This is a convection vaporizer, the more common type of vaporizers for sale online. Radiation vaporizers are a lot more rare and usually prescribed by doctors.
Another type of vaporizer uses comparatively sophisticated technology to achieve its goal: The thermal radiation vaporizer. While it may sound like a corny prop from an old Buck Rogers movie, the radiation vaporizer is somewhat more mind-boggling than that. Scientifically speaking, thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted from all matter due to its possessing thermal energy, as measured by its temperature. Very well, then… Seems simple enough.
You Remember This
To put it in simpler terms, it is the result of light refraction, as in those halcyon days of childhood when you used a magnifying glass to burn a hole in a piece of paper (it is this writer’s sincere hope that you were not using it to burn ants !). The same form of energy is utilized to release the herbal essences from plant matter in a radiation vaporizer. A very bright light heats up the herb without burning it.
Medical Breakthrough
Due do its precise nature, radiation vaporizers allow for quantifiable doses to be extracted from finite amounts of plant matter. This puts a crimp in the arguments of the anti-medical marijuana factions who say that smoking marijuana does not allow for dosage control. (For a brief while there they had a point.) Vaporizers also bring about a more rapid pharmacological effect than oral doses of substitutes such as Marinol.
With the radiation vaporizer being more qualified to perform as a medical device, it would seem to be more of an expensive novelty as far as head shop shelves are concerned. The need for a visible bright light source amounts to higher and more expensive maintenance as well. Even so, it is an impressive piece of engineering in the further exploration of the nuts and bolts of administering medical marijuana.