Marijuana, cannabis, or weed is dried leaves from a plant called cannabis Indica, cannabis Sativa, and cannabis ruderalis. These leaves can be smoked, brewed, or eaten. The most common ways are by eating and smoking. Some people can hardly live without smoking or eating cannabis. Those users with vast experience know the difference between ingesting and smoking.
What are the differences in effects between eating and smoking?
Absorption
Eating weed takes a while before one can feel the effects. But once the effects show up, they are very intense. The reason for this is, once one has ingested cannabis, the metabolysis of THC begins at the liver, and THC is metabolized into 11-hydroxy THC. In this form, it lasts longer, thus making it more potent and intense. On smoking, THC travels instantly through the lungs into the brain, thus an immediate effect. Despite comparing smoking vs eating effects, they are both converted to THC.
Duration
When one smoke weed, the hit is instant also comes with a shorter flight. After the first toke, one feels glued to a fixed position, relaxed, and euphoric, which lasts between one to two hours. On the other hand, eating is a different story; once the effect is felt, it lasts between four to eight hours.
Potency
When comparing eating vs smoking effects of cannabis, eating has a stronger high compared to smoking. THC metabolites to 11-hydroxy THC, which has high-affinity CB1 receptors in the brain, making its hit last longer. Smoked marijuana brings a different effect than edibles. THC occurs in cannabis flower in the form of TCHA. Upon exposure to heat, they are decarboxylated to TCH that goes to the brain through the bloodstream.
How to dose edibles and smoking
Due to potency and the potential to consume a lot, experts recommend taking 10mg or less of edibles. Factors like your body weight and food on your stomach also affect the results of experience. Taking edibles on an empty stomach increased your level of high. If you want to consume more, you must do that at intervals of about one hour.
Smoking cannabis enables one to have control. And if you want to have control over the amount you consume, you first have to know the concentration of THC in the strain you choose. Mathematically you can calculate how much you are consuming simply by multiplying the amount of herb you are using in milligrams with the THC percentage that your stain has.
Between smoking and eating, which is healthier?
Smoking affects the respiratory system because it fills the lungs with smoke which yields carcinogenic consequences. Although cannabis has anti-carcinogenic properties, the more you smoke, the more lungs get damaged. Eating Sativa adds sugar levels, which, if not monitored, can result in huge problems afterward.
Conclusion
Drug and substance abuse, either ingested or smoked, is dangerous. Marijuana consumption is not safe as many think. Regardless of smoking vs eating Sativa, the negative psychological effects are evident. If you take cannabis, you should take it in a controlled manner.