A Beginner to Vaping Flowers - Part 1

As pretty much a weed virgin (I did it once on a trip to Amsterdam and once with a friend), I knew there were different names for things like joints, spliffs, blunts, bowls – but I didn’t really know anything about vaping dry herb. I gave up smoking around 9 years ago, making the move to vaping e-liquid and have had a variety of vape pens, but looking through Reddit and other places on the net, to vape medicinal weed, I would need a different kind of vape.

This was not brought up at all in my appointment with MaMedica – the assumption seemed to be that I had done my own research and knew how I would be taking the medicine and as long as I wasn’t smoking it (illegal in the UK at the present time), then that was all good with them.

Generally speaking, the first thing anyone seemed to suggest was the Dynavape as it is meant to feel the most similar to smoking and is an easy introduction at a reasonable price – I got mine for under £57 and made sure to go through Quidco!

I didn’t like it.

It didn’t feel like a cigarette OR a vape pen – it felt heavy and cumbersome in a way I didn’t expect. I also didn’t like trying to light/combust the dry herb – spinning the dynavape to ensure that the heat was evenly distributed felt twiddly, and because I was using a bog-standard lighter, it got very hot very quickly and became uncomfortable.

Secondly, and something I should have realised so it’s my own fault – burning the herb means that the pretty silver dynavape very soon had a blackened end that looked far from attractive. I cleaned it with isopropyl alcohol so it doesn’t look as bad now, but for a while there it looked very grimy.

Possibly due to my inexperience, I didn’t feel like I felt the benefit of the bowl I had just inhaled and the whole thing was a bit of a let-down to be honest. Book-Grim tried it and it sent them into fits of coughing, and they were very nervous of the open flame lighting the dynavape which I think also prejudiced us against this method. I know that some people suggest a butane flame for an even burn and ease of use, but I didn’t like the dynavape enough to invest in further things – possibly I would revisit in the future? I know that it can be used quite effectively with a bong so that might be worth a little experimentation. But at the moment, it’s sitting in it’s box unused and may well end up on eBay.