What is Cannabis Oil and How Do You Use It?

Before you can settle in for a relaxing experience with your favorite PAX vaporizer, you need to pick your type of cannabis. One of the most popular options for vaporizers is cannabis oil. To pick out the right cannabis oil for your PAX vaporizer, check out our definitive cannabis oil guide.

What is Cannabis Oil?

Cannabis oil is simply a broad category of cannabis extracts. After the cannabis plant matures, manufacturers extract the oil from the plant. This oil provides all the benefits of the original plant in a more convenient form. Cannabis oil is usually a slightly oily substance with a mild cannabis fragrance and scent. You can vaporize it in something like the PAX Era Pro.

The chemical makeup of cannabis oil will depend on the type of plant it came from. Some oils may have a lot of THC while others may have high amounts of CBD. In addition to cannabinoids, cannabis oil will also contain the terpenes that give cannabis its unique flavor.

Some cannabis oil strains undergo additional processing to refine their ingredients. This processing can concentrate the levels of cannabinoids, producing a stronger effect. It can also remove certain cannabinoids to fine-tune the user's experience.

How is Cannabis Oil Made?

There are a lot of different ways to turn a living plant into a shelf-stable oil. All the different extraction methods have their own unique benefits. Learning the answer to "how is cannabis oil made?" can help you pick the right product for your needs.

• Heat extraction: If you've ever tried making cannabis oil yourself, this is probably what you used. You just heat cannabis in oil to release the cannabinoids and then strain the plant matter to get the pure oil. It's not very precise or efficient, but it's simple and fast.

• Ethanol extraction: Also called solvent extraction, this technique soaks cannabis in pure ethanol alcohol. After a while, you remove the solvent, leaving behind the natural oil.

• Steam distillation: This method mostly turns up in cannabis oils that are CBD-based. It involves heating the cannabis in a high-moisture environment and catching the resulting vapor. After cooling the vapor into a liquid, you can separate the oils to get CBD oil. This method doesn't produce very consistent cannabinoid concentrations.

• CO2 extraction: This technique involves passing cannabis through three chambers of a special device. CO2 flows over the flower, immediately separating the oil from the rest of the plant before evaporating. CO2 extraction is pricey, but it is very efficient and produces very pure, concentrated oil.

Explore the Different Types of Cannabis Oil

One of the big perks of cannabis oil is that you can pick oils with exactly the cannabinoid levels you prefer. Most cannabis oil sellers will divide their oils into specific categories based on their ingredients. Some common options include:

• THC oil: This stands for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the signature cannabinoid in cannabis. There's a very broad spectrum of THC levels in THC oil. Some may have as little as 1% while others may have up to 80%. Most oils have around 20 to 40%, though.

• CBD oil: CBD stands for cannabidiol. This is another type of cannabinoid in THC. CBD oil may have trace amounts of THC, but it will primarily just contain CBD.

• Hemp oil: Hemp oil only comes from hemp plants, which are a type of cannabis with less than 0.3% THC.

How to Use Cannabis Oil

As you can see, cannabis oil comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Different types of cannabis oil will need different consumption methods. Make sure you find out how to use your specific cannabis oil product because using the wrong consumption method can cause issues.

Depending on the oil you use, here are some of the most popular methods for how to use cannabis oil.

• Sublingual: If you have tinctures meant for edible consumption, you can just put a drop of the oil under your tongue. This is a simple, easy option, but you'll be limited to only certain types of oils.

• Dabbing: Dabbing is essentially a type of partial vaporization that you can do with a dab rig or electronic nail. This delivers a very strong dose of cannabis.

• Edibles: Anything that involves cooking with cannabis-infused oil is an edible. Edibles can include cookies, cakes, drinks, and other treats. However, refining dosage can be tricky, and you might not get a lot of flavor.

• Vaping: A vaporizer uses heat to instantly turn cannabis oil into a breathable vapor. This provides the benefit of full extraction, and all the different products make it easy to find your preferred strain.

Ultimately, cannabis oil is a convenient way of refining your vaporizing experience. Whether you want to pick your own oil for a PAX 3 or get prefilled PAX^® Era pods, cannabis oil makes it easy to choose exactly the flavor and strength you prefer.