Conduction Vapes Get Me Higher, You?

[Jimmer144]

I think the Mighty has the best of both worlds as far was hybrid heating goes, it always comes out perfectly roasted no stirring needed at all, and the effects to me make it my strongest session portable. I also used to think more conduction leaning vapes would get me higher. But my FW5 which is mostly convection was my daily driver for 2 straight years and i always felt like it gave me the longest lasting high of my devices even though i was using less at a time. Then, months ago i got a TM and wow this thing blows my mind, the combination of power and the ability to taste your product on a much higher level than the muted tastes you get from conduction only units makes the TM a winner. A shout out to the Dynavap which also is perfect for feeling the fullbodied effects of your product, as it extracts everything!

 

[Siebter]

I have a hard time noticing a substantial difference – there might be one, but there's also strain, amount, temperature... those aspects seem to affect my high quite a bit more. The parameter that makes the Tinymight (which I mostly use in the evening when everything is done) hit so hard for me is extraction speed. I'm able to kill twice the amount of a Dynavap session in half the number of hits. Then again I tend to stay at lower temps with my Dynavaps, which makes them work well at daytime. I don't think it's a matter of heating method, those mainly affect the flavor for me. I also like how a Dynavap lets me do mouth to lung draws, which is not really possible with a convection vape.

 

[Robert-in-YEG]

Up until yesterday, I was completely in the conduction camp. On Sunday morning I received an XVape Fog Pro; it is a convection vape.

Once I figured out how to restrict the airflow, it started producing some pretty good effects.

In full disclosure, I started my day with the Solo II, but have switched over to the Fog Pro. I really like this vape. Airflow is excellent, drawing is effortless, and I like the form. I also have a V3 Pro, it is OK. I just seem to like the Fog Pro more.

I also have a Tera v3; it is pretty good, but again, I restrict the airflow.

Robert-in-YEG

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[.brew]

Agrees with @Jill NYC conduction does offer you a heavier head high more in line with combustion.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. Conduction often leads to harmful side effects of combustion, such as, smoke inhalation. Smoke inhalation will make one feel "high" purely as a function of CO2 rather than any psychoactive qualities of the smoke itself. That is, if you inhale enough smoke from an otherwise normal forest fire you will experience a "high" and/or forcing oneself into a hyperventilation state will also induce a "high" feeling.

and

2. People are remembering what it was like to be "high" in line with how they learned that state of being as a novice. It's not often I connect my professional background with my lifestyle choices but I'm going to give it a shot here

I'm a sociologist--well, my PhD is more specific than that, but "sociologist" will suffice for this conversation--and I always begin my "Law and Social Control" course each year with a reading from none other than Howard Becker. Now Becker is a fantastic writer and easily approachable, which is one of the many reasons to assign him to beginning university students, but he also developed a theory on social deviance called "social learning theory." That theory states deviance is learned from others who think the behavior they are doing is perfectly normal in their sub-culture.

He wrote an article titled, On Becoming a Marihuana User, (I've linked it here for others to read--it's considered a classic within the social sciences). In that article, Becker formulates an argument that people learn how to become pot users. Rather, they learn that smoking pot is enjoyable. Probably sounds strange to most here but his premise is that most of what we do when smoking pot is really not that "fun" from an objective perspective. One's first joint, for example, was most likely characterized by a lot of nasty first tastes, fits of coughing, and eventually munchies. As an outsider, none of those things are particularly appealing; in fact, some of them are our bodies telling us that it's bad to put smoke into our bodies and it may be bad to put these psychoactive substances into our bodies. It's not until our friends, importantly noting that most people's first experience is not solo, indicate to us that's part of the deal. If you don't cough, you won't get off. It's hilarious when someone tears into a month's worth of cookies, hot dogs, and salsa and whatever other odd combinations of mismatched foods people stuff down their throats when high AF.

All of these social factors turn the otherwise arguable behavior that our bodies is telling us might be bad for us into something that is both fun and funny--maybe even the most fun and funny activity we can do. In context that means that when someone is couch locked it's both seen as being "more high" because of the CO2 impact on your body/brain along with the social learning that being flattened into a couch cushion is both fun and an indicator of being really freaking high. That person has to re-learn what being "high" means from a vape. It's not until someone is ridiculously high that they realize how high they are--for me it's when I literally lost feeling in my appendages and face! When I hit my vape so hard that my fingers, toes, and face go completely numb I'm freaking high and there's no denying that!

If one took a novice and only taught them how to get high via a vape they more than likely would not find a smoking high very enjoyable or even tolerable. Some have even written in this thread that being blasted beyond comprehension is very fun and they don't equate that with being "high." This is a case study in Becker's theory and I hope people read that paper I linked. Remember the nut of what he's claiming is that our bodies endure physiological changes but it's not until we interpret them emotionally that they become the things that make us "high." Being "high" is a mental state rather than a physical one. And we now know this a little bit better than the 1950s (when that was written) because we have people engaging in medicinal quantities and microdosing, etc. that would lead us to recognize that many people have THC in their systems without the commensurate "high" so many of us grew up trying to achieve each time we medicated/recreated.

It shouldn't surprise us at all that something that approximates smoking makes us feel similar to when we used to smoke because of both what it's putting into our bodies and the meaning making that we do when putting such foreign substances into our bodies. This isn't to say that differences between modalities do not exist (that is, it's likely true that heating up all the different chemicals in our bud in various ways will result in varying ways our body reacts to those chemicals) but it is to say that we ought to recognize how much power we have over how our minds interpret and make sense of what those various chemicals are doing to us.

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD – From what I know, CO² does not cause a high, though. It can cause dizziness, headaches and nausea when being inhaled in high quantities (higher than what we inhale from a joint or the like), but it does not have the kind of psychoactive effects we look for.

I remember well what it was like to get high from a joint and it wasn't different from the highs I experience now. The idea of cannabis users being into CO² intoxication seems very very questionable to me.

I also disagree with the idea that conduction vapes create smoke and thus create the same harm as smoking. Nonsense. There is no „approximate smoking“.

 

[GoldenBud]

for those of you which prefer conduction over convection. try some convection device with a wooden stem instead of glass. the thermal conductivity of wood is like 8x times lower than glass for example, you may like it. The wooden stem is less likely to get hot, it's a cool experience!

i'm running this all the last week with my new Splinter V2/Mi3, and wonder why I never used it with my other 19mm devices like Tubo or so. the stem almost stays cold! all convection i like itttt

 

[.brew]

From what I know, CO² does not cause a high, though. It can cause dizziness, headaches and nausea when being inhaled in high quantities (higher than what we inhale from a joint or the like), but it does not have the kind of psychoactive effects we look for.

That's not what I wrote--at least, it's certainly not what I intended to be understood from my post so I'll clarify.

Smoke inhalation causes a head change and those head changes are often associated with being "high." We can parse that by the dry language of researchers into causal, intervening, and correlative causes but most people would just conclude they feel high after they smoke a bunch of weed without thinkging too much about how much should be attributed to the CO2 vs. the THC, etc.

EDIT
I did write CO2 causes part of the "couch lock" experience.
Upon re-reading my statement, it turns out I did not write the above. Your persistent misstating of my positions is beyond frustrating. I wrote that a "couch lock" condition is interpreted as "more high" (than non-couch locked) because of the effects CO2 has on the brain and the social learning associated with being anchored to the couch.

Again, once you read what I wrote instead of what you'd prefer to argue over, that doesn't say CO2 causes couch lock. It argues that CO2 enhances/exacerbates the things that we tend to associate with being high (including couch lock).
/EDIT

Along with the effects you noted (dizziness, headaches, and nausea) CO2 inhalation, or asphyxiation, leads to euphoria and drowsiness. That's one of the reasons I pointed out some people induce this via non-pharmacological means by way of hyperventilation (cf. children huffing into bags of their own air while people press on their chests to obtain similar feelings).

You say CO2 doesn't cause a "high" and instead causes feelings of "dizziness, headaches, and nausea" but those are essential components of becoming "high" (and are discussed extensively in the article I posted and encouraged others to read before disputing the theory--I'm assuming from your response that you did not read it). Dizziness, headaches, nausea, drowsiness, and euphoria can all be caused by CO2 inhalation and are also associated with being "high." The point of the article is how one learns to associate those physiological responses, that are arguably not fun, with fun--we learn what being "high" means and how to respond to it (laugh).

If a first-timer happens across a joint and smokes it, they will arguably walk away thinking the experience wasn't very fun at all. Their airways will become inflamed, they'll cough, their thinking will become disoriented, they may become nauseas, and they may develop an insatiable urge to eat all the food nearby. Objectively, those things aren't generally considered "fun." Subjectively, however, via interactions with other users demonstrating how and why those things are fun novice users tend to learn how to become "high."

Becker, and I, are arguing that being "high" has as much, or more, to do with how we evaluate our body's response to bud and less to do with the pharmacology of it. Now, you're free to disagree but I'd suggest you do so only after reading the relevant research on the subject rather than rejecting it outright. To that end, I'd also point out that those physiological responses shouldn't be entirely attributed to the pharmacology of bud because, as you hopefully know, THC is a hallucinogen.

The risks associated with conduction modalities vs. convention modalities aren't a debatable point to me. There already exists over a decade of discussions regarding this potential on the board so I won't belabor the point in this thread.

The claim that smoking a joint produces the same high as vaping of any modality is so far outside the boundaries of average reports and scientific literature I won't debate that with you, either.

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD – In my opinion it's bad style to ask someone to read an extensive article of several pages before being allowed to take part in a discussion.

Feeling nauseous, dizzy or having a headache is in no way the same as feeling couchlocked, let alone feeling euphoric. Also those symptoms do not occur when smoking a joint or having a bong, it would need much higher amounts of CO² to create such effects (~5% of the inhaled air over a prolonged time while ~8% will result in death within 30-60 minutes), mostly combined with the prolonged absence of oxygen, for example when you find yourself in a burning house or the like.

It also makes no sense because those symptoms typically do not occur when someone smokes a cigarette.

The risks associated with conduction modalities vs. convention modalities aren't a debatable point to me. There already exists over a decade of discussions regarding this potential on the board so I won't belabor the point in this thread.

Okay, I'm reading this forum for a while now and haven't found any sign of conduction creating smoke or resulting in „smoke inhalation“ (quoting you here), so I'd be glad if you could point me to the decade of discussion I missed so far.

Edit: It's also bad style to bury a discussion under a whole set of very questionable claims like THC being a hallucinogen or that a first joint is not fun. I mean... please. If puking and feeling disoriented got you hooked, okay, to each their own, but that's probably not what most people enjoy about using cannabis.

 

[.brew]

@BL4zD – In my opinion it's bad style to ask someone to read an extensive article of several pages before being allowed to take part in a discussion.

That is not a fair or accurate representation of what occurred in this discussion.

I stated my credentials, cited a scientific journal article, and summarized that article for the discussants.

If discussants want to dispute the claims made in that article then it behooves them to read it. I never said everyone needs to read it before participating; I did say that one needs to read it before disputing it, which is not in any way, shape, or form "bad style."

EDIT: an 8 page journal article is hardly onerous: Becoming a Marihuana User

You created a straw-man. I listed several effects that are associated with what we tend to refer to as "couch lock" and those you listed certainly are included in that list although it's not exhaustive.

Furthermore, those physiological effects do occur when someone smokes a joint, a bong, or a cigarette. Everyone in this thread has presumably smoked something in their life so I can't begin to understand why this is the issue you want to dig your heels into.

We also know that users who are given pure THC in clinical settings experience none of those things and instead hallucinate. That leads us to wonder what causes the "high" people associate with marijuana consumption. Speculation is that it comes from the "rest" of the plant in wild cannabis use but it's not well-understood what the "rest" of the plant consists of, yet, or how that interacts with our bodies.

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD – I'm not disputing the article, I'm disputing your comments here.

Could you please point me to a place that discusses smoke being created by conduction vaporizers? I'm interested.

 

[.brew]

@BL4zD – I'm not disputing the article, I'm disputing your comments here.

Could you please point me to a place that discusses smoke being created by conduction vaporizers? I'm interested.

Before I cite additional sources that you'll refuse to read (yet argue about nonetheless), I want to be clear on what you think you're disputing:

1. Being "high" is a social learning response wherein participants link harmful physiological factors with pleasurable social/psychological factors.

2. A first-time smoker is likely to find the physiological effects of smoking non-pleasurable.

3. THC can be medically classified as a hallucinogen

4. Conduction modalities present an increased risk of combustion than convection modalities.

Any other disputes you think I've "buried" within the discussion?

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD – We are discussing conduction vapes here and how they affect our experiences as opposed to convection or hybrid vaporizers. You come up with some disputable, but somewhat interesting arguments about sociological aspects, but I am not referring to these parameters at all. I'm referring to your claim that using conduction vaporizers „approximates” smoking by creating smoke and thus CO². Even if we assume that CO² in smoke takes part in the feeling of being high, there is no smoke being created when we use conduction vapes. I repeatedly asked you to point me to discussions about conduction vaporizers creating smoke, however, you fail to do so, most likely because those discussions do not exist, neither here nor elsewhere. You seem to try to bypass that by now stating that conduction vapes „present an increased risk of combustion“, but actually the risk of combustion is dictated by the temperatures being used, not the heating method – you can totally combust with convection vapes as well, in both cases we are not looking at vaporization anymore but plain combustion. Here we discuss proper vaporization with a conduction vaporizer.

 

[.brew]

I'm referring to your claim that using conduction vaporizers „approximates” smoking by creating smoke and thus CO².

You continually straw-man my position.

This is the first sentence of my first post where I made the claim you continually mistake:

"1. Conduction often leads to harmful side effects of combustion, such as, smoke inhalation."

Similarly, I never claimed that "using conduction vaporizers 'approximates' smoking by creating smoke and thus CO2."

The only time I even used "approximates" is here:
"It shouldn't surprise us at all that something that approximates smoking makes us feel similar to when we used to smoke"

Once you read what I wrote instead of what you'd rather argue against, you'll note that entire section is not about conduction vaping at all. The something that might "approximate smoking" can be conduction vaping, convection vaping, or even sitting on one's couch while the house is burning down around them.

CTRL-F: the rest of the use of "approximates" in this thread comes from you repeatedly misstating what I wrote.

The reason I'm not providing you any further citations is because I already provided you with several that you explicitly refused to read, I already explicitly stated that I won't be debating the point with you regardless, and we're on a site dedicated to the harms of combustion so your request is akin to being on a boat demanding everyone to prove to you where all the water is.

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD – I did read the article, it's an interesting piece of history, but as I said: I'm not referring to the sociological arguments you use.

The only time I even used "approximates" is here:
"It shouldn't surprise us at all that something that approximates smoking makes us feel similar to when we used to smoke"

Right, and I'm saying: there's no such thing as approximate smoking. You either smoke or you don't. And your reasoning why smoking would create a different high is questionable.

Also (in a nutshell):

"1. Conduction often leads to harmful side effects of combustion, such as, smoke inhalation."

But then we are not looking at vaporization. That's combustion.

There's no reason to act defensive, I'm solely referring to your arguments, not to you as a person.

 

[.brew]

There's no reason to act defensive, I'm solely referring to your arguments

The problem is that you're doing it in a bad faith way. In addition to that, you have made several personal comments about me--I simply chose to ignore them. That doesn't make them any less offensive, though.

Aside from the fact there are ways to approximate smoking even that isn't my argument. For the final time, I pointed out that as something approximates smoking the behavior will induce feelings similar to when someone smoked. It's a continuum...the more something approximates smoking the more likely that is to occur, the less something approximates smoking the less likely that is to occur.

It's nonsensical to argue that there is simply no such thing as approximating smoking. I provided three specific examples of people engaging in activities that more or less approximate smoking. Other concrete examples of approximating smoking is when tobacco smokers use pens/pencils to mimic cigarettes while they're kicking their habits or when some, like I did when I quit decades ago, "smoke" an unlit cigarette until the urge subsides.

You're making way to much of this because you either misread or misunderstood the argument I made. You seem to be arguing against a claim (that I never made) that conduction vaping is just like smoking.

The claim I actually wrote, behaviors approximating smoking weed will tend to elicit feelings similar to weed smoking, is well grounded in behavior science. I'm not sure why this became such a debatable point for you other than you misunderstanding it because the impact of rituals among drug users are well-known. Those rituals are explicitly intended to approximate the original behavior as best as possible and they are done in order to increase the subjective pleasure of the behavior.

 

[Siebter]

@BL4zD

If you insist on discussing behavioral parameters: I do agree to some extend. For example there are some aspect that help smokers to switch to vaporizing because they remind us of our smoking habits, be it exhaling clouds or the throat hit we experience with each inhalation. Both have nothing to do with the effect the key substance gives us, yet they are heavily linked to the overall experience, hence we seek to replicate those. However, I don't think they are affecting the overall experience on a psychotropic level.

Maybe they do – but again: I am not referring to those aspects anyway. If by „approximating smoking“ you mean strictly behavioral aspects, then I don't understand what your point about an alleged higher risk of combustion when using conduction vapes is about.

 

[pretty-chill]

Alright, I need to jump in real quick to get us away from the CO2 thing, that's just nonsensical for one simple reason, decarboxylation releases CO2! So any heat source, whether it be conduction or convection is going to generate some CO2 since our main goal is getting those acidic cannabinoids to decarboxylate as we apply heat Furthermore as @Siebter mentioned, you need to inhale a shit load of CO2 to get a psychoactive effect. That being said, the psychoactive effect of CO2 is no joke, just look into carbogen and how it has been used in psychotherapy and even anesthesia. Indeed the percentage of CO2 needed is 5% with 95% O2 and you need to breathe that continuously. Anyways, time to lurk in the shadows again but let's get this back on topic since this is a very interesting discussion!

@BL4zD , consider starting a separate thread on the sociology of getting stoned, I'd love to dive into that more as I have a degree in psychology and I also think our psychological state has a major effect on our cannabis experience! There certainly has to be some pavlovian conditioning going on, just like with place dependent heroin overdoses as can be read about here:

A case report: Pavlovian conditioning as a risk factor of heroin 'overdose' death - PMC

The authors present a case illustrating a mechanism leading directly to death which is not rare but has received little attention. The case was evaluated by autopsy, investigation of morphine concentration in the blood, and clinical data. The heroin ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

In a more subtle way, this probably affects our cannabis experience and I think this perfectly ties in with the interesting article you linked

 

[.brew]

Alright, I need to jump in real quick to get us away from the CO2 thing, that's just nonsensical for one simple reason, decarboxylation releases CO2! So any heat source, whether it be conduction or convection is going to generate some CO2 since our main goal is getting those acidic cannabinoids to decarboxylate as we apply heat Furthermore as @Siebter mentioned, you need to inhale a shit load of CO2 to get a psychoactive effect. That being said, the psychoactive effect of CO2 is no joke, just look into carbogen and how it has been used in psychotherapy and even anesthesia. Indeed the percentage of CO2 needed is 5% with 95% O2 and you need to breathe that continuously. Anyways, time to lurk in the shadows again but let's get this back on topic since this is a very interesting discussion!

Yes, it's nonsensical the way that was written. That's what straw-man arguments do.

What I claimed was that the state of being "high" is a socially learned responses to certain physiological stimuli. Then I listed various examples of people experiencing distressful physiological stimuli, some of which are interpreted as pleasurable psychologically. That person extracted one of those examples and then inaccurately restated it as, "CO2 makes people high," which is a claim I never made.

It would be fun to expand the conversation to include the field of psychology. There's a strong argument to be made that people reading this thread will feel more "high" because of this thread.

 

[pretty-chill]

1. Conduction often leads to harmful side effects of combustion, such as, smoke inhalation. Smoke inhalation will make one feel "high" purely as a function of CO2 rather than any psychoactive qualities of the smoke itself. That is, if you inhale enough smoke from an otherwise normal forest fire you will experience a "high" and/or forcing oneself into a hyperventilation state will also induce a "high" feeling.

 

[.brew]

1. Combustion can lead to smoke inhalation. T/F?

2. CO2 inhalation/oxygen deprivation can lead to symptoms similar to being "high" even when the "smoke" has no psychoactive qualities. T/F?

3. Therefore, smoking enough of anything can lead to feeling "high." T/F?

You quoted the longform of these statements. That was written to demonstrate an example of how smoking something in and of itself can induce physiological responses that are similar to those of being "high." The comparison isn't limited strictly to the extremes of smoke inhalation...as if someone needs to die from smoking before we can compare the two! Even Siebter listed one example, "throat hit," which I would argue is purely attributed to "smoke" density.

There's no clinical definition of being "high." Clinical studies, where our participants are given THC, don't tend to produce the same "high" many of us associate with smoking or vaping bud.

 

[Shadooz]

You continually straw-man my position

Welcome back to public places..



I've point out many time the effect of respiratory acidosis..

excess of "Maillard", liberating cancerogen carbon structure (acrylamide, benzene, C02...) before combustion, is the issue for health. but it is what give you a more couch lock effect. As smoke.
And it easier to fuck the maillard with conduction than convection.

Pan cooking vs oven.. nothing new
Learn to cook..

 

[Shadooz]

freshness/quality

I agree with all ur talk , except That oxymore...

Level up kids, and maybe one day, grower house will be called "castle"

But for now, i will not open a Petrus for u

 

[Dutch-Mic]

1. Conduction often leads to harmful side effects of combustion, such as, smoke inhalation.

4. Conduction modalities present an increased risk of combustion than convection modalities.

Lots of people in this forum choose to use a vaporizer to decrease health risks. If these statements are true then it would not only partially explain the perceived difference between convection and conduction effects, but we could help people to choose for the right (convection) vaporizer. Could you present us - for the sake of knowledge and health - scientific sources for the above quoted statements?

 

[Siebter]

That person extracted one of those examples and then inaccurately restated it as, "CO2 makes people high," which is a claim I never made.

You did:

Smoke inhalation will make one feel "high" purely as a function of CO2 rather than any psychoactive qualities of the smoke itself.

„Oxygen deprivation“ is yet another myth that makes no sense btw, at least I always remembered to breathe normally between hits.

 

[maremaresing]

To my knowledge, cannabis has a wide range of chemicals available at different temps. The highest temp chemical is still very far from combustion temps, and there is a huge difference between combustion and dark ABV. It has been my understanding and experience that you can get the exact same effects as smoking with a vape as long as you vape at a high enough temperature to extract all of those chemicals.

Smoking is just vaporizing anyway, except you are using the materials as your heat source and breathing the exhaust of burning plants. I also never held to the myth that new vaporists are disappointed because they are used to the "oxygen loss high that smoke gives". It's usually just that they aren't getting complete extraction.

To that point, I don't believe conduction gets you higher than convection by nature of it's heating. Instead, it's more likely that a conduction vape has more packed in and can uniformly heat the entire oven to a certain temperature. With this, you not only get more vapor but more uniform complete extraction in that vapor.

In the portable space we have this conversation because conduction vapes have gotten so good, while convection is playing catch up. 12 years ago, the conversation was flipped, and you heard a lot about how "convection gets you higher". This is because most convection devices were either desktops or butane powered (ie had more energy density available).

Typically this conversation was a vaporgenie owner catfighting with an mflb owner