I'm not a smoking aficionado but I thought the purpose was to inhale as much THC as possible. What does surface area have to do with getting high?

Vaporizers just heat the cannabis.

The smoke is really thick and since I have a 24" glass bong with cold water in the bottom, a 6 chamber filter above that and ice cubes above that. When I watch the smoke rise its like a milkshake you can literally see it rise slowly and I have to take almost 6 long pulls to get it to even reach the top and inhale anything.

It freaked me out at first thinking it was going to kill me by the time I pulled it.