Higher Standards, Part 1: The Problem

You chose your flower carefully. Maybe you know the cultivar, the farm, the terpene profile. You care about what goes into your body, so you probably assume that what comes out of your joint is mostly cannabis. 

However, when you light a joint, something chemical happens before you even take a hit. The moment you light up your flower, you're no longer just consuming cannabis, you're consuming the byproducts of combustion.

Smoking has always been part of the cannabis experience, but there's a growing gap between what smokers assume they're inhaling and what the chemistry actually shows—and it’s time we take a closer look.

The Chemistry of Burning

Here's what's actually happening when you smoke: cannabis flower is exposed to temperatures that can exceed 900°C at the combustion zone. That extreme heat doesn't just release cannabinoids and terpenes, it kicks off a cascade of chemical reactions called pyrolysis. Plant compounds break apart, recombine, and degrade into an entirely new set of molecules. Many of them have nothing to do with the cannabis plant itself. They're the inevitable result of burning organic matter at high temperatures.

What emerges is a complex aerosol containing hundreds of compounds, including benzene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. These are the same classes of compounds produced when you burn tobacco, wood, or paper. Combustion, chemically speaking, doesn't really care what you're burning, it just burns.

We spoke with Richard Rucker, PhD and Derek Shiokari, the two researchers behind PAX's recent study on cannabis aerosol, about what happens at the chemical level.

Q: What happens chemically when cannabis is burned?

"When cannabis is burned, the plant is exposed to excessive heat that triggers a chain of chemical reactions. The process begins with the formation of organic radicals, which break apart compounds in the plant and create reactive intermediates. As temperatures rise further, combustion occurs, producing byproducts such as formaldehyde, benzene, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, soot, and many other compounds associated with smoke."

Q: Is smoke from cannabis "natural," or does it still carry combustion-related downsides?

"A big misconception is that because cannabis is a plant, smoking it must be relatively benign. But from a chemistry standpoint, combustion is still combustion. Burning cannabis creates many of the same types of harmful compounds found in other kinds of smoke. 'Natural' does not mean free from harmful byproducts when something is being burned and inhaled."

Q: Why are those compounds concerning?

"Many of the compounds created through combustion are highly reactive and have been linked to toxic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and carcinogenic effects. Some can damage DNA or interact with tissues in harmful ways. The bigger point is that combustion doesn't simply release cannabinoids and terpenes—it also creates a long list of unwanted chemical byproducts that the body is not meant to inhale."

Q: How does cannabis smoke compare chemically to other forms of smoke?

"Cannabis smoke is reasonably similar to other forms of smoke, including tobacco smoke. There are thousands of compounds present in smoke generally, and studies have shown that cannabis smoke and tobacco smoke share more than 600 compounds in common. Several dozen of those are harmful compounds the tobacco industry has spent decades trying to reduce. That comparison helps reinforce that combustion is the issue: when plant material is burned, many of the same classes of harmful byproducts can result."

Why This Matters Right Now

We're living in a moment when people are scrutinizing what they put into their bodies more than ever. From protein sources and alcohol intake to sleep hygiene and air quality, optimization is everywhere. Cannabis hasn't quite caught up to that conversation yet, but it's getting there.

The good news: there's now research that gives consumers something concrete to consider. A study conducted at PAX Labs compared the aerosol produced by a dry herb vaporizer directly against the smoke produced by combusted cannabis joints, using the same flower, under the same conditions. The results were significant, and they'll be the subject of the next blog post in our ‘Higher Standards’ series.

For now, the takeaway is simple: the problem isn't cannabis, the problem is combustion.

To go deeper, read more at pax.com/science.

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