Posted on 04/18/2014 12:30:52 PM PDT by Drango
It's a sunny afternoon at Kelly's Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and Nikki Esquibel is getting stoned. But you wouldn't know it. Nikki Esquibel, 19, has a medical prescription for marijuana. She uses a vaporizer pen around her neighborhood in Los Angeles.
The 19-year-old, who has a medical prescription for marijuana, is "smoking" pot with a handheld vaporizer, or a vape pen. It's sleek, black, and virtually indistinguishable from a high-end e-cigarette.
That's the point, says Esquibel. "I use it mostly around my neighborhood. It's easy to hide." The vapor coming from the device doesn't even have an odor.
Discretion, it turns out, makes for good money. While have been grabbing the headlines, the vape pen industry has been quietly ballooning. And it's reshaping the business and culture of marijuana.
The latest versions of e-cigarettes contain a battery-powered heating element that vaporizes a liquid containing nicotine. Vape pens for pot use the same mechanism, but the devices are optimized to vaporize the active molecules in concentrated marijuana oils, not nicotine. And just as with e-cigs, there's no fire or smoke.
Pot users are flocking to the pens: One out 3 reviews on , the Yelp of the pot world, are about vaping marijuana. Vaporizer pens use marijuana concentrates or "hash oil" — a viscous, yellow resin chemically extracted from the plant.
Vaporizer pens use marijuana concentrates or "hash oil" — a viscous, yellow resin chemically extracted from the plant.
The pen doesn't carry the stigma or notoriety of a bong or joint, says Todd Mitchem, an executive at O.pen Vape, which sells its products on the West Coast and in Colorado.
"We are getting people buying vape pens who wouldn't normally come into a [marijuana] dispensary," he tells Shots. "Now, all of a sudden, they have an alternative [to smoking pot]," he adds.
Two years ago, Chris Folkerts was selling vape pens out of the trunk of his car. Today his company has 6,000 square feet of prime real estate in central Los Angeles.
"You could never get your mom to hit a bong," he says. "But your mom would potentially hit a G Pen. My mom did. My grandmother did too! And I have god-fearing Christian grandparents from the Midwest. When they tried it, I knew I was onto something."
Most vape pens don't actually vaporize the marijuana plant. They're loaded with marijuana concentrates or "hash oil:" a viscous, yellow resin chemically extracted from the plant. In many places, that extraction often occurs in somebody's kitchen — which can be .
And the concentrates can be strong. Really, really strong. Marijuana leaves usually contain about 25 percent THC, the psychoactive chemical that makes you feel high. But the concentrates can contain up to 90 percent THC. Esquibel says she almost fainted when she tried her first hit.
Those high THC levels worry , executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, a nonprofit lobbying group working to broadly legalize marijuana use.
The teenage years are the last golden opportunity to build a healthy brain, researchers say. So smoking pot might not be so smart.
"Between the fact that you can potentially pass out with a single inhalation, or you can have such property damage and potential bodily harm just producing it ... these [issues of the vape pen] definitely need to be addressed," he says. "This is a screaming call for regulation if there ever was one."
Most states, such as California, that allow the sale and use of medical marijuana don't have rules on the books about marijuana concentrates or about vaping the substance. California is considering a on concentrates, while Colorado and Washington allow them. The sale and use of vape pens is legal in every state.
And what about the health effects of vaping pot compared to smoking it?
"The problem is that, right now, it's hard to tell how much [THC] you are actually getting when you take a puff of one of these things," says , who studies marijuana laws and policies at the University of California, Los Angeles. "The risk of getting wrecked is a lot higher."
And given that the output of vape pens is odorless, Kleiman is also concerned about what the rising popularity of the devices means for parents and teachers.
"For them this will be a nightmare," he tells Shots. "If I am running a school or a house and I have a nose, I can tell if my kids are smoking pot. But if they're using a vape pen, forget about it.
until they plow their car through a crowd of people when driving around looking for muchies.
stoned is stoned.
They use butane to extract the oil from the pot plants. That is why there have been so many explosions in motel rooms in my city.
Got a link to one of those many stories?
Why are so many states pushing pot? Do they need obama voters that much?
I have read stories about the butane explosions in the San Diego Union Tribune in the past year.
I ride a Harley.
It’s not as if I didn’t already have enough to worry about, with other drivers.
No matter how safety conscious *I* may be, a stupid punk stoned on “vapor” can ruin my life.
Swell.
:-\
The personal injury firm pushing pot smoking has Charlie crist in their employ.
For them it is a win win, pot heads mean more accidents and Charlie crist is going to be their probable key to political cronyism.
I am far more concerned about drunks. The dopers are easy to avoid -- driving 10 or 15 mph and NOT weaving.
No matter how safety conscious *I* may be, a stupid punk stoned on “vapor” can ruin my life.
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Yup.
Or a soccer mom on a cell phone. Or granddad changing the radio station. Or a middle aged drunk. Or a car full of teens yakking. or ...
You get the picture and I bet you did before.
The punk vaping (who knew that was a word?) yesterday was just smoking a joint in the car.
I don’t think your level of risk is heightened by this marijuana delivery system. JMO.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/04/drug-making-explosion-injures-california-man/
I found this. I did a search on the word “butane” and found several stories. Those vape pens are not just for tobacco.
that is why potheads should be licensed and prohibited from having a DL period.
Well gee why not? Marijuana is the cure for *everything* according to the potheads. So super concentrated dope must impart immortality.
1.tax revenue-
2. being “high” will lead away from God
3. make you more acceptable to immoral behaviour
4. Vote for liberal dunces
these are a few things the Demon party would like to see happen.
a pothead is still stoned. They are physically compromised and a danger to the public. no pothead should EVER be driving.
Thanks for the link. That is interesting. That wasn’t a vaping accident though.
” Alcohol, pills, phones and senile old people are far worse.”
When I’m driving to town to pick up my pension checque and Memantine (for my Alzheimer’s), I like to wash down some Vicodin and beenies with Jim Beam. Then I grab my iPhone (carefully, so as not to stir up my rheumatism) and tweet about it. Sometimes, I see a hippy going by toking on pot. That riles me up so much, I take another pull on the Beam, and tweet about that too.
What were we talking about?
Beer, wine, or liquor drinkers as well.
Potheads also are more likely to be cronically unemployed and thus government dependant on taxpayer funded FREE STUFF.
Beer leaves the system in days and is far different from the psychotropic effects of THC of pot. Just as the man who killed his wife from eating pot cookies, just as the suicide kid who jumped to his death after eating pot laced cookies, just ask the rapper for the Woo tang clan.
Red Herrings are for fishing not smoking in a bong. (then again the pot heads smoked banana peals in the late 1960s)
Reason doesn't work against emotion.
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