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The ways to experience CBD are almost endless: vapes with CBD vape juices, edibles like gummies, capsules, pills and oils, tinctures, topicals like creams, balms, and salves, and more.
Vaping CBD offers certain advantages over other methods of consumption, including its almost immediate effects, greater bioavailability, choice of flavors, and ease of use. As for the potential benefits Hemp Oil offers, vaping CBD has the same effects as ingesting or applying CBD.
CBD vaping is increasingly becoming mainstream as new discreet and easy-to-use devices are hitting the market. Consumers can even choose the CBD flavor they want and inhale their CBD in a quick and easy way.
But how safe is it, given a 2019 spate of deaths and instances of serious lung illnesses related to vaping? Can its advantages counterbalance the potential risks to your health? And just what caused those deaths?
How Hemp Oil Works
Since the 1990s, when the medical and scientific community discovered the existence of a human endocannabinoid system (ECS), there has been growing interest in the potential of Hemp Oil.
Researchers discovered that Hemp Oil interacts with our ECS, potentially helping it work better and more efficiently. As the ECS controls various bodily functions such as metabolism, memory, appetite, mood, motor perception, inflammation, reproduction, and mood, researchers wondered whether CBD could positively affect these functions.
The fundamental role of the ECS is to keep our body in balance and harmony. Whenever a function is out of sync, our ECS alerts the brain that something is amiss and needs help. The ECS works by producing two cannabinoids, CB1 and CB2, that bind to specific receptors.
Subsequent research has discovered that Hemp Oil may support our ECS, helping it work more efficiently. After consuming Hemp Oil, our neuroreceptors appear to be more sensitive to the messages sent, working better to inform the cells to start the repairs phase.
Hemp Oil Benefits
There is no clinical proof yet about most of Hemp Oil’s potential, as research is still limited. However, because of the prominent role the ECS seems to play in regulating several of the body’s functions, CBD is the subject of an ever-increasing number of studies.
Already, there is growing evidence that Hemp Oil may assist with pain, inflammation, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
Evidence also suggests that Hemp Oil may be beneficial with panic disorders, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, generalized anxiety, and PTSD.
In studies, CBD has been found to act in a similar fashion to SSRIs—a group of standard antidepressant medications.
Some studies have also displayed promising results for inflammation and pain management, particularly when it comes to arthritis, joint pain, muscle pain, and neuropathic pain. Chronic pain can be debilitating, seriously impacting people’s quality of life.
Furthermore, Hemp Oil may possess anti-inflammatory properties. Many modern diseases like diabetes type 2, arthritis, or Crohn’s disease are related to inflammation. Finding a long-term soothing solution for these sufferers could greatly improve their quality of life and well-being.
Hemp Oil may also assist with insomnia. Poor quality of sleep can be detrimental to your life. A good night’s sleep can help you focus and improve your concentration, energy, and mental capacity and acuity. Simply put, a well-rested body is a body that works better.
A CBD-based medication has been approved by the FDA to treat a rare form of children’s epilepsy.
Finally, there is ongoing research to examine the potential of Hemp Oil in assisting with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
This is not to say that taking CBD can cure any specific disease. Research is often limited in scope or performed on animals. Also, crucial questions such as dosage, interaction with other medication, and contraindications must be answered before Hemp Oil can be safely prescribed as a treatment for any health conditions.
Will CBD Get Me High?
CBD is non-intoxicating and non-psychotropic. Cannabis contains more than 110 cannabinoids, of which CBD is only one. The other famous cannabinoid is THC, which is intoxicating and hallucinogenic.
US law states that all CBD products must contain less than 0.3% of THC and can only be produced from industrial hemp and not marijuana.
Therefore, CBD products from reputable, trustworthy, and reliable brands contain less than 0.3% and can be trusted for their purity and quality.
What Is Vaping?
Vaping CBD is one of the many ways to consume Full-Spectrum Hemp Oil.
Vaping CBD requires a vape pen—a device with a heating element and a chamber with the so-called CBD juice. This “juice” contains CBD in liquid form, mixed with a thinning agent. There are various devices: some need a pre-filled tank cartridge that is discarded after use, while others have a refillable juice tank.
Regardless of the specifics, once the CBD juice is heated, it creates a vapor that the user inhales.
All types of CBD vaping devices work in a similar fashion. A battery, which is included in the device, heats a wire. This, in turn, heats a cotton wick imbued in CBD juice. Once the CBD juice is heated, it gets vaporized and is ready for inhaling. By taking a puff, the consumer inhales the CBD.
What’s in CBD Vape Juice?
CBD juices contain relatively few ingredients. These typically include CBD extract, propylene glycol (PG), vegetable glycerine (VG), terpenes, flavonoids, and other phytocannabinoids:
- PG is the carrier oil. It helps dissolve CBD into a consumable form.
- VG helps produce the vapor or cloud when inhaling.
- Terpenes are essential aromatic oils found in industrial hemp. They offer their own benefits, aside from their aromas. Hemp Oil usually contains limonene, myrcene, beta-caryophyllene, pinene, and linalool. Most terpenes are believed to possess anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, thus boosting the effects of CBD.
- Flavonoids are natural compounds with strong antioxidant qualities. Hemp Oil contains quercetin and apigenin among others.
To get the full benefits of hemp, it’s best to have as many cannabinoids as possible in your CBD vape juice. There are more than 110 cannabinoids found in Hemp, such as CBC, CBN, CBG, and CBDA. Although they have not been studied in-depth, preliminary evidence suggests that these cannabinoids may be helpful with inflammation and act as antimicrobial, anti-depression, and anti-anxiety compounds.
Are CBD Oil and CBD Vape Juice the Same?
Hemp Oil and CBD vape juice are two very different products. Hemp Oil is meant to be ingested or eaten with food. CBD vape juice has been designed to be inhaled.
Our lung capillaries cannot breathe in substances that are not meant for our lungs. While body lotion or soap are perfect to clean our skin, would you drink them to clean your stomach? It’s the same principle.
CBD vape juices have been specifically devised to only include ingredients that can be safely inhaled and breathed in by the lungs.
But is that always the case?
Is Vaping Dangerous?
Throughout the summer of 2019, several US hospitals admitted young people with shortness of breath and symptoms that looked like lung failure. Researchers swiftly identified the disease as Vaping-Associated Pulmonary Injury—first called VAPI and now renamed EVALI—and rushed to examine the patients. Tests showed no bacteria, infections, viruses, or other pathogens causing the symptoms.
Further research showed that the only commonality between the patients was that they had been vaping either e-cigarettes or marijuana. The next step was to determine whether they had all been using a specific brand or type of vapor. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
By early October, over 1,200 people had developed lung illnesses and twenty-six related deaths had been reported. Some 17% of them had vaped a CBD product, while most had vaped nicotine with marijuana (which contains THC). Some others had taken only marijuana or only nicotine.
Today, experts are still unsure of what provoked EVALI. They have, however, identified a whole range of possible causes, including the thinning agents, pre-existing respiratory problems, heavy metals in the coils of the vaping pens, and bad quality products.
Thinning Agents
Unlike the digestive tract, our lungs have limited ways to discard unwanted compounds. The accumulation of particles on the lungs can result in lung inflammation, as the lungs are trying to get rid of the pollutant.
The potential problem with vaping CBD lies with such potentially dangerous compounds. CBD on its own can’t be vaped; it needs to be diluted or infused into a carrier oil. These oils can be hard for the body to filter out, with potentially life-threatening results.
Indeed, several of the patients had inhaled tobacco thinned with improper thinning agents such as vitamin E acetate.
While we can—and should—eat vitamin E, our lungs can’t process it. Researchers in New York discovered that vitamin E acetate was a common factor in the various substances that EVALI patients had vaped.
As Kathryn Melamed, a pulmonologist at UCLA, explains in a related Quartz feature:
“While one type of substance—like vitamin E or maybe some other oil—can be ingested and metabolized through the gut, the lung just doesn’t have that ability. So then it becomes much more dangerous, and a particle that the lung wants to try to fight and expel. And that’s the inflammatory response that you get.”
Pre-existing Respiratory Problems
Besides vitamin E, producers often use as thinning agents substances like propylene glycol or polyethylene glycol. Not only can these be carcinogenic, but they can also exacerbate pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or allergies.
Coils in the Heating Devices
Heating devices commonly release tiny particles of metal. When you inhale CBD vapor, you may also be inhaling these. A 2018 study conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that the heating coils used to heat the oils released metals such as chromium and nickel. These end up in the vape inhaled and can build up in users’ lungs.
Poor Quality Products
In tests, many CBD products were found to be mislabeled: they either did not contain what they claimed, included substances not mentioned on the label, or had different quantities of the reported compounds.
Unfortunately, this is true of vaping products, too. A red flag is CBD producers who fail to test their products in third-party labs or produce a Certificate of Analysis, as they can make unsubstantiated claims about their products.
What Are the Benefits of Vaping CBD?
Inhaling CBD offers some distinct benefits compared to other consumption methods. However, it also has some potentially dangerous disadvantages.
CBD Vaping Offers Higher Bioavailability
When we inhale CBD, it bypasses the digestive system and enters our lung capillaries. When consumed in this fashion, it reaches the bloodstream almost immediately—within minutes.
Conversely, when we consume CBD orally, the digestive system breaks down the CBD and metabolizes it in the liver before letting it reach the bloodstream. This break-down process discards a large percentage of the initial CBD taken: ultimately only 6 to 20% of the CBD reaches the bloodstream.
Bioavailability is the amount of a substance consumed that reaches the bloodstream. So, vaping CBD offers much higher bioavailability. When inhaling, bioavailability reaches up to 50% because the stomach and digestive system have been bypassed. Since more CBD reaches our bloodstream, the effect is stronger.
However, as explained above, it is crucial that you buy your CBD juice from a reputable source. Your CBD juice of choice should not include vitamin E acetate or any other thinning agents that can be detrimental to your health and cause lung injury. And the carrier oils must be specially developed for vaping instead of eating.
Therefore, you should never vape CBD oil that is not from a trusted source or that is not intended for oral consumption.
Vaping CBD Offers Faster Results
Because CBD has circumvented the lengthy digestive process, it reaches the bloodstream right away and takes effect within 10 to 15 minutes. When ingested, CBD can take an hour to start having an effect.
However, vaping CBD also means that the effects wear off faster. Whereas you may stop feeling the effects of vaping CBD after a couple of hours, with edibles they can last up to six hours.
Vaping Juices Come in Flavors
Vaping juices come in flavors such as menthol, strawberry, coffee, mango, berry, and orange. This gives consumers plenty of choices to experiment with flavors and aromas.
Hemp Oil typically has a grassy flavor that not everyone enjoys. Of course, if you don’t like it, you can bake it into edibles or add it to your juice to make it tastier.
However, these additional vaping flavors also raise the risk of inhaling something potentially detrimental to your health. Most artificial flavorings are intended for oral consumption and not inhaling. That’s why you must be extra careful about your CBD oil source when you choose a flavored vaping product.
Some of the 2019 EVALI patients developed “popcorn lungs.” The term refers to bronchiolitis obliterans, a serious and irreversible lung disease that results in chronic coughing and shortness of breath.
The agent responsible for this is diacetyl, a chemical that tastes like butter. Diacetyl was originally found in microwave popcorn until it started affecting workers at the factories where microwave popcorn was produced.
While this led to the discovery of the dangers of diacetyl and its removal from popcorn products, some e-cigarette companies still add diacetyl to their products to complement flavorings such as vanilla, maple, coconut, etc.
This trend is so prevalent that in recent studies, over 75% of flavored e-cigarettes and refill liquids tested positive for diacetyl.
Vaping CBD Can Be Discreet
Vaping devices are usually small and discreet. They fit in a pocket and can be heated fast. Since they don’t produce any smoke, they shouldn’t trouble other people. Even so, there are places where you may not be allowed to vape, e.g. restaurants.
However, consuming a cookie or even using a dropper is easier and more discreet. You can also do it everywhere.
How Can I Calculate How Much CBD I’m Vaping?
CBD may be biphasic: it may have an effect at a small dose and its opposite at a large one. That may explain how it can make people alert in some cases and calm in others.
Therefore, knowing how much CBD you are vaping is crucial: you need to know you are not under- or overdosing. Because we are talking about puffs, this is a unit of consumption that varies from person to person. In very general terms, a CBD vape cartridge delivers 1 to 2 mg of CBD per puff (this is a very broad calculation).
Unless the producer has included that information on the label, you need to calculate how much CBD your tank contains. Most cartridges have their CBD content labeled. You then need to measure how many puffs you take with a whole cartridge and divide the CBD content by the total number of puffs. This will give you the amount of CBD per puff.
How Much CBD Should I Take?
CBD dosage depends on several variables: age, sex, weight, metabolism, and general health, among others.
For example, heavier people store more CBD in the body. Active people metabolize CBD faster. Older people metabolize CBD slower and will require less, as opposed to younger people. If your condition is severe, you may prefer a larger dose than if your condition is chronic but not intense.
Unfortunately, the FDA has not issued any official guideline regarding a recommended daily allowance for CBD. It is therefore up to people and their physicians to estimate how much CBD to take.
The best advice is to “start low, go slow.” Start with a low dosage and increase slowly, over the course of several days.
How much is a low dosage? A low dosage is between 5 to 10 mg of CBD per day. Increasing it by 1 or 2 mg per day and waiting to see the effects is the best way to experiment with CBD.
Can I Use CBD Vape Every Day?
Evidence suggests that microdosing CBD may enhance its benefits.
When microdosing, users consume tiny amounts at regular intervals. This helps keep the levels of CBD in the body steady throughout the day.
Keeping a steady amount of CBD in our body may make some people feel more relaxed. As CBD builds up slowly and gently in the body, it may soothe them and provide its effects all day long.
Providing your body with a constant supply of small doses of CBD may help your ECS regain its balance, helping your own cannabinoids work better and more productively.
What Are the Side Effects of Vaping CBD?
The side effects of vaping CBD are the same as with any other means of taking CBD.
According to the World Health Organization, CBD is safe, non-toxic, and well-tolerated by the body:
“In humans, CBD exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential…. To date, there is no evidence of public health-related problems associated with the use of pure CBD.”
CBD is also non-intoxicating. The most common side effects, such as tiredness, irritability, diarrhea, nausea, or drowsiness can be remedied with lower doses, more frequent ones, or a change of CBD product or brand. Usually, it is the carrier oils and other added ingredients used in Hemp Oil that cause discomfort, rather than the actual CBD.
It is these added ingredients that are most likely causing EVALI to some users. However, people with respiratory diseases or lung conditions should refrain from vaping CBD or should consult with their doctor before experimenting with vaping, as vaping CBD could worsen their condition.
Vaping CBD: Are the Risks Worth It?
CBD vaping oils are non-intoxicating and may help support a feeling of relaxation and well-being.
When cannabinoids are taken together, they seem to boost each other’s effectiveness in what has been called the entourage effect. Enjoying the full benefits of Hemp Oil can provide you with the True Entourage Effect™—a more sweeping and fulfilling experience.
CBD oil consumers can vape CBD with a vape pen, which is filled with a CBD juice that has been specifically designed to be inhaled. Vaping CBD offers high bioavailability and almost instant effect. As CBD vape juices come in various flavors, there is a wide selection of choices.
However, many users feel that the risks associated with vaping make vaping CBD potentially dangerous, especially when they compare it to the natural wholesomeness of Full-Spectrum Hemp Oil.
Vaping CBD oils are usually produced using harsh extraction processes and dangerous chemicals like butane and ethanol. Instead of stripping CBD from Hemp flowers, Synchronicity gently hand-presses the entire Hemp plant and uses its proprietary TransLipid™ process to infuse coconut oil. The result is a Full-Spectrum Hemp Oil unlike anything else you’ve ever tried. That’s the Synchronicity difference!
Here at Synchronicity, we guarantee your health by avoiding harsh CO2 extraction processes, using sustainable farming practices for all of our plants, and overseeing the gentle hand-pressing and coconut oil fusion of our products. We work with third-party testing facilities to ensure that everything we create is safe and reliable. Synchronicity—the passionate Hemp Oil producers.
