Brownies in the desert.

I've been hearing about people vaporizing their various herbal concoctions for a long time, actually since i started this journey about ten years ago.  Being out here in Indiana is like being stuck at an oasis in the middle of the desert though, as I've analogized before, so the methods and tools like that have always been few and far between for me.  People have had them, but i was always to paranoid of undercovers to become friends with a lot of serious stoners.  So recently when the new smoke shop in town opened up, Wild Side, i saw they had a collection of vapo-pipes that seemed of reasonable quality, not just a novelty item, and reasonably priced, so of course i snatched one up.


This little black torpedo looking pipe is cylindrical with a hole at either end.  The end you light has a hole made of metal, and when you look down into this hole there is a little stone ( i think the guy said it is like, an inactive carbon disk or something, but stone works).  This end screws off and reveals a little chamber with a screen in the bottom.  Once you screw this lid back on, there is a little less than a quarter of an inch between the screen and the bottom of the cap, so you don't put very much of your herb in there at all.  The idea here is that you suck in the flame and it hits the stone, stopping the flame from causing combustion.  Combustion releases the active compounds that you want, as well as like a billion that are bad for you. Maybe my numbers are a little off there....but a billion works. So like i said, the stone stops the flame, so basically you are drawing hot air through a small amount of the herb, and when you learn a little technique you can keep the temperature right where you need it to release flavor and potency, but not the unwanted compounds that can cause cancer and sore throat and all the smoke-related illnesses.

The best part about this pipe is you get to enjoy your herbal remedy in two parts.  First you get to use it in the vapo-pipe, as i call it.  This provides an experience that can be a little hard to gauge at first, when you're us to smoking. Sometimes ill take one drag before i leave the house, just looking for a head change, not a buzz, and i wont feel anything, so ill take a couple more. I still don't feel too buzzed, so i go on about my day, and once i leave my house and get going, I'll start realizing that my buzz is getting stronger.  Sometimes ill be sitting in class and realize that i inhaled a little too much, so i have to try not to look high.  Sorry, I'm rambling now, but what I'm trying to say is that it is definitely a better experience than i get from smoking.  The second part of the process is what you do with the vape-poo; the left overs.

When you are done vaporizing (vaping ffr) you are left with vegetable matter that still has some active compounds on it, so if you can figure out a way to bind these compounds with something, you can pull them off the plant material and utilize them in some way.  Luckily the cannabinoids love fat and they cling to it like crazy.  Once you have enough poo saved up, you can combine it with some butter or oil, or even alcohol if you want to get fancy and make a tincture.  It is going to take a little more than if you used fresh plant material, but it will still do the trick.

Vaporizing is an amazing method of ingestion and leaves the user with a multitude of experiences to learn from.  I would definitely recommend getting down to Wild Side, located at the bottom of chauncey hill on 231, on the other side of the hill as Mcdonalds.  Check out their selection, i would say they boast a more legitimate air about them than some of the other shops in town, but definitely pick up one of these vapo pipes.  It is one of the best investments I've made, and it has gotten me almost completely away from smoking anything, ever. Smoking is a bad idea no matter what it is, and even thought studies show that smoking pot only may reduce risks of cancer rather than promote it, this little pipe provides me with a taste that is unparalleled by any smoke, and a smoothness you can still feel in your throat an hour later.  All in all vaporizing and edibles are definitely the way i see myself, as well as the industry, moving.  However in closing, there is nothing better than a finely rolled reefer with some premium herb.

P.S. If you have any questions about anything in this, or any other post for that matter, shout at me on FB, or even better yet leave me a comment down below :)