Smoked vs Vaporized Cannabis: How Does Method Impact Risks?

Among infrequent cannabis users, adverse effects could potentially occur at relatively low levels of THC, according to the results of a recent study.

With vaporization becoming a more popular method for cannabis administration and cannabis becoming more available across the US, there is a need for controlled examinations of their effects on adults with infrequent cannabis use, according to the study authors.

They conducted a within-participant, double-blind, crossover study including 17 healthy adults. During the study, 6 smoked and vaporized outpatient experimental sessions with a 1-week washout period between sessions were completed in clusters. Cannabis with doses of THC of 0 mg, 10 mg, and 25 mg were vaporized and smoked by each participant.

Overall, they found that inhalation of cannabis containing 10 mg of THC produced discriminative drug effects and modest impairment of cognitive functioning, while the 25-mg dose produced significant drug effects and increased incidence of adverse effects and impairment of cognitive and psychomotor abilities. Vaporizing resulted in qualitatively stronger drug effects for most outcomes and higher concentrations of RHC in the blood compared with equal dose of smoked cannabis.

“As the legal cannabis marketplace continues to expand, future studies should further explore the effects of vaporizers and other novel methods for cannabis administration in users with different degrees of experience with cannabis, as the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles will likely differ substantially across products and users.”

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Spindle TR, Cone EJ, Schlienz NJ, et al. Acute effects of smoked and vaporized cannabis in healthy adults who infrequently use cannabis [published online November 30, 2018]. JAMA Netw Open. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.4841