Researchers hooked a flowmeter to pre-rolls at social smoke sessions in five states and found three distinct ways people pull on a joint. All three moved more smoke than the cigarette settings cannabis research has been running for decades.
Researchers found three ways people smoke a joint, and you are almost certainly one of them.
That’s the finding of a new white paper from the Network of Applied Pharmacognosy, which took a flowmeter to social consumption events across California, Massachusetts, New York, Nevada and South Carolina between September 2024 and June 2025, handed people a one-gram pre-roll, and asked them to smoke the way they normally smoke.
Sixty-two people did. Eleven recordings were thrown out for bad data. The remaining 51 sorted, almost embarrassingly cleanly, into three groups.
Which One Are You?
The intense puffer is the majority, 57% of the group. Sharp pull, peak flow almost immediately, done in a couple of seconds.
The slow puffer is the smallest group, 20%. Long, steady draw that takes nearly twice as long and never spikes.
The double puffer, 23%, takes two hits back to back, one or two seconds apart, as a single event. This is the one you can spot across a circle.
The three puff profiles, drawn to scale
0
10
20
30
40
0s
1s
2s
3s
4s
5s
Flow rate (mL/s)
Intense
Slow
Double
Intense · 57%
59.3 mL per puff · 2.3 s
Slow · 20%
72.5 mL per puff · 4.7 s
Double · 23%
76.8 mL per puff · 3.3 s
Representative flow curves built from the averages reported in the white paper. Each shape carries the profile’s measured peak flow, duration and total volume. Chart: High Times
Riley Kirk, a co-author on the paper, put the difference between the first two in terms anyone who has ordered a drink can follow.
“It’s really a difference between a fast intense pull, almost like you’re sipping …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
