Route sets the time course
The same nominal dose produces two opposite plasma-THC profiles. Smoking delivers a tall, early peak within minutes; swallowing delivers a lower, delayed one after about an hour. Drag the dose to scale both curves.
Smoked peaks at about 5 min and roughly 5.2× higher than the oral peak at about 86 min. The tall early spike is the felt onset that makes moment-to-moment control — and self-titration — possible; the oral route's slow, unfelt rise is what invites overshoot.
Self-titration and overshoot
Because a smoker feels each puff within a minute or two, they can stop at a target level — ideal titration. But a lag between inhaling and feeling the effect, or an unfamiliar potency, pushes intake past the target before the signal arrives. Adjust the feedback lag and the per-puff dose.
With instant feedback and familiar material the smoker stops at 7 puffs, essentially at target — the controlled dosing the smoked route allows.
The impairment window vs. the detection window
Meaningful driving impairment is concentrated in a short, early window after smoking, while THC stays detectable for far longer. Raise the dose to see the impairment window (shaded) grow — but stay far shorter than the period of mere presence.
Meaningful impairment lasts about 18 min, but THC stays detectable for about 52 min — roughly 2.9× longer. A blood level drawn hours later tracks mere presence, not how impaired the driver was, which is why per-se blood-THC limits rest on a concentration–impairment link the smoked route's pharmacokinetics do not support.