Good question. Here's a cut and paste I took from another site:
Smoking Vs. Vaporizing Cannabis
Depending on one’s experience within the realm of cannabis consumption, some may never have heard of vaporizing.
Vaporizing is a common technique for consuming marijuana, while at the same time negating many irritating respiratory toxins that exists within the grown marijuana flower and are released when smoked. Conversely, vaporizing allows one to get at all of the psychoactive ingredients available within that specific strain of marijuana , minus the combustion that ordinarily takes place during consumption.
The basic design of the average marijuana vaporizer is to allow marijuana smokers to inhale the many active Cannabinoids, while at the same time avoiding any of the harmful elements that may exist on that specific flower… although invisible to the naked eye.
While most don’t know it … There is a vast difference in the quality of smoke that one receives when they vaporize versus igniting their plant matter. When one smokes a joint, or hits their bong approximately 88% of the combusted smoke gases contain non-cannabinoid elements, most of which do not get you high and provide potential health risks.
Conversely when one uses a marijuana vaporizer the smoke/gases that they are inhaling consists of approximately 95% cannabinoids, otherwise known as the psychoactive ingredients that both calm the mind and soothe the body.
