Hello.
New vaporist here. I'm in my late 40's and I've been combusting for about 30 years.
I've always been somewhat health-conscious, and to this day I still hit the gym about 4 days a week.
I know that studies show that marijuana smoke is FAR less dangerous to you, with a FAR less lung cancer risk than tobacco, and I do believe that. But five years ago I watched my mother die from lung cancer caused by 45 years of cigarette smoking. Even though I know that cannabis smoke is far less dangerous than tobacco, I still felt somewhat uneasy inhaling smoke of any kind.
So, when someone informed me about vaporizing, and that it virtually eliminated all carcinogens & tars that are associated with combusting, I was intrigued and knew I had to try it!
So, of course not being fully sold on vaporizing at that point, I bought the cheapest vape that I could find at my local head shop, the Vapor Genie pipe.
I actually got the hang of using the VG pretty quick, but there was one thing that I just didn't like...and that was having to use a lighter for the heat source. The lighters would get really hot after awhile, and also they were killing my thumbs by having to flick the lighter constantly. I just really did not like the whole experience of having to use flame. So I went back to combusting, but I knew someday I wanted to try vaporizing again...with a different vape.
Now when I was combusting, my favorite way to smoke was to take a big bong hit or two (or three LOL!). I always loved a big lung-buster of a bong hit. So when I started researching vaporizers again, I purposely looked for the ones that would give the biggest, thickest vapor hits...the ones that most closely emulated a big bong hit.
After doing my due dilligence on this site and others, I decided on the Silver Surfer vaporizer....and let me tell you I could not be happier with that decision!!
Since it's a little pricey, it took me a few months to save for it...but once I got it, I got the hang of it very quickly (thanks to a few videos on YouTube), and I absolutely love it & the huge vapor hits that I get from it!
I've been vaporizing for about 2 months now, and combusting will never be my main way to use cannabis again. I use the Silver Surfer exclusively at home, and the ONLY time I combust anymore is at friends houses or at a concert or something. But that is only about 5% percent of the time...I now vaporize about 95% of the time. And once I get my friends into vaporizing, that percentage of combusting will go down even further!
After vaporizing almost exclusively for 2 months, here are a few observations from a new vaporist:
#1. I find that I use about 30% - 50% less weed than when I used to smoke it (especially since I usually vaporize it pretty thoroughly)...so therefore very economical!
#2. I am already feeling the health benefits of vaporizing. I used to have kind of a "wheezy" laugh, and would get congested a lot....that's all gone since I started vaporizing! I used to cough a lot too, and that's gone. The only time I cough now is if I get greedy and take WAY too big of a vapor hit. LOL!
#3. The taste of the vapor is definitely different than the taste of the smoke. I think the vapor taste is much sweeter and purer tasting (especially the high grade strains) than the smoke taste. And in fact, I used to like the taste of the smoke of some killer skunky weed, but now the smoke tastes very harsh & dirty to me.
#4. But probably the thing that surprised me the most about vaporizing is the almost complete lack of smell of the vapor compared to the smoke!! This really shocked the hell out of me...in a good way!
I'm a single dad of two kids, and I vaporize in my bedroom with the door shut. When I used to combust, I had to REALLY make sure that my door stayed shut at all times for quite awhile after smoking, because the smoke of some killer skunkweed would absolutely reek the entire house up!
It was a constant battle to combat the weed smell.
I now have none of those problems while vaporizing!
I can do vapor hit after vapor hit from the Silver Surfer, go into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and when I come back in the room a minute later, I can't even tell I've vaped! What an awesome side benefit!!
In fact, two weeks ago I had to go out of town with a lot of other fellow employees and my boss to a 3 day seminar. They put us all up in adjoining motel rooms. When I used to combust, I would be extremely paranoid that someone would smell the weed smoke coming out of my room, or if one of them came to the door for something, and I would get busted & fired. So, I would either not bring any weed, or I would have to take a walk somewhere to smoke it, which could get dangerous and also increase my chances of getting busted by the cops.
But this time, absolutely no problems!
I brought my Silver Surfer and after a long day of seminars I locked my door and vaped to my hearts content, with NO noticeable odor to speak of! It was absolutely awesome!!
#5. The ONLY negative at all that I can think of regarding vaporizing is that it does make me more cottonmouthed than I used to get from combusting. But it's a VERY small inconvenience....and a glass of water will take care of that. It's a good thing to drink more water anyway, right? All the positives of vaporizing FAR outweigh this tiny negative.
Well, I've rambled on long enough. I just felt that I'd lurked long enough, and it was time to introduce myself.
Looking forward to getting to know you guys. Talk to you soon. Cheers!!