Pubdate: Sat, 26 May 2007 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Copyright: 2007, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Author: Bert Archer, Special to The Globe and Mail Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/vaporizer VAPORIZING THE THREAT OF A WEED BUST On a weekend afternoon at the Hot Box Cafe in Kensington Market, three young women are sipping greenish blender drinks. Up on a chalkboard are the house rules, which include "no smoking" and, in big, capital letters, "BYOP." On the table is something that resembles an electric pencil sharpener, with a clear plastic tube coming out the front of it. Every once in a while, one of the women takes it to her lips for a quick puff. There's no smoke, no smell - nothing to hint that they're getting the exact same hit of THC from this contraption as they would from a joint. The device is called a vaporizer, and after five years on the market it's starting to move toward the mainstream. "People are starting to discover them now," says Adi Roach, owner of Roach-o-Rama and the Hot Box Cafe, which provides tester models for customers to use at their tables. "With no smoke, the stone is much nicer; you're not coughing." It also suits Toronto's no-smoking bylaw nicely. Vaporizers work by heating marijuana leaves to a temperature just below combustion, vaporizing the crystals, which can then be inhaled at the user's leisure. Ms. Roach says her store sells an average of about two a day, in a variety of models ranging in price from $90 to $750. "By next summer, there are probably going to be 100 different types of vaporizers that you can buy," she says. And they've just received a sizable boost in credibility from a recent study at the University of California at San Francisco, which finds that this is a significantly safer way of getting high. "THC is the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and vaporization delivered the same amount of THC into the bloodstream as smoking," says Donald Abrams, the lead author of the UCSF study. But that high, he says, didn't come with the toxic chemicals usually found in smoke. There's an interesting legal possibility attached to vaporizers as well. According to Sergeant Mark Hayward, from the community response unit of Toronto Police's 52 Division, the residue of a vaporized high might not be enough to bring possession charges. Though the issue has never been tried, what's left in the vaporizer might be indistinguishable from hemp, which is totally legal. "All the drugs we seize for charges have to be tested by federal drug labs," he says, "so if the THC wasn't there, no. It's the chemical breakdown that would make it make it illegal." But, he adds, there may be THC residue in the equipment, in which case, everyone around the table would be liable for possession charges. Though there's no word yet on any self-cleaning vaporizer making its way to market, it may only be a matter of time before the courts will be forced to revisit Canada's drug laws. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek