Now that the “Legal” cannabis trend is in full swing here in the US, the cannabis that is available for purchase has become more expensive, and of a lesser variety and quality.
The other MAJOR drawback to “legal” Cannabis is, since it IS ALL about the MONEY, NO one is growing or selling pure sativa in dispensaries and stores, due to the simple fact that they take two to three times as long to mature, and can grow for many YEARS.
So, everything that is being grown for profit has been crossed ad infinitum to shorten flowering cycles.
The good news is more states are going legal every day.
The not-so-good news is the ability to grow your own is SO important, but is being conveniently left out of a lot of bills that are being passed, to maximize profits for the big money folks that have moved in, and minimize, again, the control and free-will we have (or DON’T) over our OWN LIVES.
I simply say this: if you CAN grow — DO IT.
For parents of children with Dravet’s Syndrome, Epilepsy and other diseases that can be well-managed with cannabis extracts, growing is a veritable gift. With the cost of the medication for LIFE bearing down upon them, making their own meds is a viable and practical solution to side-step the ridiculous cost of cannabis medications.
And now all focus has shifted from Medical use to “recreational” – what does that word in this context even MEAN…?
If it brings you relief, it’s MEDICINAL – PERIOD.
But all focus is OFF of Medical in California now, and the folks that pioneered this “industry” supporting medical use, are now struggling to keep their doors open.
So, enough bellyaching.
Let’s all GROW our own and MAKE OUR OWN CANNABIS MEDICATIONS.
There are basically two ways people ingest Cannabis Medicines. Either through inhalation, by smoking, vaping or dabbing, and orally — sublingually, and consuming it in foods.
Physically, these methods all affect our bodies differently, and in the case of eating/swallowing THC and CBD, it passes through our gut, and then liver, and metabolizing enzymes in your intestinal tract, as it is digesting that brownie, goes to work converting THC to 11-hydroxy-THC, and then the blood passes through the liver, where it converts even MORE THC to 11-hydroxy-THC, before the blood returns to general circulation.11-hydroxy-THC is exponentially more psychoactive than THC, and this is why edibles must ALWAYS be treated with respect, and why in my humble opinion, sublingual dosing is the very best medicine.
For obvious reasons, inhalation of anything isn’t as effective or long-lasting as the ingestion of cannabis extract/infusions, and is far worse for you, health-wise. If you want to use cannabis as medicine, this is the very best, and healthiest method by far, of taking and using cannabis medicine.
Sublingual dosing is the fastest acting, and the most consistently reliable method of ingestion using the “Swish-and-Swallow” method of dosing, so that the oil is absorbed by the soft mucosa of the mouth.
Edibles always come with long-lasting consequences that are more dependent on the fat content of your stomach when the edible is eaten, and the results can vary WIDELY…be careful.I’m going to give you a step-by-step guide to the easiest kitchen extraction method yet, yielding the best medicine out there.
This uses coconut MCT oil to make a cannabis infusion, often called a “tincture”. Then I’ll give an overview of cooking and dosing with cannabis, closing with everyone’s favorite — GUMMIES!
This method is start-to-fi nish, from plant to medicine, a direct extraction which can safely be done in your kitchen with simple tools and ingredients. And I’ll give you a formula for estimating potency and dosage based on weight, test results and strain characteristics. It’s SO EASY to infuse ANYTHING with the full-spectrum of cannabinoids and terpenes, once you have the basics down.
This is a direct infusion from the plant material, using coconut MCT oil. Make sure you get coconut MCT oil, NOT coconut oil.MCT oil is liquid — coconut oil is solid at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, make sure its coconut MCT oil, NOT palm MCT oil. It’s available from any health food, department, vitamin, or food store, for the most part — very common, and very healthy for you.
This oil pulls far more medicine from the plant than any other extraction method and can be done in your kitchen. This recipe is for 500 grams of starting material/biomass, but you can scale it up or down. First, we have to decarboxylate your material, whether it is THC or CBD dominant, or a blend of cannabinoids, all cannabinoids are in acid form when they are produced on the plant.
In order to convert to the familiar THC, or CBD, you need to convert the THCa and CBDa by removing the carboxyl group of molecules, transforming it, in the case of THCa, to a psychoactive state — THC.We do this by heating the plant material to a specific temperature for a short period of time. Preheat your oven to 250 °F. The light should turn off once the oven reaches the correct temperature
Break up your cannabis into small chunks. Don’t grind it, just break it into smaller bits. Spread the cannabis on a cookie sheet or pan in an even layer.Bake the cannabis at 250 °F for 25-30 minutes, and don’t open the oven during this process, until you are checking it after 20 minutes or so, to prevent temperatures dropping.
Decarded cannabis should change its color from green to light brown, as the heat breaks down the chlorophyll. After 25-30 minutes, check your cannabis. It should be light to medium brown and should be very dry. If it’s not, put it back in the oven and keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn. Remove cannabis from the baking sheet and let it cool off for a while. Careful, it’s going to be very brittle at this point. Crumble the cannabis into a stainless steel or glass bowl, and here comes the math part of the process. If your cannabis is 10% THC, for example, that means that if you have 500 grams of whole plant cannabis, there is 50 grams of THC in the trichomes of cannabis.
So if you pour 1000ml of MCT oil (1 liter/Quart) over your cannabis, and blend it thoroughly, then put it back into the oven @ 100 degrees for 30 minutes or so, the MCT oil will dissolve all of the oil and waxes from the trichomes, and you can filter through nylon mesh (stockings/pantyhose work fine for this), or a coffee filter to remove the plant material from your oil — make sure you squeeze as much of the oil out of the material as possible. Now you have a tincture that can be added to any food you’re cooking, you can make gummies, or it can be taken sublingually.
If you extract 500 grams of material that is 10%, or 50 grams (or 50,000mg) of THC, and infuse it into 1000ml/1 litre, then the potency of your THC-infused oil is 50mg per milliliter (50mg/ml).You can scale this up or down, depending on how much cannabis you have, but always use the metric system, grams and milliliters, as the numbers and ratios are very easy to understand, compared to working in ounces and pounds, as medicine is dosed in mg/ml.
You can use this sublingually/internally, or to cook with, with fairly accurate dosing, and with all of the terpenes and cannabinoids intact, which other methods of extraction destroy/leave behind. Sublingual dosing with the Swish-and-Swallow method, will give the fastest effect, usually within 5 – 15 minutes, and the experience is very much like smoking or vaping, and FAR healthier for you.
You can also easily blend this, by the milliliter, into cookies, brownies, soups, pancake batter, scrambled eggs, morning oatmeal — literally any food you are cooking, it will be absorbed very easily — just make sure to blend thoroughly. And now, GUMMIES!!This is a VERY simple recipe for
gummies that can be done in 30 minutes or so in your kitchen, with minimal fuss and muss. So you have your cannabis-infused MCT oil from above, right?
Now let’s get the math out of the way first. This is to determine just how much of your medicated MCT oil you’re going to need. You know the dosage of the tincture in mg/ml, so now, you can measure in millilitres how much you want to add to your gummies to get the potency you want. If you want 50mg/ml of medicine per gummy, and your dosage of your tincture is 50mg/ml, you would use 1ml of tincture for every gummy.So, if you had 2 molds of one hundred gummies each, you would need to use 200 millilitres of your pre-made cannabis-infused MCT oil to produce 200 x 50mg/ml gummies.Just remember — the number of gummies, divided by the number of millilitres of cannabis-infused MCT oil you are using, equals your per-gummy dosage — you can use this formula to scale your dosage up or down from this.
All right, NOW…GUMMIES!
This is what you’ll need:
• Your measured amount of cannabis-infused coconut MCT oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 oz package unflavored gelatin
• 6-oz package Jell-O (pick your favorite flavor!)
• 1 teaspoon Liquid Sunflower Lecithin
• A silicone mold (gummy molds of all shapes and sizes are available online)
• Large dropper or squeeze bottle (even better)
Gummy molds are available online
Ok, here we go…Gummies in MINUTES!!Bring the oil, Sunflower lecithin and water to a low boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly.Add plain gelatin one or two packets at a time, stirring until blended.
Add the Jell-O mix and stir for about 4 to 5 minutes until fully blended. As soon as the mix begins to come to a boil, turn the heat to low, if it wasn’t already. I do everything from here on low heat, as things thicken and set-up fairly quickly from here. You can use a large dropper (they often sell these with your mold), but my favourite is an old-fashioned squeeze bottle, like you see at hot-dog stands, or for cake decorations, as they are much less messy to use. Just make sure you get a wide mouth version to put the mix into, and then you can easily fill each little gummy well.
So, fill your squeeze bottle, or use your dropper, and make GUMMIES!!If you have more mix than molds, just lay out a sheet of plastic wrap or foil, and make little pools until you’re out of mix. Cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour or so, take the mold out of the fridge, and pop your gummies out of the mold. I don’t like using sugar, so I dust them with cornstarch, and then you can store them in an airtight container in the freezer for storage. You can grab them a few at a time from the freezer, as you need, and they’ll last a very long time that way — so make LOTS…!!!And, ALWAYS REMEMBER…With any edible, less is more until you know how strong the effect is going to be.
Happy eating, surviving, living and THRIVING, my friends.
Written and Published By Fred Delisio In Weed World Magazine Issue 142