Dr. Dabber is committed to only selling our products to people of legal smoking age.Please verify your age to enter News Dr. Dabber Art Contest Read More ICYMI: Dr. Dabber X Sean Paul X Migos = Fire Read More Dr. Dabber Wins First Place At The SoCal Cannabis Cup!Enlarge this image toggle caption It's a sunny afternoon at Kelly's Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and Nikki Esquibel is getting stoned.But you wouldn't know it.toggle caption The 19-year-old, who has a medical prescription for marijuana, is "smoking" pot with a handheld vaporizer, or a vape pen.It's sleek, black, and virtually indistinguishable from a high-end e-cigarette.That's the point, says Esquibel."I use it mostly around my neighborhood.It's easy to hide."The vapor coming from the device doesn't even have much of an odor.Discretion, it turns out, makes for good money.While e-cigarettes have been grabbing the headlines, the vape pen industry has been quietly ballooning.

And it's reshaping the business and culture of marijuana.The latest versions of e-cigarettes contain a battery-powered heating element that vaporizes a liquid containing nicotine.Vape pens for pot use the same mechanism, but the devices are optimized to vaporize the active molecules in concentrated marijuana oils, not nicotine.And just as with e-cigs, there's no fire or smoke.Pot users are flocking to the pens: One out of three reviews on Leafly, the Yelp of the pot world, is about vaping marijuana.Enlarge this image toggle caption Andres Rodriguez/Flickr Andres Rodriguez/Flickr The pen doesn't carry the stigma or notoriety of a bong or joint, says Todd Mitchem, an executive at O.pen Vape, which sells its products on the West Coast and in Colorado."We are getting people buying vape pens who wouldn't normally come into a [marijuana] dispensary," he tells Shots."Now, all of a sudden, they have an alternative [to smoking pot]," he adds.Two years ago, Chris Folkerts was selling vape pens out of the trunk of his car.

Today his company, Grenco Science, has 6,000 square feet of prime real estate in central Los Angeles."You could never get your mom to hit a bong," he says."But your mom would potentially hit a G Pen.My grandmother did too!And I have god-fearing Christian grandparents from the Midwest.When they tried it, I knew I was on to something."Most vape pens don't actually vaporize the marijuana plant.They're loaded with marijuana concentrates, or "hash oil": a viscous, yellow resin chemically extracted from the plant.In many places, that extraction often occurs in somebody's kitchen — which can be explosive and dangerous.And the concentrates can be strong.Marijuana flowers can contain up to about 20 percent THC, the psychoactive chemical that makes you feel high.But the concentrates can contain up to 90 percent THC.Esquibel says she almost fainted when she took her first hit.Those high THC levels worry Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, a nonprofit lobbying group working to broadly legalize marijuana use.

Shots - Health News Evidence On Marijuana's Health Effects Is Hazy At Best Shots - Health News Marijuana May Hurt The Developing Teen Brain "Between the fact that you can potentially pass out with a single inhalation, or you can have such property damage and potential bodily harm just producing it ... these [issues of the vape pen] definitely need to be addressed," he says.vaporizer break in"This is a screaming call for regulation if there ever was one."vaporizer battery lifeMost states, such as California, that allow the sale and use of medical marijuana don't have rules on the books about marijuana concentrates or about vaping the substance.vaporizer bahrain

California is considering a ban on concentrates, while Colorado and Washington allow them.herbal vaporizer cyber mondayThe sale and use of vape pens is legal in every state.vaporizer carAnd what about the health effects of vaping pot compared with smoking it?vaporizer coil ohm difference"The problem is that, right now, it's hard to tell how much [THC] you are actually getting when you take a puff of one of these things," says Mark Kleiman, who studies marijuana laws and policies at the University of California, Los Angeles."The risk of getting wrecked is a lot higher."And given that the output of vape pens doesn't have the telltale marijuana smell, Kleiman is also concerned about what the rising popularity of the devices means for parents and teachers.

"For them this will be a nightmare," he tells Shots."If I am running a school or a house and I have a nose, I can tell if my kids are smoking pot.But if they're using a vape pen, forget about it."December 2016 So long are the days when marijuana, or cannabis, evoked images of VW-buses, flower prints and flower crowns.Mary Jane has a new image and it is tied to the tech sector.It was once impossible to imagine a weed-related IPO, but in early December 2016, Innovative Industrial Properties Inc.debuted the first marijuana startup on the parquet of the New York Stock Exchange.Innovative Industrial Properties Inc.is a very young company that invests in cannabis farms and has only a handful of employees – yet has a market capitalization of €52 million (54.3 million USD).On an almost daily basis investment opportunities related to marijuana spring up – on and off of the stock exchange.“At first cannabis was a huge legal uncertainty.But today it is a sustainable business model,” Mark Williams says during an interview with the Heureka.

Williams is the founder of the California-based Cannabis startup Firefly Vapor.The fledgling company hopes to enter into the the lucrative cannabis market with its vaporizer, without having to deal directly with the legality of the substance itself, for now at least.Williams is betting on the success of these handheld smoking devices, which release the intoxicating substances found in cannabis without the accompanying cancer-causing ones.Everything is controlled via smartphone to ensure the right temperature.Since April, the company has been selling a second, better version of the vaporizer.100,000 of these vaporizers have already been sold to customers.The vaporizer is also available in Germany in specialty shops.Verdampftnochmal, located in Treptow, a city district of Berlin, is just one example.However, 80 per cent of Verdampftnochmal’s customers are from the US.Williams first came in contact with marijuana when he was in college, he says.Legally, of course, as he had a medical card that allowed him to consume the drug.

Then he essentially turned a hobby into a career.He first started making and selling ceramic bongs.This wasn’t enough to make him rich, but it was enough to help him buy a car.In the meantime he created a name for himself as an interface and product designer in Silicon Valley.For 22 years he did this, working for companies like Apple where he was responsible for the user interface of Mac OS X. He was still using marijuana during this time, Williams says.Always legally, he emphasized.When it comes to marijuana use, Williams was dissatisfied with the way most people use the drug – and he was especially bothered by the negative health implications.“That kept us so preoccupied that we quit our jobs,” Williams says.Together with his friend and colleague Sasha Robinson, he left Apple to establish Firefly.They financed the startup themselves.He is especially proud of the method he created, which heats the marijuana almost instantaneously without it coming into contact with a heating material and only when an individual is inhaling.

This is also what’s supposed to differentiate Firefly from its numerous competitors.Financially speaking, Firefly’s competitors are a few steps ahead: Pax, the main competitor that entered the market with its own portable vaporizers, already secured $45 million in funding.In the coming year, Williams wants to find investors that are willing to enter into the marijuana market.“We want to raise several million dollars,” the founder says.As interest in marijuana continues to grow, Williams wholeheartedly believes he will quickly find individuals willing to invest.And with fresh capital, the product selection will be increased.“There are several price points, where you can sell these devices,” Williams explains.At $300, Firefly vaporizers sit snugly at the the top of the middle range.The breaking point, however, will be marketing.“How much should we give out for that?” he asks rhetorically.Too much investment in a newly developing market is inefficient, but if you come in too late, odds are you’ll end up giving out more money.

And Williams has no doubts that the market will grow.“Now is a great time to expand.Marijuana is being legalized in more and more states,” he says.In Spring 2017, marijuana is also to be legalized for medicinal use in Germany.But marijuana is by no means a widely used commodity and that could partly be due in part to a lack of technology development.“We actually invent stuff at Firefly!”The founder is counting on a stabilization of cannabis technology in the next five years.Even marijuana research is still in the early stages.“Today we know there are 175 different cannabinoids.But no one knows how they interact with one another, not even regarding taste and efficacy.” In the future, William’s company will not just sell vaporizers, but will provide mixtures of different cannabis compounds.A few years from now, Williams wants Firefly to be one of the dominating providers on the market.This could feasibly happen with Firefly’s eight-person team, which is much more efficient than competitors.

US competitors, like the design-focused Pax, set up shop in the heart of San Francisco: the Mission District.But a new competitor from Tuttlingen an der Donau, a Swabian supplier named Storz & Bickel, is looking to make waves.The German company has already brought a number of vaporizers to market and long ago opened their own office in California.The US is by far the largest sales market, even for a German manufacturer.Williams does not want to be influenced by this development.Firefly will need less money for development, he says.And most important is that Firefly is positioned well to adapt to the lifestyle of their target consumers, which are young and on the go.“Our vaporizer is ready to use.You can always take a puff,” Williams says.Their motto seems to be ‘Smoking on the go.’ Williams does not see his target consumers as the conscious connoisseur who enjoys smoking in the evening.His vaporizers are for immediate use: “After a stressful meeting, for example, I can come down [by smoking].”