(quoting from the other thread since this is now the social thread) There are some subtle issues here that aren't obvious at first. I'd like to share some thoughts. I think there is a misconception about what happens when you smoke a drug. The point of smoking is to vaporize the drug so you can breathe it in (vaporizing is what happens to water when you boil it). The point of adding heat is to make it change state to a gas, not to cause a chemical change from the heat. The reason people add heat when consuming any drug is to smoke it. Whatever the drug (weed, coke, any type of heroin, dmt), you heat it until it turns in to a vapor to get high on it. Smoking is safer than IVing and faster than snorting or eating, so it has a place for people who want their high to come on faster but don't want to IV. Plugging has it's place too but I'm ignoring that for this post. The other subtlety is why someone would want to get high fast. You mentioned just wait a few more seconds, this is not compatible with some people's goals. If you use heroin mildly you get some effects which we all know and love, but there is a second level of effects which depends on how fast you get high. The subjective potency of heroin depends on how quickly you go from sober to full on smashed.  This is is hugely important, in fact it's the entire goal for IV users to come up so fast they get a rush. If an IV user doesn't get his rush he is not a happy camper. So that's why people use heat. People want to get high quickly, there's no way other than heat to vaporize it to smoke it, and smoking is faster than snorting but not as dangerous as IV.