Green Bridge Society · Patient Education · Series 2026
Stop burning
your medicine.
You didn't buy THC. You bought a hundred different compounds — and a flame destroys most of them before they ever reach you. Twenty minutes here changes how you use everything you already own.
7 short notes · No login · Free · Written for patients, reviewed by a pharmacist
Only the corner is lit. That's already most of the loss.
Note 01 — The Premise
Cannabis isn't a dollar.
It's a hundred.
People shop for one number on the label. THC. That's like handing over a hundred-dollar bill and spending exactly one dollar of it.
Every compartment on this note is also in your flower — cannabinoids you've never heard of, terpenes that decide whether you feel calm or wired, and two acids that do nothing at all until heat converts them. A dispensary label lists a handful of these. A full analysis finds well over a hundred.
Nothing selected
Tap any compartment
Fifteen of them, in three tiers: the acid precursors and the primary cannabinoids along the top, the minor cannabinoids beneath, and the whole terpene band across the bottom. The bar inside each panel is how much of that compound you're actually getting.
Note 02 — The Heat Experiment
Every degree changes what you inhale.
Drag the dial. Watch the bars inside each compartment. THCA and CBDA convert first — that is the only reason THC and CBD exist at all. Then compounds wake up, peak, thin out, and disappear, and none of them do it at the same time.
Boiling point is where a compound begins to volatilise, not where it vanishes — treat these as bands, not switches. The figures are commonly cited boiling points at standard pressure, and real devices vary: chamber temperature isn't always the temperature your material reaches, and a reading on a screen is a target rather than a guarantee.
Note 03 — What Fire Does
Same note. Now light it.
A lighter runs roughly 1,600°F. The coal on a joint sits somewhere around 1,300°F. Look back at the dial you just used — it stopped at 560.
Past combustion you're no longer choosing which compounds to release. You're past the point where the question applies. What arrives in your lungs is partly your medicine and partly the byproducts of setting plant matter on fire: tar, carbon monoxide, benzene, particulate.
This isn't a scare tactic. Smoking works, and for some patients it's the right call. It's just the most expensive way to spend the bill.
Note intact — watch the meter at the bottom of your screen
Two ways to get heat into a plant.
One releases compounds. One rearranges them.
Combustion · ~1,300–1,600 °F
Smoke
The plant is consumed. What you inhale contains your medicine plus everything created by burning.
- Ash and unburned particulate
- Carbon monoxide
- Tar and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
- Terpenes destroyed before they can act
- Harsh on the throat and airway
- No temperature control at all
Vaporization · 330–430 °F
Vapor
The plant is heated below its burning point. Compounds lift off; the material stays behind.
- Heat only — no fire, no ash
- Far more of the terpene profile survives
- Flavor you can actually taste
- Less material for the same effect
- You choose the temperature, so you choose the effect
- Spent material can still be used for edibles
What's left in the chamber tells you everything.
This is what vaporized flower looks like when a session is finished. Brown and dry, not gray. It's toasted, not burnt — and the reason it still has color is that it was never set on fire.
It's also still useful. Spent material has decarboxylated cannabinoids left in it and is commonly saved for edibles or infusions. Ash isn't good for anything.
Note 04 — Delivery Methods
How it gets in decides how it works.
Same flower, seven routes, seven completely different experiences. Tap a card.
Note 05 — Build Your Profile
Now make it yours.
Four questions. You'll get a starting temperature band and a short plan you can screenshot and take to the dispensary.
Your starting point
Suggested temperature band
This is education, not a prescription. It doesn't account for your other medications, your condition, or your history. Bring it to your certifying physician or a pharmacist consult and let them adjust it.
Note 06 — Things Everyone Believes
And why they're wrong.
Note 07 — Graduation
You'll never look at a label the same way.
Cannabis isn't a THC number. It's a hundred-dollar bill, and now you know how to spend it. Lower temperatures for flavor and clarity. Middle for balance. Higher for body and sedation. Never fire, if you can help it.
Take it with you
Looking for a dry herb vaporizer?
This whole course is about principles, not brands — which is why equipment comes last and not first. Any device with real, adjustable temperature control will do everything you just learned.
For what it's worth: I use PAX devices myself, and I recommend them for build quality, temperature control, and being simple enough that patients actually use them correctly.
Explore PAX devices →