The Vape Takeaway

Vapes have become the second-largest product category in the U.S. cannabis market, capturing 24.7% of adult-use sales and generating $7.7 billion in 2025. In California and Washington, vapor pens have surpassed flower sales entirely—a genuine tipping point, not a rounding error. The consumers driving this shift skew younger. Gen Z, broadly, approaches cannabis with a different orientation than earlier generations: less ritual, more intention. They want to know what they're taking and why, the same way they scrutinize nutrition labels, supplement dosages, or cocktail ABV. The vape format—discrete, portable, controllable—suits that mindset. But the hardware, until recently, hasn't kept pace with the expectation.

The Dose Opacity Problem

One core problem is dose opacity. Despite rapid legalization and a market that global analysts project will surpass $80 billion in the coming years, cannabis has never solved for the basic transparency that other regulated categories take for granted. Wine tells you its alcohol percentage. A bourbon label tells you proof. A melatonin gummy tells you milligrams per dose. Cannabis inhalation, by contrast, has remained a largely unquantified experience—dependent on draw length, device temperature, oil viscosity, and user technique in ways that make standardization genuinely difficult. The result is an inconsistency that frustrates newcomers, undermines medical users trying to manage intake, and limits the industry's credibility with regulators.

This issue is becoming particularly acute in light of the federal government’s move to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III—a change that formally acknowledges the plant’s accepted medical use and opens the door for more rigorous clinical research.

For medical patients, the stakes could not be higher. The ability to reliably titrate a dose—to know exactly how much THC or CBD is being delivered per draw—is foundational to any pharmaceutical standard. Today's most advanced vaporizers are just beginning to deliver on that promise.

The Technological Response

Hardware manufacturers are investing in thermal engineering, digital interfaces, and data-driven feedback systems in ways that would have seemed excessive in cannabis's earlier, more informal era. The logic is straightforward: if consumers increasingly want predictability, and if regulators increasingly demand it, the brands that can deliver measurable, consistent experiences will have a durable advantage.

Seibo Shen, Head of Innovation at 3Win, has been engineering vaporizers since 1997 and sees the current moment as a critical inflection point. “We are currently designing new delivery methodologies for more accurate titration/dosing as well as creating devices with MDR certification for medical markets. It is important to continue to improve the technology to ensure that our customers have the safest and most efficient delivery of the cannabinoids, whether they are recreational or medical users.” says Shen via email.

Select’s recently launched Briq 2 is one example of where this investment is heading. The device includes a digital display that tracks dose in real time—an attempt to give users visibility into their actual intake rather than relying on intuition. It also addresses a less discussed but equally significant technical problem: thermal degradation. Cannabis oil begins to break down and produce unwanted byproducts at temperatures above roughly 400°F, a process known as pyrolysis that affects both safety and flavor. The Briq 2 uses technology that includes a ceramic heating element designed to maintain temperatures below that threshold, preserving oil quality across the life of the cartridge.

“Consumers still value vape for its convenience and control, but expectations are shifting toward consistency, transparency and trust—where experiences are not only easy, but reliable, repeatable and clearly understood over time,” says Jessie Kater, SVP of Innovation, R&D, and Technical Manufacturing at Curaleaf via email. “From our perspective, that's what the category's standard should be moving forward.”

The Foundation of a Sustainable Industry

Select is not alone in pursuing this. The broader industry conversation has shifted from standardization of cultivation toward standardization of delivery—a harder technical problem, but arguably the more consequential one for consumer trust.

Benjamin Caplan, MD, a board-certified family physician, author, and Chief Medical Officer of CED Clinic, says via email “Vaporized cannabis has a real clinical advantage: it can work within minutes. But fast is not the same as precise. As cannabis becomes more medicalized, the industry will need to help patients and clinicians understand not just what is printed on the package, but what is actually being delivered, how predictably it performs, and whether it fits the patient’s therapeutic goal.

As more states—and eventually, potentially, the federal government—move toward formal oversight, the question of whether cannabis brands can demonstrate consistent, measurable product quality will matter enormously. The CPG sector figured this out long ago: consumer confidence is built on the reliability of the experience, not just the appeal of the brand.

Cannabis is arriving, somewhat belatedly, at the same conclusion. The companies investing now in hardware that quantifies rather than obscures the consumption experience are making a bet that transparency isn't just a feature—it's the foundation of a sustainable industry. Given where consumer expectations are heading, it looks like a sound one.