Peter Reynolds

A vaporiser is now the essential tool for consuming prescribed cannabis. The legislation doesn’t specify you must use a vaporiser but smoking is prohibited and you can only gain the full benefit of cannabis through inhalation. A new vaporiser from Norddampf has just come on the market and it’s the best value yet at just over £100. Don’t bother trying to order through the Facebook ads though. It’s bizarre that they spend money on reaching a UK audience because they won’t deliver to UK but you can get it on Amazon here.

You don’t need to spend a fortune. Most vaporisers are vastly overpriced and you need to be smart, not follow the herd to the established brands.

What has concerned me since the law change in 2018 is that patients and consumers are being massively overcharged for what is very simple technology with low manufacturing costs. All it involves is a battery, a heating element, a bowl and a mouthpiece. The market leader, Storz and Bickel’s Mighty+, is a great machine but at an RRP of nearly £350, it’s completely ridiculous, a rip-off.

About four years ago I discovered what was called the ‘Tobor Elite’ at less than £100. I’m still using it today, the very same one all along, every single day, for about three or four hours every evening. It’s brilliant, the best handheld I’ve ever used and I’ve tried them all. Read my original review here.

I advocated for the Elite across social media but I don’t think I convinced many people. Reaction seemed to be that either I was getting paid for it or what I was claiming was too good to be true. Now, to my delight, comes the Norddampf Relict, almost identical design to the Tobor Elite but with some real improvements.

If the Tobor Elite is a bit rough and ready, it needs cleaning and tuning up like it’s an old, carburettor-driven sports car, the Norddampf Relict is like a Porsche, quality engineered in. A satisfying feel of solidity and reliability. The mouthpiece is much better than the Elite which has tendency to become clogged. The one thing Norddampf hasn’t learned is the benefit of a larger bowl. Filled perhaps only a quarter-full, the Elite’s large bowl enables far better vaporisation than in a smaller space.

It was nearly 20 years ago that I first became aware of the idea of a vaporiser. I experimented with various contraptions, most of which were completely useless but when I first tried a Volcano my eyes were opened. It’s still the best vaporiser on the market but it’s bulky, cumbersome and at least needs its own, dedicated table. In fact, if someone can suggest a trolley at coffee table height that can be wheeled out of sight when necessary, I might even buy my first Volcano.

The handheld vaporiser has now become ubiquitous. Or at least it has for those of us in the know. The media and our dozy political leaders still think that cannabis means smoking. To be fair, I still enjoy the occasional no-tobacco joint but they are incredibly wasteful and nowhere near as effective as a vaporiser that you know how to use properly.

The pharmacology of cannabis is totally different when consumed though the gastrointestinal system. Holding oil under the tongue so that it is absorbed through the mucus membranes is better but nowhere near as effective as inhalation.

Of all the work I’ve done in cannabis reform over the years, probably the most consequential is when I was consulted in 2018 by the Department of Health and MHRA on development of the new regulations for legal access to cannabis as medicine. I argued strongly that one of the greatest benefits was easy and accurate self-titration of dose by inhalation. It was vital to convince them of this so that cannabis flower would be classified as a medicine. See recommendation 5 in this report of the consultation.