I found that smoking stems only gives me a head ache. I'd only use the buds to smoke and use the leaves for making tea. If you want to make the stems useful for smoking purposes, there's a method that I came up with (probably someone else has done this before). Collect stems in an empty prescription bottle and place a marble in there. Close it up and shake it up for a good while, then uncover and stretch a nylon over the opening of the bottle and shake it over a good sized flat surface that's white (it's just easier to see the thc crystals and smokables this way), scrape into a pile, put in a pipe with a screen preferably and enjoy.