The smoke puffs from a joint have a thicker body and spreads further out than cigarettes. Why is that?
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People have talked a bit about the colors caused by the oils, but I’d like to address the “why does it hang in the air and look so dense” part.
Cigarette tobacco is very dry when it’s smoked. Very, very dry. Marijuana still has a lot of moisture in it when it’s smoked, much of it in the form of oils but also a bit more actual water than cigarettes. It’s much closer in water content to pipe tobacco or cigars. If you watch someone smoking a pipe or a cigar, you’ll notice a cloud very similar to marijuana.
Additionally, marijuana burns at a lower temperature than tobacco (deliberately so to release the active chemicals without completely vaporizing them) which means that the water in the plant turns more to steam instead of fully vaporizing. This also contributes to (not the sole cause, but part of it) the well known “weed cough” and its unique wet sound. That cough is in response to not just the heat and smoke, but also the water vapor that’s been inhaled.
The cooler burning temperature also means that the smoke isn’t as hot, so it doesn’t rise as rapidly in the room air, which is why it seems to hang around eye level sometimes.
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