The healthier delivery system, vaporizing, uses a stream of heated air to vaporize the active ingredients in cannabis without combustion. Unlike smoking, both cannabis concentrates and dried flowers can be vaporized.

Truly medicinal cannabis is grounded in ingest-able applications of cannabis — like most traditional medical applications, specific cannabinoids can now be reduced to pill form, capsules, tablets and liquid form. These new forms allow for very controlled and repeatable dosing events — like traditional pharmaceutical medicines, you can now take a pill that contains precisely 5 mg of THC or CBD and so on.

Cannabinoids can be absorbed directly into the bloodstream from three different areas inside the mouth — under the tongue (sublingual), on the tongue, and all other mucosa tissues lining inside the entire mouth.

The full effects from using this delivery system will be felt more quickly than by ingesting, but less quickly than with inhalation. The cannabinoids will be absorbed most quickly when held under the tongue. Most commonly, cannabis is consumer orally with infused mints, lozenges, and breath strips. In this method of delivery, the effects will be felt within 10 to 60 minutes.

Topical medical cannabis products come in a variety of forms including lotions, balms, creams, salves and patches. Topical medical marijuana products are applied to the outside of the skin, and can provide localized relief from inflammation, pain, skin irritations and more.

In all forms of topical application other than patches, cannabinoids react with receptors under the skin, but they do not reach the bloodstream. As a result, most topical medical cannabis products do not provide psychoactive effects. Some transdermal patches, however, are able to transfer cannabinoids into the bloodstream.