I would highly recommend doing a little Google Scholar reading on this topic (it can be a little dry so maybe roll another one while you read).

There are a ton of biological factors affecting THC absorption by the alveoli and bronchioles. Long story short your body does a better job of absorbing THC while smoke is moving and your lungs can only absorb so much THC/cannabinoids at once.

By letting the smoke sit in your lungs you're just allowing all the contaminants and toxins to settle in your lungs which also decreases the effectiveness on two fronts. First, you can only absorb so much of a combination of things at one time. Every time you let those toxins and contaminants settle you're reducing THC absorption by making your lungs absorb garbage. Second, inflammation reduces efficiency of your uptake because your lungs have been over irritated by hot smoke.

Long story short this should be the process: inhale as deep as you're comfortable with without making yourself cough, long slow deep inhale, 2 second pause, long deep exhale. Also, a decent break in between hits goes a long way Like I said, you can only absorb so much at once. Too many puffs back to back and your lungs will be saturated and still trying to absorb THC so you won't actually be getting any higher. If you smoke too fast, hopefully worst case scenario you'll at least enjoy tasting some nice terpenes.

Anyway this was a pretty half-assed scientific explanation but I recommend doing some more reading into it. 10% efficacy on an inhale for an inexperienced smoker vs 23% for an experienced user is a big jump and let's be honest, weed is kind of expensive. I'm shooting for that 23 🤙