Healthiest Way to Smoke Weed
(6 Easy Tricks for a Cleaner Lung 2023)
Written By: Jay Hyung
Bong Engineer
As someone that struggles with asthma, I’ve been on a personal journey to find the healthiest way to smoke weed.
Over the years I’ve picked up a few simple tricks that made the cannabis smoking experience feel much cleaner.
The simple solutions in this article are what I believe to be the safest way to smoke weed as it focuses on:
–Preventing tar, resin, and ash from entering into your lungs
–Reducing toxins, irritants, and carcinogens in the inhale process
–Stopping sulfur, heavy gasses, and mold as well.
Don’t worry, it’s all very simple so let’s dive in or skip below to what section is most helpful for you.
Skip to this: Cleanest way to smoke weed (only smoking):
Skip to this: Healthier alternatives to smoking weed (like edibles and such)
Skip to this: Staff tips and tricks for the healthiest ways to smoke weed
My 6 tips on the safest way to smoke weed
What is the healthiest way to smoked weed? Research has found that smoking marijuana through combustion (inhaling weed with a lighter) has been linked to air pockets between both lungs and between the chest wall.
If smoking is your preferred method then follow these 6 easy hacks below to make sure you are preventing as much tar, resin, toxins, impurities, and ash deposit in your lungs as possible. Or skip down here in the article for smoking alternatives.
1 - Safest way to Smoke Marijuana - No More Blunts and Joints
The combustion process of marijuana (lighting dry herb with fire and inhaling) has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke.
By smoking joints and blunts you are also combusting and inhaling the chemicals and toxins in the rolling papers and blunts.
Blunts are made from tobacco leaves increasing the amount of carcinogens and toxins inhaled so that is one of the first things I cut out.
Transparent white rolling papers are actually bleached to give a slower burn and that classic white look. And yes, you will be inhaling all the chemicals from the bleach there as well.
The safest way to smoke pot is by making sure you don’t add anymore combustible material, the only thing you want to be lighting is the cannabis from now on.
Once you cut out rolling papers the next focus is on what device is the cleanest way to smoke weed.
2 - Healthiest Way to Smoke: Double Filtration (Bong with Bong Filter)
Once I cut out smoking from papers the next move was finding the device that was the healthiest way to consume weed.
I’ve tested dozens of devices here at Cannassentials, and I’ve found that the cleanest way to smoke marijuana is by achieving double filtration with these two devices:
Filter 1: Use a bong that has a good amount of water filtration to soft filter ash, resin, and tar.
Filter 2: Also use a carbon activated bong filter to give a second much stronger layer of filtration on tar, resin, and ash.
This double filtration is the safest way to smoke marijuana. Just check out what the filter caught below in just 5 bong rips.
The bong filter acts like a N-9 mask that traps much more resin, tar, and ash giving you a much cleaner and safer smoking experience you can feel.
I love that you can see all the resin that would have gone into your lungs but was prevented and caught instead in the fibers of the carbon filter.
It’s a difference you can feel: the hits are smoother, less harsh, you can finally taste the terpenes, and it elimanated coughing 100%.
This filter works for all bongs, pipes, rigs, joints, and one hitters, the only downside is I believe it makes the hits a tad less strong as some THC is filtered as well. (we remedy this with solution #4 below).
3 - Butane lighters pass impurities and chemicals into your lungs
Now that you have the best device that can block tar, resins, and ash you want to focus on reducing toxins and irritants.
Butane lighters give your cannabis a bad taste and hits your lungs with sulfur and heavy gasses. This can cause a ton of irritation to your lungs.
SC labs found that butane was a class 33 solvent that had low toxic potential on humans, such as central nervous system depression.
I recommend using a hemp wick which is basically an organic way of lighting your weed without all the harmful irritants.
Using a hemp wick is the healthiest way to smoke pot, because you use a standard butane lighter to light your hemp wick first, then use the hemp wick to light the cannabis so you don’t pass any impurities over.
Pro-tip: Never place the flame deep into your bowl when lighting and never hold the flame in for long durations as this causes unnecessary stress to your lungs from flaming hot smoke. Coughing stresses your lungs out and that one can easily be avoided.
4 - Changing the way you inhale and smoke is a huge factor in health
The healthiest way to smoke weed is all about reducing the amount of carcinogens and toxins that travel into your body.
Contrary to popular belief you don’t need to take huge rips (overloading your lungs with smoke) and you don’t need to hold the inhale for long durations as this overloads your body with so much toxins and it’s absolutely unnecessary.
This may seem trivial but changing these two habits is literally the core two components for the healthiest way to smoke pot, and making changes here will reduce unnecessary stress on your lungs right away.
Add that with managing your tolerance then you can get high off much less which in turn reduces the carcinogens (tolerance section is the last tip and I show you exactly how to do it)
The safest way to smoke weed is by packing very manageable bowls. What this means is you want to be able to easily inhale all of the smoke into your lungs without stressing your lungs, and hold for no more than 1-2 seconds, and exhale completely.
I wrote an entire guide on how to inhale weed properly that explains everything but the short story is you only need 1-2 seconds to absorb THC into your lungs.
What’s the healthiest way to smoke weed: smoking much smaller bowls, and just waited a few minutes and smoked another one, rather than forcing so much into my lungs at once. The carbon bong filter reduces THC so instead of taking big rips just pace smaller sized bowls. You will see that two smaller fully inhaled bowls can be better than one oversized bong rip. If you want to learn how to get higher off weed I also share tips as well if that’s your focus.
5 - Cleanest way to smoke weed - Avoid Powdery Mildew and Pesticides
I spent about a year working at one of Southern California’s largest grow operations.
Because this grow operation was not selling licensed cannabis they didn’t have the same strict regulations that dispensaries must go through.
I personally saw mildew and mold growing on buds that were sold to people in the masses. The mold can be mistaken for THC crystals but you can check out this image to know the difference.
Unregulated cannabis is widespread in the market and on top of that I also noticed they used Eagle-20 which is a very harmful fungicide that is banned in standard regulation.
What is the cleanest way to smoke weed: by buying regulated cannabis from established and trusted legal dispensaries, because inhaling mold and pesticides into your lungs is very damaging.
6 - Healthiest way to smoke: managing your tolerance
Don’t skip this section! If you want the healthiest way to smoke weed in a nutshell this method works wonders for me and our staff here at Cannassentials.
One of the easiest tricks and the healthiest way to consume cannabis is by lowering your tolerance so you get high off much less.
If you can get the same high a large bong rip gives you with a fraction of the amount then that means you are dumping far less toxins and impurities into your lungs each day!
Makes sense right? But this is so overlooked but we thought better to tell you exactly how we do it in the office here!
The first thing you want to do is take a break so you can clean your body of all the THC. This can take a few weeks but trust me it’s worth it.
You can eat mangoes, Omega-3 fatty acids, and exercise to help stimulate the feel good endocannabinoids naturally (the same feel of weed) if you are feeling down during this time. Also a celery cleanse will help speed up the process of detoxification.
Once your tolerance is very low make sure you start with a smaller smoking device. I usually start with a chillum and one tiny hit will be more than enough for a power high on a reset tolerance.
The mistake people make is they jump right back in with larger hits, destroying their tolerance instantly!
Smoking from a smaller device is the healthiest way to consume marijuana as it forces much less smoke into your lungs.
Since your tolerance is reset you want to smoke and wait at least 30 minutes. The THC will take longer to take effect in your body.
Another common mistake is they try to smoke from a smaller device on a reset tolerance and when you don’t feel the high immediately smoking again. Wait 30 minutes for the high to fully take effect on your new tolerance levels.
After about 3 weeks your tolerance will rise and then you switch to a weed pipe. The same thing will happen here where you can get a very good high off much less.
Finally after the tolerance raises again switch to a larger device like a bong, ice bong, or glycerin bong, as all of these focus on filtration and less irritation to the lungs.
This 3 month cycle of gradually moving devices up reduces the carcinogen, toxin, resin, tar, and ash drastically.
Compared to smoking three months of large bong rips you can literally feel your body thanking you.
Best of all you can use the same bong filter we mentioned above that can work for all these devices helping you add an extra layer of protection against tar and resin.
What is the healthiest way to smoke weed without combustion?
We know that combusting marijuana (lighting dry herbs with fire and inhaling) is actually very unhealthy for you but with the 6 tips above you can reduce as much harm as possible.
I prefer combustion but occasionally when I want to give my lungs a break I’ll switch to these following non-combustion methods because they are much healthier ways of consuming and smoking pot.
Dabbing or vaporizing is actually the cleanest way to smoke weed
Dabbing doesn’t use combustion and instead uses vaporization of pure extract.
So you aren’t smoking any leaves, stems, or dry herb, and instead just pure THC oils with zero combustion.
This drastically reduces the amount of toxins, carcinogens, and impurities by a landslide.
On top of that, 75% of THC through combustion is actually destroyed, where as more than 75% of THC through dabbing actually absorbs into your body.
So not only is it healthy it also saves you money.
I suggest using the cold start dab method and to check out our best electric dab rigs as the top two options are amazing for a cleaner experience with very little stress on your lungs.
The only downside to dabbing is it’s much stronger than flower cannabis and if you smoke too much it can throw your tolerance off completely. I recommend dabbing in very small amounts and that’s best used with a nectar collector.
The Healthiest way to consume THC - Ingesting Edibles
If you are looking for the healthiest way to smoke weed that doesn’t actually involve smoking then you may want to switch to THC ingestion.
This takes all lung damage out of the equation. There is no combustion, no lung damage, resin, tar, ash, just a little bit of sugar is all.
The only thing to note here is that an edible high is very different from a THC smoking high, and it takes much longer to take effect and lasts much longer.
Edibles is my go to for healthier alternatives to smoking weed and I prefer edibles over tinctures, sublingual, and topicals.
I’ve personally had very bad experiences with tinctures and sublingual.
One day I’m raging high and the next day I literally feel nothing, but that’s because the results will always be different for everyone.
Eating edibles is a much healthier alternative to smoking weed, but since the high last much longer I find myself eating much more junk food because of the munchies. So just a heads up there!
Safest way to smoke marijuana - Tips from the Staff
I asked our team here at Cannassentials to give some more tips on ways to make smoking cannabis a healthier experience.
Our team of staff range from various fields of cannabis expertise from cultivation, lab technician, and even your truly a bong designer! Since we have to test a ton of cannabis products we always are looking for the healthiest way to smoke pot.
Here are some more tips and tricks from the staff!
Silicone has zero micro bacterial growth (avoid plastics)
Silicone bongs and silicone pipes are actually the cleanest smoking device on the market.
That’s because silicone bongs have zero micro-bacterial growth. Mold, bacteria, and a whole host of diseases can grow on the walls of your glass water pipes.
So if you care at a microscopic level, then switch to silicone smoking devices because they are much cleaner than any device on the market.
I would absolutely recommend staying away from plastics such as acrylic as smoking from acrylic bongs actually emit toxins and that’s something you want to avoid.
Your bong water can host a ton of nasty stuff
Dirty bong water can host a ton of diseases and not only that everytime you smoke it impacts the PH of the water.
Standard PH levels in your tap water is around 7.
Every time you smoke you are chemically changing the pH water levels from all the tar and resin that catches in the water.
Once the PH rises above 8 the water filtration can cause cottonmouth.
Even worse, if you don’t have a splash guard and you accidentally get any of this water in your mouth you can be swallowing some nasty bacteria’s.
So make sure you are cleaning out your bong water regularly! Check out our guide on how to clean a bong in just under 60 seconds.
Preventing tar and resin deposits with an ash catcher
Ever notice after your first rip tar and resin starts building all over your bong? That’s that thick and sticky brown stuff.
By using a carbon filter (we recommended one but there are many on the market) it helps to catch a ton of tar and resin.
Safest way to smoke: you can use one of these carbon activated filters plus an ash catcher. An ash catcher helps to keep the actual water in your bong cleaner and can add a third layer of filtration stopping more tar, resin, and ash.
Harsh hits: Learn to make your hits smoother
When you ignite your weed the smoke created from combustion is very hot.
The smaller your device the harsher the hit. The more distance the smoke has to travel before it reaches your lungs the cooler the hit.
Hot smoke entering your lungs causes extra stress and results in coughing fits. Weeks of coughing can damage your lungs so by simply making your hits smoother and less harsh you can give a ton of relief.
There are tons of devices on the market that focus on cooler and smoother hits.
Glycerin devices use a gel that freezes around the glass pathway the smoke travels through giving you a super smooth smoking experience.
An ice pinch in a bong allows you to place ice cubes, so the smoke travels across the surface of the ice before reaching your lungs further cooling the smoke.
Final Thoughts on Healthiest Way to Smoke Weed
So what is the healthiest way to smoke weed? I discussed 6 powerful methods for combustion smoking that I believe is the healthiest way to smoke weed to date. From filtration, cutting out butane, tolerance control, and smoking only regulated (no mold) cannabis you can optimize your smoking experience.
In the middle section of the article I share other healthier alternatives to smoking weed with dabs and edibles. These two methods I believe is the cleanest way to smoke weed.
Finally, our entire staff jumped in to give more tips on the safest way to smoke weed with an ash catcher, silicone, and focusing on the smoothest way to smoke weed. These tips are actual things we use in the office and I use in my personal life to help reduce carcinogens, toxins, resin, ash, and impurities from entering our lungs. We can still smoke and be as health conscious as possible. If you have any other suggestions feel free to email us.
