Before CBD entered the UK mainstream, there wasn’t a whole lot of ways to consume it. If you wanted to get high or medicate, you’d pretty much have to smoke cannabis. Fast forward to present day and you’ve got plenty of non-intoxicating and safe CBD options: dabbing, edibles, tinctures, capsules, and of course, vaping. Let’s take a look at CBD Vapes in the UK.
Firstly, note that technically speaking, you can’t really ‘vape CBD oil’. That’s actually a misnomer. CBD oils are a form of concentrates that you take orally.
Instead, you’re actually really vaping ‘CBD vape liquid’. However, most consumers (and businesses) use the terms interchangeably. In fact, most people use the term ‘CBD oil’ rather than ‘CBD vape liquid’. So for the purposes of this post, we’ll use the more popular terminology.
CBD ‘oil’ is a broadly used term that can technically be used to describe either oral (under the tongue) CBD products or vapable CBD products
Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Superior to Smoking?
While there are pros and cons to each intake method when you are learning how to vape CBD oil, the pros of vaping over smoking are a no-brainer.
- Vaping is better for your health
- Vaping produces a vapour that is up to 95% free of smoke and carcinogens
- You absorb up to 95% of the THC or CBD within the first few seconds of inhaling
- Because vaporizers operate at far lower temperatures than smoking, they preserve the most beneficial compounds. (When you smoke a joint of CBD flower, you’ll immediately lose at least 30% of the CBD. Literally, most of the compounds go up in smoke.)
- Vaping doesn’t produce a smell that lingers
- Vaping is more discreet than smoking
- Vaping allows you to taste and appreciate the terpenes and flavours better (unless you overheat it)
- It’s more cost-effective than smoking — less gets wasted
Without question, the most compelling reason to vape instead of smoke is your respiratory health. While evidence suggesting smoking cannabis can cause lung cancer has largely been disproven, it’s indisputable that smoking — anything — irritates your lungs. Not only does smoking irritate your lungs, it can lead to long-term respiratory issues like COPD and bronchitis.
How to Vape CBD Oil: How it Works
‘Vaping’, as it’s commonly called, is short for “vaporization.” Simply put, vaping CBD oil is an intake method whereby the user inhales vapour derived from CBD oil. CBD oil is an extraction of the cannabinoid CBD from cannabis flowers or hemp.
When you vape CBD oil, you’re heating the active compounds in the oil, which produces the vapour. This eliminates the combustion or burning associated with smoking.
Is CBD Therapeutic?
Before you learn how to vape CBD oil, you’ll probably want to know how CBD oil is therapeutic. While CBD shares many therapeutic properties with THC, it may be more effective (or less effective) depending on a patient’s unique physiology or the condition he or she is using it for.
An increasing body of evidence (primarily from animal studies) suggests CBD is:
- Neuroprotective: CBD may protect nerve cells against degeneration, damage, and functional impairment.
- Anti-inflammatory: CBD may reduce or prevent inflammation, thereby allowing it to lessen inflammation-related heat, swelling, redness, and pain.
- Analgesic: CBD may reduce pain.
- Ant cancerous: CBD (in preclinical lab studies) has shown to disrupt cancer cells from invading, metastasizing, and spreading. (Note: This research is still in very early stages, and the effects of CBD varied significantly between cancer types.)
Likewise, growing evidence (again, primarily from animal studies) suggests CBD may be effective in treating several maladies, including:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Epilepsy
- Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
- PTSD
There’s also research suggesting CBD may help people struggling with addiction, including alcohol and opioid dependency.
Why Is Vaping CBD Oil Popular?
The three most common reasons people cite for learning how to vape CBD oil are as follows:
Vaping CBD works much faster: Vaping CBD works much faster than most other intake methods. For example CBD edibles and CBD capsules can take up to 30 to 90 minutes (or more). As you can imagine, someone suffering from a seizure needs instant relief. Also, people treating anxiety or pain may not want to wait that long for relief.
It’s safer than smoking: As we mentioned, vaping CBD is safer than smoking. It doesn’t produce lung irritants that can lead to respiratory issues.
It’s not intoxicating: Unlike THC, CBD can produce highly therapeutic effects without any intoxicating effects. ‘Intoxicating effects,’ are not necessarily a bad thing and can be therapeutic (for example, for pain relief), but not everyone necessarily wants to feel intoxicating effects (at least not all the time!).
It’s discreet: Vaping also allows users the ability to remain discrete and consume CBD in public. With a tank or a vape pen, a dose is never further away than your pants.
How to Vape CBD Oil: What You Need?
When you are beginning to vape CBD oil, know that there are three main options:
Pre-Filled CBD Vape Pen
Also called a CBD vape shot kit or CBD vape starter kit, these vape pens have two components, a battery (the vape’s base) and a cartridge. Pre-filled CBD pens are relatively inexpensive and are simple to use. You can buy whatever kind of cartridge you’d like, and all you need to do is screw it onto the battery, and you’re ready to go!
Once you’re done with the cartridge, just throw the cartridge away and replace. What’s handy about pre-filled vapes is that you can easily swap cartridges, so if you want to have a few different strains or flavours available, you don’t need to finish a cartridge before swapping out.
Disposable CBD Vape Pen
Pre-loaded disposable CBD vape pens have just one component; a small standalone device that is about the size of a cigarette. Many cannabis consumers love disposables.
Disposables are cheap. They’re small, convenient, and discreet. They come pre-loaded. You don’t ever need to recharge them between uses. And, they’re easy to use. These devices are ideal if you’re traveling, going out for the night, or need to be discreet.
Of course, there are plenty of drawbacks. The quality often isn’t as high as you’ll usually find with cartridges.
Refillable or “Tank-Style” Vapes
‘Tank-style’ refillable vaporizers are easy to spot as they tend to produce big, billowing vape clouds. This style is most popular among former cigarette smokers (and weed smokers) who want to most closely mirror the experience of smoking.
Among cannabis consumers, they’re not as popular as pre-filled vape cartridges or disposables (as they’re a bit more cumbersome), but they do have a loyal following. Because you refill the tank (or chamber) as opposed to replacing a cartridge, you can actually experiment and create different blends based on what flavours or terpenes you’d like to add.
Tank-style vapes have two components: the pen (or battery) and the oil (or e-liquid). Once you’re done, simply refill it.
