Most weed smokers started off puffing and wheezing on poorly constructed joints – but it turns out that’s a really terrible way to get high.

A new, important, scientific study tested dabbing (a hi-tech way of smoking concentrated weed, which looks like you’re puffing on a chemistry set) against traditional joints.

It turns out (perhaps not surprisingly) that joints are a pretty inefficient way to get high, delivering about 12% of the THC to the lungs, compared to 75% for ‘dabs’.

In other words, it’s about 300% more efficient to smoke dabs.


Dabs are, unsurprisingly, pretty strong (Getty)

High Times reports that the Swiss researchers used a device to simulate the recovery of THC in the lungs from both smoking and dabbing.



‘Dabs’ are consumed by heating up an extract on a heated titanium nail, followed by inhaling the vapour through a pipe.

The condensate is known as butane hash oil (BHO) or ‘Shatter’– and users make it using large amounts of (highly flammable) butane gas.

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Shatter is made by using the solvent to strip THC – the active ingredient in cannabis – out of the plant, creating a glass-like or oily extract.

At least two people have died and 27 people have been injured across the UK in explosions thought to be associated with the drug.

The researchers write, ‘The high recovery of total THC (75.5%) by dabbing cannot be achieved by smoking marijuana.

‘In reality, when smoking a joint, further losses in recovery must be assumed by additional sidestream smoke. The rather high lung availability of THC via dabbing can explain the increased psychoactive and adverse effects associated with this new trend of cannabis consumption.’