Pot without the smoke

We don’t advocate that people use marijuana. Life presents enough challenges and delights without putting drugs in the picture. But we also know that lots of folks enjoy getting high on pot, and some use it for medicinal reasons. We urge them to do so healthfully.

Most pot users smoke the herb, and that’s a big problem. Smoke is smoke—toxic in any form. When you take it into your lungs, you’re doing damage to your body, no matter how good the high. The result is a greater risk of coming down with bronchitis, emphysema or some other illness associated with smoking.

That’s why many pot smokers have switched to other ways of ingesting it, such as brownies and marijuana butter. But for regular users, and especially those who rely on marijuana as a medicine, nothing is better than a good vaporizer.

Vaporizers work by heating the herb to the point at which its psychotropic chemicals evaporate, becoming a vaporous mist that can be inhaled. The pot doesn’t burn, so there’s no smoke.

They’re not cheap. A top-of-the-line one, like the Volcano (pictured), can cost $500. But there are good ones for sale on the Internet for less than that, and besides, how much are your lungs worth?