With vaping becoming more popular than ever, it begs the question, “what is the safestvape pen?”

More and more vape products hit the shelves every day, and it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish high-quality vapes from bad ones. When buying a vape pen, you always want to make sure yours is safe, effective, and lasting.

If you want to know if your vape pen is safe, here are a few things to look for.

What’s The Safest Vape Pen - Things to Consider

Before shopping around, let’s talk about things you should look out for. Recognizing how a vape pen is constructed, how it operates, and where it's sourced is key to ensuring your vape pen’s quality and safety.

How Your Vape Pen Is Made?

While additives to vaping oils are seemingly to blame for vape-related lung disease, it’s also important to realize that the cartridges and the vape pen itself matter too.  There are over thousands of factories where materials for vape pens and carts can be purchased for pennies. With far too little oversight in the  factories,it’s suspectedthat faulty, untested products that expose users to toxins, heavy metals, and chemicals are the result. A vape pen or cart made with cheap and unregulated materials could expose you to these toxins, even when using quality vape pen oils.

How Your Vape Pen Works?

Vape pens work by turning the vaping oil or liquid into an aerosol, which is most commonly referred to as ‘vapor.’ Unlike smoking cannabis, there is no combustion (the act of burning something) when vaping. Cannabis vaporizers usually work by two methods,convection or conduction. A convection vaporizer will heat the cannabis concentrates indirectly by a stream of hot air until vapor is produced.

On the other hand, conduction vaporizers will use direct heat on the extract by touching the extract directly with a heated surface until it produces vapor. A conduction vape is often portable, small, and works with rechargeable batteries. The newer, more high-tech conduction vapes have a variety of settings that can be used to control the temperature. 

Heavy Metal Problems

A potential problem with many vape pens is where the air intake on the device is located. Many pull activated, disposable, or other vape pens have the air intake at the bottom of the device, so the air must pass all of the electronic and battery components before getting in contact with the oil. It’s possible that the heavy metals used in the battery and the electronic equipment around it could leach into the air and vapor that you’re inhaling. Some vape pen companies, like Vessel, designed their device so that the air intake is at the top. This way, it only interacts with the vapor from the cartridge as the oil is heated.

Additionally,a recent studyfound issues with heavy metal concentrations, like copper and lead, in the vapor produced by some tank-style vapes. Their powerful batteries and large fluid tanks may be producing harmful byproducts with hefty concentrations of heavy metals. Ditching the tank-style devices for a slimmer vape pen may be beneficial if you want to reduce your risk of heavy metal exposure. 

Fake Packaging

Counterfeit vape pens and cartridges have become an increasingly large issue in the vaping world. Out of all the VAPI illnesses nationwide,56 percent of victimssaid they used Dank Vapes, which is not a real company but fake packaging from China. Many legitimate companies like STIIIZY and Cookies have fallen victim to illegitimate copy cats who are passing off counterfeit vaping products as the real thing.

When looking at packaging, always check the label for third-party lab test results, a QR code, or a serial number. If you find vaping products that are significantly cheaper than those sold in licensed and reputable dispensaries, this could be ared flag that they’re fake.

Consider Where You Bought Your Vape Pen

Some places are much safer than others for buying a vape pen and oils. Sites like Alibaba.com sell cheap vape pens and cartridges that are made abroad without much oversight or regulation. While it’s easy and cheap to purchase vape pens this way, it isn’t necessarily the safest option. You should also be wary of purchasing vape pens and cartridges from bodegas, gas stations, unregulated pop-up markets, and off the streets. When buying from these types of operations, it can be difficult to know what materials were used to make the vape pens and how safe they are.

Unregulated Mods vs. Regulated Mods

When buying a vape pen, understanding the distinction between unregulated and regulated mods is crucial. What are these, and why does the difference matter? Let’s find out.

Unregulated Mods

Unregulated mods, mechanical mods, or “mechs” are the more basic, stripped-down versions of vape devices. They don’t have any electronic components or circuits to regulate power flow. This potentially gives you access to more power for your coils at the expense of safety and user-friendliness. This also means that as your battery's charge decreases, so does the quality of your vape. Another thing to be wary of is that if a battery fails or is used beyond its limit, it can lead to potential hazards like explosions.

For beginners or casual vapers, we recommend going for regulated mods as they’re safer and more simple to use.

Regulated Mods

At the other end of the vape spectrum are regulated mods, which come with internal circuit boards that control and regulate the power flow. This ensures a consistent, user-friendly vaping experience, regardless of the battery's charge. They also offer features like temperature control, overcharge protection, and short-circuit protection. These in-built safety measures drastically reduce potential risks associated with vaping.

How To Tell If A Vape Pen Is Quality?

When shopping for a vape pen and cartridges, it’s always important to know what you’re looking for, how it was made, and where it came from. This way, you can reduce your risk of getting a product that may be harmful to you or the people you love.

If you’re looking to buy a quality vape pen, there are a few things to look out for whether you’re purchasing online or in a trusted store:

• Ability to customize the heating level for a personalized vaping experience
• Ability to control airflow to adjust draw resistance and vapor density
• Has automatic shut-off mechanisms and short-circuit protection to prevent overheating or other potential hazards
• A long-lasting battery
• Compatibility with 510-thread count, so it’ll fit with most vape cartridges in the market
• A compact design for on-the-go vaping
• A solid warranty, like what Vessel offers

How To Tell If Your Vape Pen Cart Is Safe?

Some vapes are better than others. When shopping for a vape pen, look for products that have Certificates of Analysis (COAs) that detail how they were tested and what they contain. Many products are packaged with a QR code that links to results from an accredited third-party laboratory. 

When reading these results, keep an eye out for the following:

To Sum It Up

The smartest way to ensure you’re getting the safest, high-quality vape pen is to thoroughly research your product before investing. 

When performing this research, keep an eye out for info about the construction of the battery and what the concentrate contains. Cheap or unregulated materials and harmful additives can make a huge difference in the safety of your product. 

Always keep an eye out for full-panel lab results and avoid brands that aren’t transparent about how their products were made and tested. 

FAQs

What Is The Healthiest Vape?

Buying vapes from brands that are transparent about their products’ testing limits the risk of inhaling harmful additives and other dangerous toxins. Look for products that list third-party test results from accredited laboratories. Full-panel results will explore what pesticides and contaminants your product may contain. 

Which Vapes Are FDA Approved? 

Generally, companies cannot market vaping products without FDA approval. However, because marijuana remains a federally controlled substance, there isn’t much government oversight in the production process. To find a vape that is FDA approved, always thoroughly research your vape product before making a purchase, and keep an eye out for a COA that details if your vape was third-party tested for purity and potency.