All dabs, all the time.

That’s what struck me when I walked into the very in-tents area that was described on the official High Times San Francisco Bay Area Cannabis Cup map as “Medicated”. It was a music blastin’, blunt-smokin’ good time, at least for these guys:

But this guy (and maybe two others) were the only people I saw actually smoking weed the entire weekend! How can this be?

It’s dabs, man. It’s a whole new world. It’s like if you had gone to outer space in the early 1990s, just came back, and started wondering what happened to Walkmans and clunky cell phones and what was this new Internet thing? But even for someone like me, who knows what’s going on in the cannabis world, to actually see everyone in the booths bending over bongs for dab hits, and no weed smell in the air…well, it’s a shock. Culture shock!

Bravely fighting my way through crowds of scantily dressed show girls imploring me to take a free dab, I managed to control myself. I already know what a good bong hit of weed does to me, so I had already calculated that a bong hit of freaking hash oil, which would be anywhere from 2 to 4 times stronger, would put me on the floor at the very least. And I’m the guy who preaches moderation, so I’d hate to go ironically (and especially not hypocritically :-)

But I do like to keep up with technology, so when I finally found what I considered a legit vape pen with all the right features and at a decent price, I jumped on it (and in case my wife Felicity is reading this, I didn’t jump on the nice young lady selling them).

There were a number of reasons I thought this was legit. A lot of vape pens on the market seem to be repurposed e-cigs made cheaply in China, thrown into a box with rasta colors, and sold for three times their value in smoke shops. This one says “Dabs” right on it, but more importantly it’s 510 threaded for eGo compatibility, which means it’s interchangeable with most other accessories. And most importantly to me, the clearomizer portion came pre-loaded with my choice of Golden Goods’ CO2 extract honey oil, which means this can only be sold by dispensaries. And yes, I’ll take the Girl Scout Cookies strain, please!

All you have to do is press the button for a few seconds and inhale. You can take a huge blast if you want, but of course I don’t, and that’s the key to moderation with these things. When I finish this first load (which at my rate will probably be sometime around September), all I have to do is squirt the contents of the Earth OG indica refill I got into the clearomizer, and I’ll be up and running again. And if I can’t find any more refills locally, I can just dilute some straight hash oil to the right viscosity with vegetable glycerin (which I already have for making tinctures) and make my own!

Please click here for High Times Cannabis Cup 2013 San Francisco: Day Two