Will I Get Higher If I Hold In My Hit Longer?

The Science Behind Smoking Cannabis

Air sacks in your lungs, called alveoli, absorb whatever you breathe into them. It could be air, smoke, carbon monoxide, whatever. And once those little sacks are filled, there’s nothing more for your lungs to do. The literally cannot absorb anything else.

Every time you take a breath, you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. And when you inhale cannabis smoke, your lung’s alveoli absorb the THC and other cannabinoids present in the smoke.

Thanks to the chemical structure of those cannabinoids, your lungs little sacks absorb them into your bloodstream and send them to your brain pretty quickly. Again, it takes somewhere in the range of 3-7 seconds, depending on your body and the type of device you are using to smoke.

So at this point, you may be thinking, okay holding hits in longer doesn’t get me higher, but could hurt, right?

Wrong. That’s because there’s a lot more to cannabis smoke than just vaporized THC. There’re all kinds of other chemicals that come from burning the plant: carbons, carcinogens (those cause cancer), and worst of all, tar.

Tar, which hangs out in the smoke particles, takes a bit longer to be absorbed by the lungs. So when you hold in your hits longer, you’re making things harder on your body. That tar builds up over time, coating your lungs with a stifling layer of black sticky stuff. Not good.

The Final Hit

Will I get higher if I hold my hit in longer? No, you won’t get any higher at all. Now get out there are spread some knowledge.