So, here's where this thread went, excellent necro, man.
I haven't drank for going on 20 years now, but I remember some of those fancy beers were actually Ok.
Now I only smoke weed, as promised during my election campaign.
ON that, I recently discovered the virtues of using a
vaporizer instead of rolling joints or even a pipe or bong; this is
the next level of pot smoking, hands down winner in my books.
This: {huge image to show detail}
The tubes are pyrex, and have built - in 'screens' you can see on the larger end, which also serves as the bowl.
Once loaded this is fitted snugly into the top of the unit large end in, { best to turn the unit upside down so nothing falls out, also keeping it contained inside the bowl } so your weed sits directly on top of the heater inside the unit and is cleanly removed after puffing; this is a very nice arrangement and provided you aren't smoking anything juicier than hash ..
To heat pot oil I would use the little cup attachment with no breather holes and just be careful; actually the cup is
supposed to be for heating fragrant oils

or some other purpose I don't bother with but the point is that you don't want stuff like oil inside the unit.
The idea here is heating weed to the temperature where it's doing what you want, but
no more.
Low temp releases most of the THC, and leaves the tar and other crap behind = not that it's
crap as in useless - apparently the 'spent', browned leavings are still good for cooking.
I'm going to try a batch of cookies made with the spent material and tell you how it went in the future.
AT the moment I am enjoying the best highs I've experienced other than on mushrooms
{whole other animal, trust me} and here's the best part of all:
Not only do you get a
cleaner, clearer high compared with smoking it but you also use a
fraction of what you normally do.
Less than half a joint's worth gets you as high as smoking 3 or 4 fatties back to back!
You don't choke as much because you're not inhaling all that tar, paper and other stuff you normally would.
You use far less weed to get much higher and because of that, the unit will eventually pay for itself.
This thing reminds me of
negative feedback in electronics - almost
too fucking good to be true = but it
IS.

The girl who turned me onto this said she's had hers for years without any problem, although the built - in rechargeable battery should be replaced every year or so.
Unit costs around $250, replacement stems are about $20.