Pax LabsJames Monsees, the co-founder and chief product officer of Pax Labs. Pax Labs, the maker of the popular Pax line of vaporizers, is no doubt one of the buzziest vaping companies around. The company struck a partnership with the Grammy-award winning artist The Weeknd, and sold a limited-edition Weeknd-branded vaporizer. It sponsors music festivals, fashion shows, and has raised nearly $50 million in venture capital funding. It's also had to deal with people allegedly trafficking and selling counterfeit versions of its products. We talked to James Monsees, one of the co-founders of Pax Labs, and he explained why people are obsessed with vaping over traditional smoking. Marijuana is illegal in the majority of the US, so for obvious reasons, the company never talks about marijuana — you won't find it mentioned anywhere on Pax's website. But vaping weed is what many people use it for, of course. So Monsees, who's also Pax Labs' chief product officer (he holds a master's degree in product design from Stanford) explained the rational behind vaping using a metaphor involving flowers. Pax LabsThe Weeknd vaporizer. A picked rose, for example, has a certain smell at room temperature, Monsees told Tech Insider in an interview. But if you put it in the sun, and it heats up, the smell from that flower will increase, and the scent won't last as long as it would last at room temperature. And if you heat the rose up so much that it burns, you'll smell something completely different, and you probably won't experience any of the pleasing scents of the flower. "It'll just smell like burnt [flowers] and you'll get a bunch of smoke — a bunch of compounds you weren't smelling in the first place weren't really present or pleasant and it'll be a very different experience," he said. Vaporizers increase the temperature of whatever material you put in them, but not so high that it burns. "So what we’re trying to do," Monsees said, "is effectively unlock the rose and turn it into a sort of timed, limited consumer experience. So you’re not just carrying around a rose and sort of sniffing it." Monsees explained that different compounds of different materials can only be ingested when the temperature of that material is raised. Pax LabsPax 2 vaporizers, which retail for $279.99. "That's where vaporization gets really interesting," he said. Tobacco, for example, releases nicotine when it's smoked. But smoking is a very inefficient form of vaporization, Monsees said, because you're using the material — in this case the tobacco — as a fuel source. Vaporizers use a battery to heat an oven, so you're not losing the material when you're heating it up to ingest it. "You get a lot fewer compounds being released and you get a very different experience," Monsees said of vaporizing. "Your senses aren’t overwhelmed by the smell and sensation of burnt. You’re much closer to taking that material and just smelling it at room temperature." For a limited time you can still purchase any PAX 2 from PAXvapor.com and receive an $80 site credit! Swoop up #TheWeekndPAX and experience the #PAXlife! #PAX #PAX2 #TheMadnessTour #TheWeeknd A photo posted by #TheWeekndPAX (@paxvapor) on Nov 29, 2015 at 11:43am PST on Nov 29, 2015 at 11:43am PST SEE ALSO: How to stop Instagram ads from following you NOW WATCH: What the 'i' in 'iPhone' stands for — as explained by Steve Jobs Please enable Javascript to watch this video
