By Chip Paul

As the cannabis market continues to mature, we will see the market begin to extend. This only makes sense as growers discover more ways to extend raw product and draw more profits from it.

We certainly hope, and truly believe, the next big thing to hit the cannabis market will be vaping cannabis. The same health benefits e-cigarettes have brought to the nicotine market are readily available to the cannabis market.

“Why, I already vape my cannabis!” some of you may exclaim. I would argue that you are probably not vaping as safely as you could be, and probably not as well as you could be. Allow me to explain.

First, let’s get our terminology right. When I say “vaping,”I mean using traditional electronic cigarette hardware. I do not mean using dab pens or anything that vaporizes a concentrated form of cannabis. I am speaking specifically of creating a product with cannabis and vegetable glycerin (VG), which could also be flavored, and consumed in a traditional e-cigarette.

The issue with vaping cannabis is how to get the cannabis oil (rendered or extracted) to combine with vegetable glycerin (also known as glycerin or VG). Glycerin is a water-soluble substance that is used in all e-cigarettes. This is what produces the vapor cloud and is necessary to simulate the feel and sensation of smoking.

It is a known food safe substance and most of us consume it every day in food products. Cannabis, as we all know, is an oil.  Without any additives, cannabis and glycerin will not mix. It’s very similar to mixing a salad dressing; over a short time, the oil will separate from the water and rise to the top of the solution.

How are people in the industry solving this?  Not very well.

I spoke to one CBD Vape maker and asked him what they were using to do their combining, and he said, “We have found this great combiner called PEG400 and it works great!”  Well yes, it will work just fine. However, a quick look at the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) on PEG400 yields this — “hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant, permeator), of ingestion, of inhalation.”

That’s really not something I want to be putting in my body on a daily basis.

Some major industry players are using a substance called propylene glycol (PG) to do this combination. Those of us in the electronic cigarette industry are very familiar with propylene glycol. While vaping is far less risky than smoking cigarettes, people in the industry fully understand and recognize propylene glycol as the “bad guy” in the e-cigarette market. Additionally, propylene glycol is water bonder and really only works in a water-soluble system. Basically it will not work well as a combiner for cannabis oil and glycerin because it is a water bonder, not an oil bonder.

Then there is the hardware. My belief is that some enterprising Chinese executive saw an opportunity to give outdated e-cigarette hardware new life, and this is what is being sold in the cannabis market today.

Consider the disposable “vape cartridges” that some dispensaries sell (probably loaded with PG or PEG400). Generally, these are called CE4 or CE5 cartridges. They were all the rage in the e-cigarette market three years ago. Also consider the hardware forms of some of the major players in the industry. Generally these are based on a 3.7 Volt battery which at most can produce 8 watts of power. At 8 watts of power, submersed in liquid, it takes an e-cigarette coil 8 seconds of burn time to heat up enough to fully vaporize CBD’s. It takes it three seconds to fully vaporize THC. This creates wasted product and does not give the consumer full product benefit.

While there are certainly a lot of people interested in and beginning to vape cannabis, the market still has a long way to go.

First, we need to find and adopt a food safe combiner. This is really the basic building block to developing this market. Then we must introduce e-cigarette hardware that is optimized to get the full benefits of cannabis.

We have seen the e-cigarette market go from the “Wild, Wild West” to a regulated and somewhat safer market. We have no doubt the cannabis market, when it comes to vaping, will follow the same path.

Chip Paul is co-owner and CEO of Palm Beach Vapors (www.palmbeachvapors.com) the nation’s leading e-cigarette retail franchise concept. He is CEO of Native Grow LLC (www.nativegrowllc.com), which holds intellectual property targeted toward the marijuana industry. Paul and his wife Cindy have the 501c4 non-profit (www.oklahomansforhealth.com) which sponsored the medical marijuana petition that circulated throughout Oklahoma last summer.