Cannabis is used in several distinct ways, each with different onset times, intensity, and duration. The main methods are smoking, vaping, eating or drinking it, applying it to the skin, and placing drops or strips under the tongue. How you choose to use it changes the experience significantly, from how quickly you feel effects to how long they last.
Smoking and Vaping
Smoking remains the most common way people use cannabis. Dried flower is rolled into joints, packed into pipes or bongs, and inhaled. The effects hit within minutes because the active compounds pass directly from the lungs into the bloodstream and reach the brain almost immediately. A typical smoking session produces effects lasting one to three hours.
Vaping works on a similar principle but heats cannabis flower or oil to a temperature that releases vapor rather than smoke. Many users prefer it because it avoids combustion, which produces tar and other byproducts. The onset and duration are nearly identical to smoking.
Concentrates represent the high-potency end of inhalation. Products like shatter, wax, and live resin are made by extracting the active compounds from the plant, producing THC levels that average 54% to 69% for solvent-based products, with some exceeding 80%. Non-solvent methods produce concentrates averaging 39% to 60% THC. These are typically vaporized on a hot surface in a process called dabbing. For comparison, most cannabis flower contains 15% to 30% THC.
Edibles and Drinks
Edibles include gummies, chocolates, baked goods, capsules, and cannabis-infused beverages like teas. The experience is fundamentally different from smoking because the active compounds travel through your digestive system and get processed by the liver before entering your bloodstream. This liver processing converts THC into a more potent form, which is why edibles often feel stronger than inhaled cannabis at comparable doses.
The tradeoff is speed. Effects don’t appear until 30 to 60 minutes after eating, and they peak anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours later. That delayed onset catches many first-time users off guard, leading them to eat more before the first dose kicks in. The recommended starting dose for someone new to edibles is under 2.5 mg of THC. The full experience can last four to eight hours, sometimes longer, which is considerably more than smoking.
Sublingual Products
Tinctures, oils, and dissolving strips placed under the tongue offer a middle ground between smoking and edibles. The tissue under your tongue is rich in blood vessels, so the active compounds absorb directly into your bloodstream without passing through the liver first. This means the onset is faster than edibles and closer to smoking, with effects that typically last an hour or two.
Because sublingual products skip liver processing, the THC stays in its original form rather than converting into a stronger compound. This makes the experience more predictable and easier to dose. A 10 mg sublingual strip, for example, delivers a relatively consistent amount into your blood each time.
Topicals and Skin Products
Cannabis-infused creams, balms, lotions, and patches are applied directly to the skin. The active compounds penetrate the outer skin layer and diffuse into the underlying tissue through passive absorption. Cannabinoid receptors exist on skin cells, which is why topicals can produce localized anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, and anti-itch effects at the application site.
Standard topicals do not produce a high. The compounds generally stay in the local tissue rather than reaching the bloodstream in meaningful amounts. Transdermal patches are designed differently, using chemical enhancers to push compounds through the skin barrier and into systemic circulation, but standard creams and balms keep their effects local.
Raw Cannabis
Fresh, unheated cannabis contains THCA, a precursor to THC that doesn’t produce psychoactive effects. Heat converts THCA into THC (a process called decarboxylation), which is why smoking or baking activates the plant’s intoxicating properties. Some people juice raw cannabis leaves and flowers, blend them into smoothies, or add them to salads to get the plant’s other compounds without any high. Some users report relief from inflammation, muscle spasms, and pain through raw consumption, though this remains a less studied area.
How Cannabis Works in the Body
Your body has its own internal system of cannabinoid receptors, called the endocannabinoid system. Cannabis works by binding to two main receptor types: CB1 and CB2. THC, the compound responsible for the high, primarily activates CB1 receptors, which are concentrated in brain areas involved in memory, coordination, pleasure, and thinking. That’s why cannabis affects mood, appetite, time perception, and motor control.
CB2 receptors are found mainly on immune cells and in peripheral tissues. Under normal conditions, they’re less active in the brain, but during injury or illness, CB2 expression increases there. CBD, the other major cannabis compound, interacts more directly with CB2 receptors, which helps explain its reputation for reducing inflammation without producing intoxication. Both compounds also interact with receptors beyond CB1 and CB2, influencing pain signaling, serotonin pathways, and other systems throughout the body.
Medical Uses
Medical cannabis programs typically approve its use for chronic pain, cancer-related symptoms, epilepsy and seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis, PTSD, anxiety, glaucoma, inflammatory bowel disease (including Crohn’s disease), HIV/AIDS, and several other conditions. Chronic pain is by far the most common reason people obtain a medical cannabis recommendation. It’s also used for nausea during chemotherapy, muscle spasticity, and appetite stimulation in wasting conditions.
Medical products come in all the forms described above. Doctors and dispensaries often recommend starting with low-dose edibles, tinctures, or vaporizers depending on the condition being treated and how quickly relief is needed.
Risks of Heavy, Long-Term Use
One condition worth knowing about is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS, which affects some people who use cannabis frequently over a period of more than a year. Symptoms include persistent morning nausea, severe cyclic vomiting (up to five times per hour during episodes), and intense abdominal pain. A hallmark sign is that hot showers or baths temporarily relieve the symptoms, leading some people to shower compulsively for hours. CHS is often misdiagnosed as other vomiting disorders. It resolves only when cannabis use stops completely.
The condition often has a long early phase, especially in people who started using cannabis as teenagers. During this phase, morning nausea and stomach discomfort may persist for months or years before full vomiting episodes begin. Many people don’t connect these symptoms to cannabis because the plant is widely known as an anti-nausea remedy.