Skip to content
Dr. Cannabis

Flower

Dried cannabis, smoked or dry-herb vaporised. Fast onset makes it the easiest format to titrate.

Onset
1–10 minutes
Duration
2–4 hours

Inhaled cannabis reaches peak effect quickly, which is its main practical advantage: you can feel where you are before deciding whether to take more. Health Canada suggests starting with one or two puffs of a product at 10% THC or less and waiting.

The trade-off is respiratory. NASEM found substantial evidence linking long-term cannabis smoking to worse respiratory symptoms and more frequent chronic bronchitis episodes. Dry-herb vaporisation avoids combustion products, though it is not risk-free.

Flower is also the format where terpene content is highest and most variable, which is why lab results matter more here than anywhere else.

Advantages

  • • Fast onset makes dosing controllable
  • • Short duration limits the cost of getting it wrong
  • • Full terpene profile present

Trade-offs

  • • Respiratory irritation from smoking
  • • Odour
  • • Potency varies between and within batches

Cautions

  • • Do not smoke if you have asthma, COPD, or another respiratory condition.
  • • Effects can take up to 30 minutes to fully develop — wait before redosing.

Best suited to

  • • Breakthrough symptoms
  • • First-time users learning their dose
  • • Nausea

Conditions where flower is a suggested format

Sources

  1. Health Canada. Cannabis: Lower your risks. Modified 2019-06-14.Accessed 2026-08-15.
  2. MacCallum CA, Russo EB. Practical considerations in medical cannabis administration and dosing. European Journal of Internal Medicine. 2018;49:12-19.Accessed 2026-08-15.
  3. NASEM 2017, Committee Conclusions (summary PDF of all evidence-tier conclusions).Accessed 2026-08-15.