The History of Vaping – Cannabis Life Network
Vaping has been all the rage lately. But there is actually a long history of vaping that far predates its trendy subculture today.
The earliest days of modern vaping wasn’t cloaked in cool, nor was it as youth-oriented as it appears today. Today, vaping is sometimes viewed as a hobby or pastime, but modern vapers were actually born out of necessity.
History of Vaping: Born out of necessity, it has created its own culture
People have been looking for alternatives to smoking for a long time. From nicotine gum to patches, different products have met with varying degrees of success, but none have become the cultural phenomenon that vapes have.
Vapers owe much of this to e-cigarettes. Although they are basically the same, there are significant aesthetic and even functional differences between vapes and e-cigarettes. However, no history of vaping is complete without talking about e-cigarettes.
The first reference to e-cigarettes and vaping dates back to the 1930s when inventor Joseph Robinson attempted to create a “medicinal compound” vaporization device. Although he successfully obtained a patent for his idea, it is unclear if a successful prototype was ever created.
Image from: US Patents
It wasn’t until decades later, in the 1960s, that another inventor managed to put something together. Herbert Gilbert designed and manufactured a device that allowed tobacco to be burned without smoke. Unfortunately, the product was never commercialized.
Image by: US Patent and Trademark Office
Volcano vaporizer
Fast forward to the 2000s – this is where it gets interesting. The elusive but groundbreaking Volcano vaporizer is beginning to gain traction, despite being explicitly not suited to tobacco. It was rumored to be selling as early as the ’90s, although it wasn’t until the 2000s that it really became a cultural phenomenon. Regardless, this product sparked a conversation about alternative ways to smoke cannabis and gave many smokers the idea of vaping.
Photo by: Michal Singer
The appeal of the Volcano vaporizer stems from a number of key benefits:
- A supposedly stronger hit
- Reduction of unpleasant odors
- Its novelty
Today, cannabis vapes have adopted these building blocks and offer a very similar value proposition.
E cigarette
Despite all that, the e-cigarette wasn’t really invented until 2003, when Chinese pharmacist and inventor Hon Lik set out to create an alternative solution once and for all after the death of his father from lung cancer and his own addiction to cigarettes.
Photo by: InspiredImages
Hon Lik e-cigarettes were incredibly clean in their design. Visually, they resembled regular cigarettes; In fact, the entire purpose of e-cigarettes was to mimic real cigarettes as much as possible and satisfy the smoker’s desire to get their hands on a real cigarette.
This revolutionary invention grew in popularity and slowly spread around the world. People embraced this new form of smoking which was seen as less harmful not only to the smoker but also to those around them. During this period of discovery and experimentation, enterprising inventors and companies no doubt saw the further commercial potential of e-cigarettes. What if we took the same principle of vaporization but redesigned the product to be more stylish and cool?
evaporated
Vaporizers are very different from e-cigarettes: they are not primarily used to simulate smoking, although many users use them to help them quit smoking. They do not physically resemble cigarettes. There are additional features that vapes have that e-cigarettes don’t, such as: B. the ability to be modified to create larger or thicker “clouds”. These clouds have no functional purpose. Rather, they are for pure enjoyment.
Photo by: Knighthood Studio
It’s hard to say who invented the first vape, who came up with the idea for highly customizable vape mods, or who even came up with the idea of the vape pods that are very popular today.
Steaming evolution
All we know is that vaping experienced a sudden surge in popularity in the 2010s, leading to its own subculture of enthusiasts and collectors. This further led to the birth of hundreds of companies that manufacture their own vape products. It’s safe to say that modern vapes have deviated from the original purpose of the e-cigarette. In fact, some of the most popular vape products today are more like USB sticks than cigarettes.
Like nicotine vapes, cannabis vapes have evolved over the years. The bulky Volcano vaporizers have now been pushed aside to make way for slim cannabis vape pens. Despite some controversy over the safety of these products, many cannabis users are now gravitating towards weed pens due to their discretion.
It’s incredibly interesting how small businesses have created such a cultural phenomenon without much government oversight or oversight. Getting into vaping was pretty much word of mouth, and vaping fans have earned a reputation for being among the most enthusiastic subcultures today.
We hope you enjoy this article on the history of vaping. Whether you vape cannabis or nicotine, you probably have an opinion about whether you prefer vaping or smoking. Let us know what you think in the comments below and follow us @cannalifenet for more discussions!
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