’s toxic orally too. About 500-1000 mg (6.5–13 mg/kg) will kill an adult. Far less for a kid.
If your eliquid is in a 30mL dropper bottle with 18mg/mL, that’s more than enough to kill a kid if they drink it. And considering that both proplyene glycol and vegetable glycerin are sweet, and then we add in sweet tasty flavorings, I do have grave concerns about idiots who leave their bottles where little kids can get them, especially if they’re not child proof caps.
If you’re mixing your own eliquids, you have an even greater danger with nicotine concentrates. I’ve got one that’s got 100mg of nicotine in every mL of liquid. Wouldn’t take put a teaspoon of that to kill an adult.
But, y’know, I’m just as concerned about Drano and antifreeze and bleach. Like all household poisons, nicotine containing eliquids should be kept locked up out of the reach of small children.
Despite the sweetness of vegetable glycerin and the attractive flavors used in eliquid, the stuff tastes very nasty. It only tastes good when vaporized.
Cases of fatal nicotine ingestion are very rare, more likely to be suicides than accidents, and many of the suicide attempts fail. The stuff tastes too bad to be swallowed accidentally, and even if someone did glug some down it is more likely the person will get sick and throw up most of the juice than that he will die.
