How to smoke without tobacco: 3 alternatives in a joint

Rolling with tobacco is a regional habit, and nothing technical requires it. The 2014 Global Drug Survey, analysed in 2016 in Frontiers in Psychiatry, questioned 33,687 cannabis users. In France, 87.5% used a route involving tobacco. The share ranged from 77.2 to 90.9% across European countries and dropped to between 4.4 and 16.0% in the Americas.

The study also found a link with the wish to quit. Respondents who used cannabis without tobacco had 1.8 times the odds of saying they would like help to cut down on tobacco. A survey can only observe such an association; it proves no effect.

Tobacco does heavy damage by itself. According to the WHO, tobacco kills more than 7 million people every year, 1.6 million of them non-smokers, and nicotine is "highly addictive". Our article on the differences between tobacco and cannabis compares the two kinds of smoke.

This is the simplest route. Tobacco served to bulk out the material and even the burn, and well-prepared flower can do both.

• Grind fine and even. A multi-chamber grinder gives a uniform texture that burns at a steady rate. With a knife, the pieces stay uneven. Our comparison of grinder types helps you choose.
• Check the moisture. Flower that is too moist rolls badly and goes out; too dry, it burns fast and hot. Our guide to storing flowers gives the reference points.
• Adapt the rolling. A slightly wider paper helps spread the flower. Lay it out in an even layer, with no denser patches, and put a cardboard filter at the mouth end to hold the structure.
• Plan for more flower. Without tobacco, you need more material for a joint of the same size. Our article on how many grams go in a joint gives the order of magnitude. For a shop-bought pre-roll, our guide to CBD pre-rolled joints shows where to read the net weight and the words "tobacco-free".

Our CBD flowers category lists these flowers, with the CBD level shown for each product.

Dried-plant blends are sold to take the place of tobacco's bulk, made with mallow, chamomile, cornflower, rose petals or damiana. They hold no nicotine and burn with a fairly neutral taste. Begin with equal parts herbs and flower, then adjust to your taste and draw. Skip blends scented with synthetic flavourings, which cover the taste of the flower.

A blend without nicotine still produces smoke. In 2015, Korean researchers used a smoking machine to analyse the smoke from a herbal cigarette sold as a quitting aid. It contained neither nicotine nor tobacco-specific nitrosamines. It did contain more carbon monoxide and benzo(a)pyrene than a regular cigarette with the same tar level, and its condensates were mutagenic. Every burning plant material produces compounds of this kind.

Sage is among the plants sold as a tobacco substitute: common sage (Salvia officinalis), the kitchen herb, used dried for its scent. It has no nicotine, yet it burns like any other plant and its smoke holds the same kind of compounds. The EU legislator itself observes that herbal products for smoking are often seen as harmless or less harmful, despite the health risk from their combustion (Directive 2014/40/EU, recital 49). Salvia divinorum is a different species of the same genus, unrelated to the kitchen herb, so do not confuse the two.

A vaporiser heats the flower without igniting it, until the cannabinoids and terpenes turn to vapour. With no flame there is nothing to mix in, and the tobacco question no longer arises.

A trial published in 2007 in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics compared a desktop vaporiser with a cannabis cigarette in 18 hospitalised volunteers. Blood THC levels were similar, and exhaled carbon monoxide was lower with the vaporiser. The trial used THC cannabis over six days. It describes a way of consuming and demonstrates no health benefit.

Our guide to vaporisation temperatures covers the settings, and our selection of useful accessories covers the equipment.

All three options let you drop nicotine. Only the third also spares you the smoke. Our article on CBD and quitting tobacco sets out what research has measured, and promises nothing.

Taking out the tobacco leaves the legal status of the contents as it was. In France, only hemp flower whose Δ⁹-THC does not exceed 0.30% is allowed. THC-rich cannabis remains a narcotic: using it is punishable by up to one year in prison and a 3,750 euro fine, or by a fixed fine of 500 euros. Even a compliant flower can be enough for a positive roadside saliva test. Our article on smoking hemp covers this framework.