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THE CANNABIS THREAD 101!!

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Can’t-abis: Veterans And Active Duty Still Barred From All Legal Marijuana

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the fact that military veterans are having trouble getting access to medical cannabis because the Department of Veterans Affairs, a federal agency, won’t legally allow its doctors to prescribe it — which means vets can only be prescribed often-addictive pharmaceuticals instead. However, there has been less attention paid to the fact that active-duty soldiers are also barred from using cannabis in states where the plant is legal.

Consuming recreational or medical cannabis is still forbidden for United States active-duty military personnel, even if the state or region they live in has cannabis legislation in place. According to KPBS, army bases throughout the nation are displaying posters that warn soldiers against the dangers of consuming cannabis, and some military leaders have begun the push to prevent dispensaries from opening near military bases altogether. Now, some cannabis advocates are arguing that this ban causes the same problems for active-duty soldiers as it does for veterans.

Sean Kiernan, president of the Weed for Warriors Project, believes soldiers should be empowered to use whatever medicine is most effective for their respective needs — even if that means consuming cannabis — and that the military has been relying on dangerous pharmaceuticals for all its medical needs for far too long.

“Our military’s view on cannabis is what our federal government’s view is,” Kiernan tells Big Buds exclusively. “It’s bad. The question should be about what is cannabis’s effect on readiness, discipline and troop morale. I think it’s not as clear cut as [the government] would say.”

Noting that regular alcohol use is a lot more destructive than cannabis, Kiernan adds that soldiers will often turn to alcohol to self-medicate if they don’t have access to medication they’re comfortable with. Furthermore, every year hundreds of active-duty soldiers die by suicide or overdose caused by pharmaceuticals and opioids, and it’s believed that allowing cannabis consumption would help reduce those numbers.

“It’s important to highlight that, in the face of the suicide and overdose epidemic facing our military and its veterans, our country is not taking cannabis seriously as a medicinal alternative,” Kiernan says. “And the fact that we continue to see published research showing a high correlation between cannabis access and declines in overdoses and suicides should make us all furious.”

According to Kiernan, soldiers are freely given pharmaceutical drugs whenever they have even a minor medical problem or mental health issue, and these drugs can be highly addictive or even lead to overdose. Cannabis, as we all know, carries neither of those risks.

Roger Martin, founder of the HeroGrown Foundation, clarifies to Big Buds that while he believes soldiers should have access to medical marijuana when they need it, he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for soldiers to be using recreational cannabis when they’re on the job.

“While I don’t care if civilians use it recreationally, I do not feel it is appropriate for active-duty military personnel,” Martin asserts, adding that he wouldn’t want to be serving with someone who’s using cannabis recreationally because at any given time your life is in their hands.

Martin says medical marijuana should be the “first option” for soldiers who are experiencing afflictions like chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder, which have both been shown to be alleviated by cannabis consumption. He believes the “pharmaceutical alternatives can lead to a lifetime of complications” and should not be the first option given to soldiers.

For the most part, any medical issue a veteran might have could also be experienced by a soldier who’s still serving, which is why many advocates believe both groups should be given safe legal access to medical cannabis. However, as army bases continue to display posters pushing the agenda that cannabis is a dangerous drug that should be avoided, it seems unlikely that things will change anytime soon — unless, that is, cannabis is finally legalized at the federal level.


 
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Grey-Area Gardens: How To Successfully Advocate For Home-Growing Legislation

As more states introduce recreational cannabis legislation, more lawmakers are adding provisions related to social justice, including expungement programs, social equity programs and resentencing guidelines. In these lawmaking discussions, legal at-home cultivation remains a must for debate, but it isn’t always brought to the frontline of said discussion when it comes to rewriting the law. What this means is that for our cannabis community, growing at home remains a continually vulnerable issue that is repeatedly being cut or placed on the back-burner before a bill that includes it is signed into law.

Take Pennsylvania, for instance. Although at-home cultivation has been included in a recent recreational bill — House Bill 50, introduced by Democrat Rep. Jake Wheatley — the state’s medical marijuana program currently does not allow home growing even for medical patients, unlike other state programs currently in action. This reality makes legal home growing critical to include in our communities, whether you’re lobbying with lawmakers, asserting influence in your industry, or just want to spark conversations with your neighbors.

But how do we approach this in today’s political climate?

We talk with three home-growing campaigners from Massachusetts about what they learned in their advocacy and lobbying initiatives, while also advising on how to advocate in your respective state and community.

Stressing The Justice Aspect Of At-Home Cultivation
One of the most important arguments to make about legal home growing is its potential to reduce mass incarceration. As a result of the failed war on drugs, arrests have seen a drastic increase since the Nixon administration. To reduce the amount of drug arrests, we’d have to take steps toward finally ending this decades-long drug war once and for all. Legalizing home growing is one step forward for the larger movement, because it removes the criminal element of cultivation.

Shaleen Title is one of five commissioners on the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. Each commissioner has a different area of expertise — hers is social justice. Title’s advocacy, which began in 2002, predates legalization measures. Yet, home growing is still the first out of 10 must-have recommendations she has for any legalization bill.

“After the first states legalized in 2012, I pushed for intentional social justice-focused policies, because I learned that without deliberate and proactive action, the cannabis industry would look like other industries and lose the opportunity to provide reparative and restorative justice,” Title tells Big Buds. “As it relates to home growing specifically, including the right for consumers of age to grow at home is crucial. It is a check against so many things that can go wrong, [like] delays in implementation, slow rollouts, limited access to retail stores, limited product availability or inadequate quality, and artificially high prices.”

Debunk Home-Growing Myths, Replace Them With Home-Growing Facts
For decades, everything we’ve known about weed (that didn’t come from prohibitionist propaganda) came from underground growers or the cannabis black market. Needless to say, it’s been difficult for this information to find its way into the mainstream, as the Trump administration continues to push the war on drugs agenda at home and abroad.

“Probably the biggest challenge [is] misconception, or a lack of information about home grows,” Title explains, which is why it’s critical to state the facts. Legal at-home cultivation isn’t a radical position like some conservative lawmakers would have you believe. Indeed, it’s already been enacted in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon.

“Ask anyone who is asserting a particular problem associated with home grows to show evidence that states that allow them, like Massachusetts, have faced any problems that wouldn’t be worse off by leaving home grows illegal and unregulated,” Title adds.

Shanel Lindsay, CEO of at-home decarboxylation device Ardent, got involved with the Massachusetts legalization movement as medical regulations were being developed. Later, she became an author and spokeswoman for the successful state ballot initiative that made recreational cannabis legal for adults over the age of 21.

Looking back on her experiences and recalling what she learned in her own advocacy over the years, Lindsay offered two crucial pieces of advice to help change the narrative of home growers, particularly for those interested in lobbying.

The first is to find sympathetic people who grow at home, who have or haven’t criminalized, to eventually become spokespeople. These people don’t have to be from your state, but they can help provide a humanizing insight into what motivates someone to grow at home.

The second piece of advice offered by Lindsay is to stress the medical aspect of the plant, because “even though there is medical, there are going to be people for medical purposes that are not going to go through the medical system, and they should have the right to grow at home without going through all the hoops to get a card,” she tells Big Buds.

Take Action Today To Fight For At-Home Cannabis Cultivation Tomorrow
If your state doesn’t already have at-home cultivation legislation in place, you have a chance to step up and fight for it. The most crucial time is when medical and recreational legalization bills are being drafted.

“Get involved as those [legalization] bills are being drafted because [home growing] has to be in there,” Lindsay insists. “Do not wait — nothing happens afterwards.”

Don’t undermine the influence you have in your own communities. Whether it’s your local NORML chapter, Women Grow chapter, or just your friends and neighbors who consume, sparking those conversations now can help build a bigger movement in your region. “Make a lot of noise,” Lindsay stresses. “Do not settle.”

There is also a value in using your platform, be it social media or otherwise, to bring attention to home growing.

After attempting to start a dialogue with a representative and being repeatedly ignored, Peter Bernard, president of the Massachusetts Grower Advocacy Council, turned to social media. He asked members of a Facebook group who grow their own plants to speak out about why home growing is so critical. He started sharing home-grow stories on Twitter, accompanied by photos of home-grown plants. After tagging the State House News Service, which all major state news outlets follow, he ended up connecting with the local media.

He then attended town halls and public meetings “to use every one of those as an opportunity to invite [local politicians] out to see home grows in their own district. … I [knew] hundreds of people across the state that home grow and it didn’t take too long to find people to let a politician in to see what they were doing.” And once he was able to shine more light on the realities of home growing through personalized stories from constituents, the representatives were no longer ignoring Bernard.

Advocate For Further Home-Grow Reforms

At-home cultivation is one of many potential paths for making legalization more equitable. Even within home growing, there is so much more to advocate for than just a dozen plants in your household. For instance, Massachusetts only allows cultivation to be done within the home — but what about people who don’t have that option, such as those who simply don’t have a spare bedroom or who live communally? And what about public housing tenants, who face more restrictions on cannabis consumption than the typical private tenant?

“It would be great to allow people to be able to home grow in a cooperative manner,” Lindsay suggests.

Legalization laws currently allow for people to come together and grow cannabis for commerce, but technically, these laws don’t include people who want to come together to cultivate a cannabis garden as part of a collective outside their own private space.

“The same communities that are restricted from doing everything can’t fully participate in this ability to grow because they don’t have the area,” Lindsay adds, “but there is incredible interest in doing cooperative home growing that would allow people to have that. There are opportunities for interesting hybrid marketplaces like that that allow people more access to the plant.”
 
Indica vs. sativa:
What’s the difference between cannabis types?


When browsing cannabis strains or purchasing cannabis at a shop, you may notice strains are commonly broken up into three distinct groups: indica, sativa, and hybrid. Most consumers have used these two cannabis types as a touchstone for predicting effects:

  • Indica strains are believed to be physically sedating, perfect for relaxing with a movie or as a nightcap before bed.
  • Sativas are said to provide invigorating, uplifting cerebral effects that pair well with physical activity, social gatherings, and creative projects.
  • Hybrids are thought to fall somewhere in between, offering a balance of indica and sativa effects.
This belief that indicas, sativas, and hybrids deliver distinct effects is so deeply rooted in mainstream cannabis culture that budtenders typically begin their strain recommendations by asking you which of these three types you prefer.

But if you look at the chemical “ingredients” inside of indicas and sativas—that is, terpenes and cannabinoids (more on that below)—you’ll notice there aren’t clear patterns to explain why one type would be inherently sedating and the other uplifting. We know that indica and sativa cannabis strains can look different and grow differently, but this distinction is primarily useful only to cannabis growers.

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(Leafly)

To find a strain that will provide the desired effect, your best bet is to understand which chemical ingredients make up that strain. Using Leafly’s Cannabis Guide, you can rely on simple shapes and colors to visually understand what your favorite strains look like, chemically speaking. And when you use the chemical ingredients of a strain to guide your purchasing decision, you’re more likely to find the types of strains that agree with your body. You can learn more about how the Cannabis Guide works in this walkthrough.

Dive into the Cannabis Guide
In this article, we’ll explore how the words “indica” and “sativa” made it into the vernacular of cannabis consumers worldwide, and to what extent they’re actually meaningful when choosing a strain.

Jump to section:

Indica vs. sativa effects: What does the research say?
The indica, sativa, and hybrid system is no doubt convenient, especially when first entering the vast, overwhelming world of cannabis. With so many strains and products to choose from, where else are we to begin?

The clinical effects of the cannabis chemovar have nothing to do with whether the plant is tall and sparse vs. short and bushy, or whether the leaflets are narrow or broad.

Ethan Russo, cannabis researcher and neurologist
A more useful starting point would be cannabinoids and terpenes, two words you should put in your back pocket if you haven’t already. We’ll get to know these terms shortly.

But first, we asked two prominent cannabis researchers if the sativa/indica classification should have any bearing on a consumer’s strain selection. Ethan Russo is a neurologist whose research in cannabis psychopharmacology is respected worldwide, and Jeffrey Raber, Ph.D., is a chemist who founded the first independent testing lab to analyze cannabis terpenes in a commercial capacity, The Werc Shop.

“The way that the sativa and indica labels are utilized in commerce is nonsense,” Russo told Leafly. “The clinical effects of the cannabis chemovar have nothing to do with whether the plant is tall and sparse vs. short and bushy, or whether the leaflets are narrow or broad.”

Related
We blind-tasted cannabis strains and guessed: indica or sativa?
Raber agreed, and when asked if budtenders should be guiding consumers with terms like “indica” and “sativa,” he replied, “There is no factual or scientific basis to making these broad sweeping recommendations, and it needs to stop today. What we need to seek to understand better is which standardized cannabis composition is causing which effects, when delivered in which fashions, at which specific dosages, to which types of [consumers].”

What this means is not all sativas will energize you, and not all indicas will sedate you. You may notice a tendency for so-called sativas to be uplifting or indicas to be relaxing, especially when we expect to feel one way or the other. Just note that there’s no hard-and-fast rule and chemical data doesn’t reflect a clear pattern.

If indica and sativa aren’t predictive of effects, then what is?
The effects of any given cannabis strain depend on a number of different factors, including the product’s chemical profile, your unique biology and tolerance, dose, and consumption method. Understand how these factors change the experience and you’ll have the best chance of finding that perfect strain for you.

Cannabinoids

The cannabis plant is composed of hundreds of chemical compounds that create a unique harmony of effects, which is primarily led by cannabinoids. Cannabinoids like THC and CBD (the two most common) are the main drivers of cannabis’ therapeutic and recreational effects.

  • THC (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol) makes us feel hungry and high, and relieves symptoms like pain, nausea, and more.
  • CBD (cannabidiol) is a non-intoxicating compound known to alleviate anxiety, pain, inflammation, and many other medical ailments.
Related
List of Major Cannabinoids in Cannabis and Their Effects
Cannabis contains dozens of different cannabinoids, but start by familiarizing yourself with THC and CBD first. Instead of choosing a strain based on its indica or sativa classification, consider basing your selection on these three buckets instead:

  • THC-dominant strains are primarily chosen by consumers seeking a potent euphoric experience. These strains are also selected by patients treating pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and more. If you tend to feel anxious with THC-dominant strains or dislike other side effects associated with THC, try a strain with higher levels of CBD.
  • CBD-dominant strains contain only small amounts of THC and are widely used by those highly sensitive to THC or patients needing clear-headed symptom relief.
  • Balanced THC/CBD strains contain similar levels of THC and CBD, offering mild euphoria alongside symptom relief. These tend to be a good choice for novice consumers seeking an introduction to cannabis’ signature high.
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Cannabis strains present three distinct cannabinoid profiles called “chemotypes.” Space Queen is an example of a THC-dominant strain (as shown by diamond shapes), Canna-Tsu contains an approximate balance of THC and CBD (composed of both diamonds and circles), and Sour Tsunami has very little THC, but elevated levels of CBD (made up of only circles). (Leafly)

It’s worth noting that both indica and sativa strains exhibit these different cannabinoid profiles. “Initially most people thought higher CBD levels caused sedation, and that CBD was more prevalent in indica cultivars, which we now know is most definitely not the case,” Raber told Leafly.

Terpenes
If you’ve ever used aromatherapy to relax or invigorate your mind and body, you understand the basics of terpenes. Terpenes are aromatic compounds commonly produced by plants and fruit. They can be found in lavender flowers, oranges, hops, pepper, and of course, cannabis. Secreted by the same glands that ooze THC and CBD, terpenes are what make cannabis smell like berries, citrus, pine, fuel, etc.

Terpenes seem to be major players in driving the sedating or energizing effects.

Jeffrey Raber, Founder of the Werc Shop
One question yet to be answered by research is how terpenes—and different combinations of those terpenes—shape the effects of different cannabis strains.

“Terpenes seem to be major players in driving the sedating or energizing effects,” Raber said. “Which terpenes cause which effects is apparently much more complicated than all of us would like, as it seems to [vary based on specific] ones and their relative ratios to each other and the cannabinoids.”

There are many terpenes found in cannabis, and it’s worth familiarizing yourself with the most common—especially myrcene, caryophyllene, limonene, and terpinolene, since they’re the most likely to occur in pronounced levels in cannabis.

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Three sativa strains that exemplify the diversity of terpenes found in cannabis. Ghost Train Haze is terpinolene-dominant (orange), Super Sour Diesel is limonene-dominant (yellow), and Green Crack is myrcene-dominant (blue). (Leafly)

If you can, smell the strains you’re considering for purchase. Find the aromas that stand out to you and give them a try. In time, your intuition and knowledge of cannabinoids and terpenes will guide you to your favorite strains and products.

Biology, dosing, and consumption method
Lastly, consider the following questions when choosing the right strain or product for you.

  • How much experience do you have with cannabis? If your tolerance is low, consider a low-THC strain in low doses.
  • Are you susceptible to anxiety or other side effects of THC? If so, try a strain high in CBD.
  • Do you want the effects to last a long time? If you do, consider edibles (starting with a low dose). Conversely, if you seek a short-term experience, use inhalation methods or a tincture.
There are many factors to consider when choosing a strain, but if you find that indica strains consistently deliver a positive experience, then by all means, stick to what you know. However, if you’re still searching for that ideal strain, these are important details to keep in mind.

Related
What are cannabis terpenes and what do they do?
CBD vs. THC in indicas, sativas, and hybrids
Could it be that indicas and sativas feel different because they produce different levels of THC and CBD on average? To find out, we used lab-sourced data to determine the average abundance of each cannabinoid across sativa, indica, and hybrid strains (excludes CBD-dominant and balanced strains).

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(Leafly)

Taking the average THC levels across indica, sativa, and hybrid strains, we can see that THC-dominant strains—regardless of their plant type—present approximately the same average and range of THC. So it’s unlikely THC accounts for perceived differences between indicas, sativas, and hybrids.

But are there any notable differences in CBD abundance for CBD-containing indica, sativa, and hybrid strains?

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Once again, there are very little differences on average between indica, sativa, and hybrid CBD levels.

So if differences in cannabinoid profiles don’t tell the story behind the perceived differences of indica, sativa, and hybrid strains, you might wonder if there’s another chemical explanation.

Terpenes in indica, sativa, and hybrid strains
We know that terpenes are responsible for the different aromas found in cannabis, and early research suggests that they may deliver unique therapeutic benefits. But to what extent do they make a strain energizing or sedating? And are there patterns that would explain why indicas and sativas sometimes feel different?

Let’s take a look at lab data illustrating terpene trends among indicas, sativas, and hybrids.

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(Leafly)

Above, you’ll find the levels at which indica, sativa, and hybrid strains tend to produce common terpenes. They tend to present relatively similar patterns in terpene profiles with some interesting points of variation—one of which is terpinolene.

Terpinolene is a terpene found at high levels in only a small subset of cannabis strains, most of which are sativas and hybrids. Some terpinolene-dominant strains you’ve probably seen or heard of include Dutch Treat, Jack Herer, Golden Goat, and Ghost Train Haze. You’ll find terpinolene in many strains related to these, like Jack crosses (e.g., XJ-13, J1, Chernobyl) or Golden Goat hybrids (e.g., Golden Pineapple, Golden Ticket), indicating that there may be genetic consistency.

Related
Which Terpenes Are Found in ‘Cookies’ Cannabis Strains?
Still, a majority of sativa strains are not terpinolene-dominant. But if you’ve tried terpinolene-dominant strains in the past, you’ll have likely noticed they’re similar in effect.

What this suggests is that strains with similar cannabinoid and terpene combinations may offer more reliable consistency in effects.

Terpene profiles also allow us to deepen our understanding of potential variations within each cannabis type. Let’s take three hybrid strains for example—ACDC, Chernobyl, and OG Kush.

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All three of these are “hybrid” strains, but each may deliver very different effects. (Leafly)

Although each categorically identify as “hybrids,” they’re vastly different strains on a chemical level. ACDC is a gentle CBD strain commonly chosen by those who are sensitive to THC and its anxious side effects. Chernobyl is a blissful and uplifting strain that is preferred by many for daytime activities. OG Kush delivers a heavy-handed punch of euphoria that is commonly chosen by seasoned smokers or reserved for evening sessions.

By going a step beyond their indica, sativa, or hybrid classification to consider cannabinoids and terpenes, you’re more likely to identify the specific strains you like or don’t like.

Use Leafly’s Flower Finder to build your perfect strain
Indica and sativa: Origin and evolution of the terms
The words “indica” and “sativa” were introduced in the 18th century to describe different species of cannabis: Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. The term sativa described hemp plants found in Europe and western Eurasia, where it was cultivated for its fiber and seeds. Cannabis indica refers to the psychoactive varieties discovered in India, where it was harvested for its seeds, fiber, and hashish production.

Although the cannabis varieties we consume largely stem from Cannabis indica, both terms are used—even if erroneously—to organize the thousands of strains circulating the market today.

Related
The Cannabis Origin: What Is a Landrace Strain?
Here’s how terms have shifted since their earliest botanical definitions:

  • Today, “sativa” refers to tall, narrow-leaf varieties of cannabis, thought to induce energizing effects. However, these narrow-leaf drug (NLD) varieties were originally Cannabis indica ssp. indica.
  • “Indica” has come to describe stout, broad-leaf plants, thought to deliver sedating effects. These broad-leaf drug (BLD) varieties are technically Cannabis indica ssp. afghanica.
  • What we call “hemp” refers to the industrial, non-intoxicating varieties harvested primarily for fiber, seeds, and CBD. However, this was originally named Cannabis sativa.
With the mass commercialization of cannabis, the taxonomical distinctions between cannabis species and subspecies got turned on its head and calcified. But now that you understand that there’s more to a strain than its indica, sativa, or hybrid designation, it’s worth thinking about how to shop for the right strain on your next dispensary visit.

How to shop for cannabis without saying ‘indica’ or ‘sativa’
What’s important to you as a consumer shopping for a specific mood has everything to do with potency, dose, and chemical profile (i.e., cannabinoids and terpenes).

That’s the beauty of the Leafly Cannabis Guide—it allows you to easily identify which strains are chemically similar, so you have a better chance of finding (or avoiding) particular chemical profiles.

Find your strain using the Cannabis Guide
Let’s say you’re prone to anxiety and looking to avoid an uncomfortable, racy experience. If you tell a budtender you hate sativas because they make you anxious, they may hand you a THC powerhouse like White Fire OG simply because it’s not a sativa. Meanwhile, a “sativa” like Harlequin—with low levels of THC and high levels of CBD—might actually be a better fit.

Although it isn’t as simple as grouping strains into the indica-sativa-hybrid triumvirate that has long been our compass while navigating menus, try using potency to guide you. You may find that a strain packing 25% THC isn’t as enjoyable as that very fragrant strain tapping in at 16%, or the balanced THC/CBD variety that provides 10% of each cannabinoid.

Related
The 10 best CBD cannabis strains according to Leafly users
You might also find that you gravitate toward strains that express similar terpene profiles. For example, if you like the terpinolene-dominant Jack Herer, you’ll likely enjoy Golden Pineapple or XJ-13, which are also terpinolene-dominant.

Finding the right strain for yourequires a bit of trial and error. Still, if you’re new to cannabis, there are appropriate places to begin your search for that perfect experience.

Here are some helpful beginner resources to get you started:

Cannabis is a personal experience, and how you select it is, too. This info is meant to give you an alternative perspective on what qualities to look for in a strain. Some of you are happy to sit down with any strain, anytime, and that’s okay. For others, this level of precision in strain selection is paramount to having a good experience—and feeling good is what cannabis is all about.
 
The top 9 cannabis strains of the fall 2019 harvest season

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Do-Si-Dos and Purple Punch combine in Dosi Punch. (Courtesy of Sunrise Mountain Farms)
SACRAMENTO—This time of year, leading cannabis cultivator Ted Lidie, founder and CEO of Alien Labs, lies awake at midnight, obsessing.

Nearly three acres of exotic cannabis—pungent and green Melonade contrasting with purple rows of Sherbacio and Area #41—sit ripening in 100-gallon pots in Yolo County, CA. As a farmer, Lidie’s livelihood is subject to the whims of fate.


By dawn, Lidie is up, one of thousands of licensed California operators bringing in millions of pounds of full-season, outdoor cannabis from the fields.

California is the world’s largest legal cannabis market, and the US’ biggest source of illicit herb. Licensed farmers report a bountiful, beautiful 2019 harvest, with off-the-charts flavors and powerful effects. Legalization is allowing compliant brands to produce at large scale.

Here are Leafly’s Harvest Strains of 2019: combining field reporting with sales and search data, with a focus on commercial cultivars found in licensed stores in California and other legalization states.

Let’s crack this jar and peak inside.


MAC
MAC stands for Miracle Alien Cookies, and 2019 is officially The Year of the MAC.

“I said it last year: ‘It’s the year of the MAC,’” laughs Humboldt County, CA, grower Dan “Mr. D” Eagan, part of the Humboldt Sun Growers Guild. He’s standing on the sales floor of the world’s largest wholesale event, Hall of Flowers, on Sept. 17, in Santa Rosa, CA. “But now it’s officially the year of the MAC.”

Consumers have a bottomless desire for high-THC, sedative Cookies strains. So farms across California are harvesting thick, dense, pungent, frosty colas of the MAC cultivar this year.

MAC’s breeder Capulator took Alien Cookies and added more fuel and sour aromas from the strain Starfighter, and then some citrusy landrace Columbian.

MAC searches are surging on Leafly as the first cuts of the 2019 harvest come in, and we expect MAC to elevate seshes into the new year. Available in California from Lit House, Saucey, and many others.

See also: 1Lyfe’s Grape Pie Cookies; Elyon’s Trifi Cookies; A Golden State’s Woods



https://www.leafly.com/finder


OZ Kush
It has to be most destined cross of 2019: OG Kush, the industry standard-bearer and top-seller for 20 years, plus Zkittlez, an award-winning upstart, with effects and terps that judges and connoisseurs go nuts for.

Put ‘em together and you get OZK, also seen as OZ Kush. Sound the airhorn. Zkittlez lacks great bag appeal and the highest THC scores, and it’s hard to grow, but cross it with OG Kush and it’s a different story.

Even the people who started OG Kush—like grower Josh Del Rosso at Josh D Farms—are a fan of OZK. “God, it’s so loud,” Del Rosso said. “There’s nothing bad about it. It’s all really attractive aromas and flavors that get you high.”

Look out for this long overdue Zkittlez cross and many others in licensed markets.

See also: Josh D Farms’ ZTK; A Golden State’s Shasta Bloom; Paradiso’s Midnight


Sherbacio
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Alien Labs’ Sherbacio is on tap for October stores. (David Downs/Leafly)

Take two great cultivars ruling the day—Sunset Sherbert and Gelato #41—mix them together, select the best, and BOOM: Sherbacio. Fields of it are coming from Alien Labs and others. Look for it in 180-plus stores and statewide through Puffy Delivery.

“It’s what we have the most of out there,” said Lidie. “We love that plant because it’s so dark and fucking outdoor looks so much better when it’s purple.”

Growing under the sun is far cheaper than under lamps, so even the best outdoor can run half-off of normal prices—$25 an eighth. Each bag is packed with waves of dank, scrumptious, creamy berry that’s crazy high in THC. It’s a boon to terp lovers.

“We don’t see a middle,” said Lidie from Alien Labs. “We have super quality [indoor at $80 per eighth], and we have the outdoor [where] the process is cheaper. We try and let that be the bargain.”

See also: Cookies’ Georgia Pie; Monterey Kush Co’s The Fruit Stripe; Wonderbrett’s Orange Sunset


Durban Poison
While indoor plants are prized for flowering fast, outdoor plants take their time. Consequently, long-flowering sativas can shine in the fall harvest.

Among the sativas, look out for early cuts of the classic, fast-finishing landrace sativa Durban Poison.

Durban provided the original sativa genetics in Cookies. It can be high in THC-V, which can suppress appetite.

Durban is sweet and spicy like ginger, high in THC and low in CBD, with energetic effects.

Aster Farms and Fog City Farms, both in California, exhibited a Durban at Hall of Flowers, and while indicas edge out sativa sales nationwide, “Sativas seem like they’re really hot right now,” a Fog City rep said.

Durban can be found in virtually every legal cannabis market in the US.

See also: Green Crack, Jack Herer, AK-47, Lemon Haze


Dosi Punch
What a great matchup.

Purple Punch looks gorgeous and has a friendly, sweet, soft, and velvety grape aroma. But it doesn’t get you super baked.

By contrast, the heavily hybridized OG cross Do-Si-Dos is so gassy and peppery it can make you sneeze, and so strong it can give you a case of The Fear.

Both have heated up the sales charts over the last year, and now come together in this duet, Dosi Punch. Bred by Symbiotic Genetics, seeds of Dosi Punch have spread across California, so look out for new cuts of it from the likes of Sunrise Mountain Farms, as well as indoor growers Ember Valley. And look out for other great Do-Si-Dos and Purple Punch crosses this harvest.

See also: Paradiso’s Lemon Dosi Cherry; Alien Labs’ Moonbow

Banana OG
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Occidental Hill’s Banana OG—the best of the bunch. (David Downs/Leafly)

Lovers of lemon, fuel, and high amounts of THC keep OG Kush and Sour Diesel at the top of the charts. But every season, variations stand out.

This year, we’re seeing really excellent outdoor and light-dep cuts of Banana OG from California brand Flow Kana, as well as Loudpack, just two of many bringing the pleasant hybrid to outdoor shelves this fall.

Banana OG softens the astringent fuel bite of OG Kush with soft, tropical, sweet banana notes. The trick for growers is capturing those delicate banana-smelling terpenes. Hasty drying or lengthy storage depletes them and turns Banana OG to meh-nana OG.

With so many cuts of it around, shop around and don’t settle for less than the full ‘nana this harvest.

See also: Maui OG, 3C Farms’ Banana OG


Banjo
Shout out to the citrus lovers who need daytime energy! Banjo is a trending mix of Boost and Tangelo that’s perfect for people with more of a moderate THC tolerance.

Strains like Tangie, and citrus strains in general, never really took off with the high-THC toker who can’t get as big of effects off Tangies than OGs.

But with legalization bringing in a new range of more casual consumers, Banjo stands ready to play their tune. A bowl of outdoor Banjo is affordable, terpene-rich, and lower in THC than other major harvest strains.

Spotted for sale from Flow Kana, 1Lyfe, Pacific Stone, Goodflower, and Coastal Sun.

See also: Tangie, Mimosa

Blueberry Muffin
This year is a banner year for homegrowers, who enjoy more freedom now than almost any time in recent history. In California, Oregon, and many other states, homegrowing is allowed by law, and the 2019 champion of the homegrow just might be Blueberry Muffin.

Over the last two years, major California breeder Humboldt Seed Co. partnered with cloning factory Dark Heart Nursery to sell thousands of Blueberry Muffin clones into commercial and home gardens alike. With plants finishing off this week, the best of the rugged Humboldt County hills is available to many homegrowers.

Humboldt Seed Co. selected Blueberry Muffin from a lengthy, multi-generation seed hunt through the strains Blueberry, Razzle Berry, and Purple Panty Dropper. The commercial cut is a purple cannabis lover’s dream—dense, dark, sweet, fruity, bready, and extremely high in THC.

See also: Vanilla Frosting


Mango Brulee
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(David Downs/Leafly)

For the final entry, let’s get tropical with our dessert and exalt the Mango Brulee from licensed California brand Lolo.

Lolo’s bud is a light dep: Outdoor herb that finishes early, thanks to light deprivation techniques that force an early flowering. Light dep allows for early harvests and the result can be as pretty as indoor, while staying almost as cheap as outdoor. It’s the future of cannabis—even if most consumers don’t notice.

But they do care that Lolo’s Mango Brulee is relatively cheap, ridiculously terpy, and loud, with intense tropical fruit notes wedded to a burnt sugar finish. Grinding it, rolling it, and smoking only confirms the sensation.

Don’t stop there. Investigate all the tropical dessert light deps you can find from Loudpack and Lowell.
 
Bad Trip on Weed? Our Guide on What To Do

Anyone who’s taken cannabis regularly will know the symptoms of a bad trip, either because they’ve had one themselves or know someone who has.

If you’re in the middle of a bad trip, it can seem impossible to stop. There are a few different things you can try to alleviate the symptoms and bring yourself back down to Earth. The best solution, of course, is to avoid having a bad trip on weed altogether. A little knowledge and experience can make a big difference.

Here’s our guide to avoiding a bad trip as well as how to cope if you do get it wrong.

What’s a Bad Trip on Weed?
This is going to vary from person to person. Let’s face it, one individual’s high is another’s nightmare.

Your own psychology will play a part, so will your experience and even where you are at the time. If you’ve ever been too drunk, a bad trip on weed can seem a little like that. It feels as if you’ve taken way too much and you have no control over anything. Of course, a bad trip can happen even only taken a small amount of weed, particularly if you are not used to it.

In severe cases, it can be quite an unpleasant experience. You want it to stop but can’t find a way to ease the high or euphoria. You might see your heartbeat increase, your vision blur and get the sweats. The first time a bad trip on weed occurs it can be a pretty frightening experience. It can also include paranoia and feelings of anxiety.

What Causes a Bad Cannabis Trip?
It could be the particular cannabis strain you have taken. Trying new varieties delivers different highs, even for the most experienced among us. How you take your weed can change your experience too. If you’ve gone from traditional smoking to dabbing, for instance, you may take too much in one go and give yourself a bad trip.

People who consume edibles for the first time might experience a bad trip on weed – they eat too much thinking there’s not much effect, not realizing edibles can take a couple of hours to work. It’s usually not catastrophic and at least you’ll know better next time.

The big thing to remember is that even though you’re having a bad trip on weed, you’re not going to die. It will pass and you will start to feel better. It just might take a while before you come down and feel normal again.

What Are the Symptoms?
As we’ve said, this can vary from person to person. Some of the common symptoms of a bad trip on weed include:

  • You might feel your face becoming numb. This can be quite alarming but don’t let it worry you too much.
  • You may also start sweating and feel your heart rate or pulse increasing and you might feel short of breath.
  • Look in the mirror, and you might find that your face looks pale.
  • You may feel increasingly anxious and this can start to spill over into paranoia.
All this might make you think that you are having a psychotic episode but its most likely down to the weed. In some cases, because you feel afraid it can have an effect on your stomach. It’s not unusual to feel sick or even vomit.

The sensation of being too high may mean we’re a little irrational so understanding what is happening is important. It helps if you are with other people as they will be able to calm you down. If you are on your own, the trick is to try and relax and let the feeling pass.

We’ll cover some ways to do this below.

Do Different Types of Cannabis Give You a Bad Trip?
Like changing your drink, trying a different type of weed may well lead to a bad trip, especially if you choose a more powerful strain. Some of the super strong weeds out there nowadays are more likely to do this and you should try to avoid these, even when you are sharing a joint or two at a party. Our advice is to make sure you research what you are taking a little better and tailor your consumption to match.

Top Tips on Avoiding a Bad Trip on Weed
Preventing having a bad trip should be your first priority. With so many different factors involved, including your own personal biology and what’s on offer to smoke, it’s not certain that you can totally reduce the risk of getting it wrong.

  • Your environment can turn a normal trip into a bad one. Always makes sure that you’re in a comfortable, reasonably familiar location before you try anything new.
  • The same goes for who you smoke, vape, eat or dab weed with. If you’re stuck with strangers you’ve never met before it can exacerbate your symptoms and turn something bad but okay into an experience that’s nightmarish. Take your weed in the company of friends, not strangers.
  • If you’re taking a new strain of weed for the first time or using a different method of delivery, start small and wait for the effect rather than going in no holds barred.
  • Make sure that you take weed on a full stomach and have water to keep yourself fully hydrated.
  • Don’t mix weed with alcohol as it can exacerbate the high and take you out of your comfort zone.
What to Do When You Have a Bad Trip
The first thing to do is understand what a bad trip is so that you know what to look out for. You may find your anxiety levels starting to rise, for example, which is going to be a cue for you to do something about it.

The first thing that you physically want to do with a bad trip on weed is get yourself to a comfortable, hopefully familiar, place. You need to try and tell yourself this is only temporary. It will pass in a relatively short while. If you feel the bad trip coming, excuse yourself from the crowd and find somewhere quiet to sit.

Sweet things may help. Get yourself a sugary drink like a soda and put it down your neck. You can also try cake or cookies and chocolate just to give your blood sugar levels a boost. If you’re a regular coffee drinker, a few cups can lift your awareness but avoid this if you don’t have much caffeine normally as it can be counterproductive.

If you’re feeling panicked or paranoid, it is important to have someone with you to help you calm down and get you through the bad trip. Watching TV or listening to music might seem like a good idea but this can actually intensify your negative feelings if the wrong stuff is played.

Here are some common remedies for dealing with a bad trip on weed:

  • Relax: You’re going to be fine and this will all soon pass. Remind yourself that you’re not in danger and think about things that make you feel secure.
  • Try a squeeze of lemon: Limonene is a terpene that has been shown to reduce highs so this might help in the short-term.
  • Crunch a peppercorn: There’s anecdotal evidence that this works but no research to back it up. Worth a try, however, if you’ve got some handy in the kitchen.
  • Get some fresh air: Once you do start to come down a little, some fresh air is a good idea. Make sure you go with someone and don’t wander too far from your base.
  • Eat and drink: East something sweet and have plenty of water to flush things through your system. Staying hydrated should help keep the high under more control.
  • Talk it through: If you’re paranoid and out of it, it can be difficult to talk with someone but it can help settle you down.
  • Rest is the best therapy: When you can, sit back, close your eyes and rest. If you can drift off to sleep, you should wake up feeling a lot better.
Helping a Friend With a Bad Trip on Weed
If you are taking weed regularly, you are likely to come across someone else who is having a bad trip at some point and it’s important to understand how to handle them. You’ll need to be calm yourself and provide plenty of reassurance.

Try not to be too obsessive in helping them but just make sure they know you are there and listen to them if they start having concerns. Make sure they are kept hydrated and don’t let them try any more weed until they have recovered. If they want to go outside for fresh air, accompany them. The last thing you want is for your friend roaming the streets or out in the woods when they are feeling paranoid.While it may feel like the end of the world when you have a bad trip, the main thing to remember is that it won’t last. You’ll soon be feeling better and you’ll be just that little bit older and wiser to boot.
 
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Smoking Weed For the First Time? Follow Our Quick Guide

Despite all the advances in cannabis technology in recent years, the traditional method of smoking weed is still popular. Go to any party or late night get together and you’ll probably find someone rolling a joint and kicking back to enjoy the evening with friends.

If you want to try smoking weed for the first time, there are a number of things to consider, not least the type of cannabis you are going to buy and where you are going to do it. There may be questions you haven’t even considered:

  • Is taking small hits from that joint better than long draws?
  • How do you roll a joint in the first place?
  • What happens if you overdo it?
Here, we’ll try to answer all these questions so your first-time smoking weed goes according to plan. Our main piece of advice is to pick a safe location you know well and smoke with friends you trust.

Which Weed to Choose?
Whether you get high or not, the strain of cannabis you choose is going to be influential. If this is your first time, you want to avoid very high THC strains simply because you’re not experienced enough for them.

Most people’s introduction to smoking weed is when they are with a group of friends and a joint or blunt is passed around. You have no choice and are just hoping your friends aren’t trying to blow your socks off. This is fine but make sure you don’t overdo it. Take small tokes and pass the joint on rather than hogging it and trying to get as high as possible.

If you are planning to use cannabis for medical purposes, smoking weed may be your first introduction and the easiest to try. Make sure you do your research on the right choices in your community and always start small when it comes to dose. If you don’t actually want to smoke weed, vaping is a healthier alternative.

Where to Smoke Weed?
If you want to stay ultra-safe, we suggest that you try smoking weed for the first time under pretty controlled circumstances. That means you are more likely to enjoy the experience and appreciate what’s going on at the same time. You will want to avoid taking any other substances such as alcohol beforehand as this can affect your reaction and your experience.

Our top tip is to choose a familiar and safe place with a few friends you know well. If you’re at a party and people are taking cannabis, avoid things like gravity bongs as they can deliver an intense high that you might not be quite ready for.

How to Roll a Joint
If you can already roll a cigarette, you’ll find this easy. For novices, rolling a joint isn’t always that simple which means you might want to practice beforehand – the last thing you want is for your newly bought cannabis bud to end up on the floor.

Other methods of delivery such as a bong can be okay if you know what you are doing but may deliver a big high if you take in too much vapor in one go. A similar thing can be said of dabbing, where you take a small amount of concentrate and vaporize it.

Check out our joint rolling guide here before you start.

Is it Best to Take Small or Big Hits?
One of the questions newbies often ask is whether it’s best to take small hits of a joint or take a deep breath, draw plenty of smoke into your lungs, hold it and then exhale slowly.

Many people are going to tell you that a big hit is the quickest way to get yourself high. It makes sense. You’re taking more of the cannabis into your lungs and more THC is swimming around your veins. So-called experts will also tell you that you need to hold that cannabis smoke in your lungs for a good while before exhaling.

Actually, the truth is a little different when you are smoking weed.

First off, our lungs aren’t that efficient at absorbing stuff like oxygen as well as, in this case, THC. Take a deep breath, hold it and breath out and you’ll find that the air you expel still contains a good deal of oxygen. Holding your breath doesn’t really improve absorption. That’s essentially why we breath in an out regularly rather than breathing once in a while when our body needs it.

You cannot force a greater amount of THC or CBD or any other product into your lungs. Breathing normally, therefore, is just as efficient. Part of the sense of feeling higher may actually come down to depriving your brain of oxygen when you are holding your breath. Of course, there’s also probably a placebo effect – you’re expecting to get higher so you feel higher, irrespective of the level of THC in your system.

The level of THC that is absorbed in each breath is probably decided within the first second which means there’s really no need to hold it in your lungs for an extended period. If other people are doing it and you don’t want to stand out, there’s no harm in holding your breath. It just won’t do that much for you, it certainly won’t get you higher.

It’s the quantity that you smoke and the level of THC in the strain you are smoking that will dictate how high you get. This shouldn’t be your primary motivation when smoking weed for the first time, however. Indeed, you may be disappointed. Some people try cannabis for the first time and discover it has no effect initially for one reason or another, either because of the strain or their own personal biology.

What To Do If You Smoke Too Much
As a novice, of course, there’s the possibility that you might overdo things. We would advise that you stop, once you feel yourself getting high, but that probably will go by the way once you are sat down and lighting up with friends.

Overdoing the weed can do a number of things to you. It can make you feel way too euphoric and out of control but it can also make you feel paranoid. The thing to remember is that these feelings are going to pass with time. Stop smoking the weed and find somewhere quiet to sit where you feel safe and secure. Drink plenty of water and eat something to take the edge of the high. If you’re with a friend, you can step outside with them and get some fresh air (don’t go off wandering on your own).

Just remember that no one ever died because of taking too much marijuana and in a few hours’ time the effect will be wearing off.

What Are The Alternatives to Smoking Weed?
One of the problems with smoking weed is that it’s pretty unhealthy as we all know. Those burning carcinogens are not particularly good for us. If you’re looking for an alternative there’s plenty to choose from, especially if you are taking cannabis for medicinal purposes. Smoking a joint or a blunt is a reasonably safe introduction but there are other good options.

Popular choices are a weed pipe or even making your own cannabis vessel out of fruit or even a tin can. The possibilities are virtually endless here.

Once you’ve decided you want to explore the world of cannabis, you may like to take a look at vaping, buying a bong or playing around with concentrates and processes such as dabbing. A bong is one of the cleanest ways to take cannabis because the smoke is filtered through water first and gives you a much more flavorsome hit.

Getting the Munchies When Smoking Weed
One thing you will most definitely notice is that you’ll get the munchies at some point. Many cannabis regulars have a fast food app downloaded onto their phones so they can call up a pizza or hamburger when they get hungry. Another option is to get supplies of chips and other munchies in before you start your session.

Don’t Plan Ahead
Another thing to bear in mind is that, if you are high, you’re not going to be much good for anything else, at least for a while. That means you shouldn’t have anything scheduled for the evening or the day after, just in case. Keep your itinerary clear and you won’t have to worry about turning up somewhere high as a kite.

Know Your Limits
Finally, even if you have never tried smoking weed before, it’s important to be aware of your limitations. If you find yourself tipping over the edge of euphoria, stop and wait until your head clears.

Once you’ve tried weed for the first time, you may want to take things further and grow your own plants. At Seedsman, we’ve got a big catalogue of different seeds and strains available for sale, suitable for beginners and experienced growers.
 
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Is Cannabis Tincture a Good Option For Spare Bud?

4/20 is a significant date in the cannabis calendar and you might well notice stores around the U.S. upping their supplies in preparation. A lot more people smoke, vape, dab and eat cannabis on this date than any other. It’s become something of an unofficial national holiday for many people around the world.

What you may not know is that cannabis stores tend to have sales to get rid of their excess stock afterwards, so you can pick up some pretty good bargains if you’re in the right place at the right time. On sale, you all also find a variety of cannabis tinctures.

You might be a cannabis lover who grows their own plants. Harvest time can be a brilliant time and set you up for the next couple of months. But what do you do with all that extra leaf or offcuts? The good news is there are plenty of different products you can make in the home including tinctures. It’s one of the simplest methods of making an ingestible product that lasts for a long time and is easy to administer, which makes it a particularly popular choice among medical cannabis users.

Here we take a closer look at what a tincture is and how you can easily make it at home.

What is a Cannabis Tincture?
A tincture is quite a common way of getting extracts out of plants which can then be used for both recreational and medicinal purposes. You normally put them in a bottle with a dropper attached and you can then put a few drops on your tongue. Pop into a health food store and you’ll find a tincture practically every five feet.

The cannabis tincture has long been a method of using up spare leaf and it was one of the most popular methods of administering weed until everything started to get legalized in the U.S. That’s mainly because it’s easy to use but it’s also pretty simple to make. Known also as green dragon, tincture preparations are still used widely today and they are a pretty good starting point for newbies whether they’re interested in recreational or medicinal cannabis.

The great thing about a tincture is that it can be added to a lot of other things. You can put a few drops in your juice, add tincture to your ice cream, even put it in mash and gravy to spice things up. This is great if you take it for therapeutic reasons.

The Benefits of a Cannabis Tincture
  • Because the tincture is usually added under the tongue, it quickly gets into your blood system and means you should experience the effects fairly quickly.
  • With a small dropper, you are able to control the amount of cannabis that you ingest using a tincture.
  • It’s a pretty discreet way of taking cannabis, particularly if you do so for medical purposes.
  • A tincture is fairly safe and the bottle can be stored for a relatively long period.
  • Making a tincture is less hazardous than some other methods of creating cannabis products and can easily be done at home.
How Do You Make a Cannabis Tincture?
For those who don’t want to mess around with complicated cooking or preparation techniques such as cannabutter, a tincture is the perfect option to go for. Practically all the equipment you need is a sealable jar, your cannabis offcuts, a straining implement and some alcohol.

  • The first step is to decarboxylate your leaf or bud to release the THC. This involves grinding up your weed and putting it on some parchment paper, then placing it in the oven at around 220 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes.
  • Next, once cooled, put your leaf in a mason jar with a sealable lid and add a good quality alcohol. Ethanol is a popular choice, something with an alcohol level of between 25-60%. Many people go for a brand like Everclear because it’s readily available.
  • The next thing you need to do is seal the jar and leave it for a couple of weeks, shaking once a day to agitate the leaf. During this time the alcohol will break down the plant material and release components such as THC, CBD and terpenes.
  • After the two weeks is up, you should filter the mix through something like a coffee filter to get your finished tincture. Swap this into a bottle with a sealable dropper and you are ready to go.
Some people have used alternatives such as glycerol and vinegar to make a tincture. While okay, they are not as effective. The alcohol breaks down the basic contents and acids contained in the bud or leaf and, if you follow the recipe steps, you should end up with all the good stuff in your tincture bottle at the end.

How to Take a Cannabis Tincture
Cannabis tincture is taken sublingually, which is the scientific word for ‘under the tongue’. Fill your dropper and open your mouth, lift your tongue and place a few drops there. The area under your tongue is full of blood vessels and the tincture should be quickly absorbed if you hold it there for a while. If you don’t like this method, you can always add the tincture to your food or even glass of water to make it more palatable. Ingesting should take longer this way so don’t make the mistake of thinking nothing is happening and taking more.

If you are taking your cannabis tincture sublingually, expect it to be about 15 minutes before you notice any effect. You should reach the peak level for being high (if your cannabis is THC dominant) at around an hour and a half. If you have put it in edibles, give at least a few hours before you take any more.

The great thing with cannabis tincture is that you can use it in a variety of ways. Yes, you can do the traditional under the tongue approach but you can also add it to soups, salad dressings and teas. Just a few drops are all it takes and it’s really great if you use cannabis for medical purposes.

The trick with any tincture is to try not to swallow. What you’re trying to do here is let the tincture sit on the underside of your tongue and get absorbed into the many blood vessels there. If you swallow, it decreases the effect, so the longer you can hold it the better.

If it’s your first time or you have a new bottle of tincture, you’ll not be completely sure of how strong it is. We advise starting with one small drop and then leaving it for an hour or so to see what effect you get. You can always increase the dose later if it’s not enough.

CBD Tincture and Medical Use
One of the most popular reasons for making a tincture is to use cannabis as a therapeutic tool. Soaking in alcohol can help release cannabinoids such as CBD which is used to treat a wide variety of conditions from poor appetite and nausea to insomnia, pain, anxiety and depression. Of course, everything depends on the particular strain that you are turning into a tincture. The ease of dosing and control over its effects are also factors that make this a suitable method for medical use.

Does a Tincture Cause Side-Effects?
Side effects are a perennial talking point in a few serious cannabis circles. If you’ve made your tincture properly you are likely to get similar effects to what you would if you were smoking or vaping. In other words, if you are making a THC tincture it should get you high and if you are looking at a CBD strain, it should hopefully solve your health problem.

Taking cannabis can stop other drugs from working properly, particularly CBD which decreases the ability of the liver to deal with certain chemicals. If you are taking another medication, for example, because you have heart condition, you might want to check that a CBD tincture isn’t interfering and likely to put you in harm’s way.

Is a Tincture Best For You?
This question normally applies to medical cannabis users who might not be interested in smoking or vaping. You can carry your bottle of tincture around with you and it’s fairly discreet. A few drops under the tongue should have the appropriate effect and it’s not that difficult to make, taking just a few days.

If you prefer traditional ways of administering cannabis, a tincture might be the perfect solution for any extra bud or off cut leaves that you have hanging around. A cannabis tincture is useful if you have nothing else in the house and want to relax yourself.

They’re also good for social situations where no one is smoking. You can nip away and discreetly have a few drops in the restroom rather than shocking everyone by lighting up a huge blunt in polite company.
 
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CANNABIS STRAINS
Pineapple Express: Why It’s Everyone’s Favourite Strain
Seedsman
4 months ago
0 Comments
8 min read
Most people have heard of Pineapple Express, even if they aren’t into the cannabis culture. It’s not only the name of a cult favorite film made famous by Seth Rogan, it’s a strain that seems to have been around forever and is popular with everyone who’s ever lit up a joint.

Among cannabis users, Pineapple Express is a strain that never seems to disappoint. It’s one that quickly boosts your energy levels and gets those creative juices flowing in next to no time. That’s why it’s a popular choice for artists and writers who want to get their muse engaged and create something different.

Pineapple Express isn’t just popular with the recreational crowd, however. It’s used for a lot of therapeutic purposes, including to help treat epilepsy, improve the symptoms of MS sufferers and reduce stress too. Those with mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety have also found the strain useful.

Compared to many other strains we see nowadays, Pineapple Express is one that ticks a lot of boxes for a wide range of medical and health issues.

What is Pineapple Express?
This is a Sativa/Indica hybrid with the greater emphasis on Sativa (60%). It comes with a pretty strong parental lineage of Hawaiian and Trainwreck. The Sativa dominance means that it leans towards more cerebral and relaxing effects rather than that archetypical Indica body couch high. With THC levels of up to 26%, you might expect it to pack a serious punch and it does, but not necessarily in quite the way you expect.

The thing that tends to draw in the Pineapple Express fans from all around the world (and there are plenty of them) is the purity of the strain. If you’re looking for a tranquil high that lifts your creative ability to the next level or opens your mind to brave new worlds, then this is the strain for you.

Because of its pretty sound lineage, it’s widely trusted in the medical cannabis community and is often the first strain of choice for newbies. Some strains of Pineapple Express have been developed in recent times with higher doses of CBD which makes them more appealing for therapeutic uses.

For first time users, this is a pretty good strain to come to grips with and can deliver a great high without incapacitating you like some other strains with high THC content. As with any cannabis strain, however, it’s how much you take that determines the strength of effect as we’ll discuss below.

Aroma and Flavor of Pineapple Express
This is a strain with a pretty distinctive aroma and one that most people quickly recognize and really love. Pineapple Express is intensely fruity with an underlayer of floral aroma that immediately transports you to some distant tropical beach.

The taste brings a subtle blend of citrus as well as the obvious flavor of pineapple that seems to sit on your tongue as you inhale along with a slightly woody aftertaste.

It’s a great plant to grow indoors as good yields can be achieved and you’ll also love the aroma as well as the intricate combination of colors including orange and burgundy that the flowers display. The strength of the aroma may be an issue if you are looking to be a little more secretive about your cultivating habits, especially when the plant begins to bloom in earnest.

Effects of Pineapple Express
The film Pineapple Express made out that the strain was some super strong, rare cannabis that was highly sought after. That’s not really the case. First of all, it’s really not as strong as Seth Rogan made out and it won’t leave you lying comatose on the floor or behaving like a complete idiot, at least not unless you take a large amount. It’s also not that rare – you can buy it from any reputable seed store online including Seedsman.com.

One thing regular users love about Pineapple Express is that it produces a cerebral high while filling your whole body with a sense of relaxation. It’s this balance that really makes it one of the best sellers in our Seedsman catalogue and one which can really enhance the creative process if that’s what you are into. If you only want to kick back and put the world to rights, it works just as well.

It can, however, make you feel a little too spaced out so you shouldn’t be taking it before you head into work. It’s great for when you get home or if you’re working on a creative project that needs a little help.

The Medical Benefits of Pineapple Express
The medical benefits of Pineapple Express have been talked about extensively online which show’s how popular it is with the therapeutic community. Search in Google and you’ll find numerous accounts of how the strain has helped with everything from controlling pain to alleviating anxiety and depression.

As with any cannabis strain, Pineapple Express will affect individuals in different ways and that always needs to be taken into account when using for therapeutic purposes. It’s a good strain to begin with, however, if you are looking to explore medical applications.

It’s uplifting nature and the fact that it gives you a natural buzz has made this cannabis strain a popular choice for those who suffer from depression or anxiety. You’ll often find it mentioned and even lauded in many online communities. Other conditions people take it for are anxiety and PTSD. The mood that Pineapple Express creates is important here as it makes the world look more positive and boosts energy levels.

One key factor when using cannabis with any mental health condition, however, is to know your limits. As with other strains, too much Pineapple Express can lead to exactly the opposite effect, so understanding how your body responds is important. That means you should be taking low doses to start with and building up rather than overdoing it. Too much cannabis, for example, can lift anxiety levels and make you paranoid.

You also need to be careful how you take Pineapple Express. Smoking or vaping will deliver a fairly immediate effect. Edibles, on the other hand, may take a few hours to work which makes it easier to dose too much because you don’t think anything is happening.

Pineapple Express is also used for managing pain. It’s a big favorite in the MS community and for relieving conditions such as rheumatism and arthritis. Others use it to reduce nausea or control epileptic attacks. If you suffer from a condition that leaves you feeling fatigued, it’s a great way to pep yourself up and energize your body for the day.

Even with a relatively high THC content, Pineapple Express isn’t listed among the most potent strains so it’s not going to leave you couch-bound and out of it. If there are any side effects from taking this strain, they’re the obvious cannabis ones such as dry mouth and dehydration.

How to Grow Pineapple Express
Many people like to grow their cannabis from seeds either indoors or outdoors. Some strains are more difficult to cultivate than others. Pineapple Express is considered moderate to difficult, so if you’re a complete novice then you might want to try something else, to begin with.

Despite this caveat, the strain is pretty sturdy, resistant to mold, mildew and pests more than many other strains.

You can expect Pineapple Express strains to grow to over a meter in height and deliver pretty good yields up to 600 gm/m². One area that you need to be careful about is feeding as overdoing the nitrogen can have a detrimental effect. You can expect flowering to start fairly quickly within seven to eight weeks.

Pineapple Express FAQs
  • How long does it take to grow Pineapple Express from seeds? Between 7 and 9 weeks depending on the strain.
  • How tall does Pineapple Express grow? It can grow up to 2 meters in some cases if the conditions are optimal.
  • Is Pineapple Express good for anxiety? Both Indica and Sativa advocates love this strain and it’s often used for treating anxiety, reducing stress and helping with depression.
  • Is Pineapple Express a good strain to start with? Because it ticks so many boxes, even for a high-level THC strain, this is a favorite to begin experimenting with cannabis.
  • Does Pineapple Express work with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Its uplifting properties means that the strain is ideal if you suffer from lack of energy or CFS.
Buy Pineapple Express Seeds
Making sure that you buy your seeds from a reputable supplier is important, particularly if you want a popular strain like Pineapple Express. We stock a number of varieties of the strain from breeders such as FastBuds, G13 Labs, and Barney’s Farm.
 
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Cannabis Distillate – Is It the Future?

The legalization of cannabis in many states across the US has undoubtedly led to lots of benefits. One of these is that individuals and companies are starting to investigate different ways to manufacture pure products. Cannabis distillate, often called ‘The Pure,’ is one of these new forms of the drug and it’s getting some enthusiasts quite excited.

Whether you’re a traditionalist or a realist, there’s no doubt that world of cannabis is changing. Commercialization is coming. Whether that’s for the good or bad of the industry and culture remains to be seen but the involvement of larger businesses and corporations in the manufacturing process is here to stay.

In this article, we take a closer look at cannabis distillate, how it’s made and what it means for the future of the overall cannabis culture and the market itself. If you’ve not heard of it yet, that’s no big surprise. Distillate is fairly expensive at the moment and hasn’t yet permeated fully into cannabis culture.

What is Cannabis Distillate?
Distillation has been around in one form or another for a long, long while. It is used in a variety of manufacturing processes to extract pure materials, compounds and elements. There will be at least a few products in any household that have used distillation in the manufacturing process.

It’s no real surprise then, that we’ve moved onto cannabis distillate, particularly after so many states in the US have legalized the drug for both recreational and medicinal use.

We all know that cannabis is made up from a many different constituents. It’s a complex plant. Distillation is a method to extract many compounds to create a pure end product. In terms of THC, it’s possible to create a distillate that is 99% pure but which is also odorless and tasteless.

Distillate is often called The Pure or The Clear because of this. The liquid is generally transparent and has a high level of purity. In short, it doesn’t look like cannabis, taste like cannabis or smell like it. Let’s take a THC distillate. In a normal bud, you would expect to get around 20-25% in a high yield THC strain. In concentrates, this rises to about 60-70%. With a distillate, you get 99%.

How Cannabis Distillate is Made
People often confuse distillate with concentrates. They’re actually two different things. Products like wax or shatter are made from either using butane (or some other solvent to extract the cannabinoid) or, as in the case of Rosin, a pressure technique combined with rinsing.

At its heart, distillation is a fairly simple process. You have an enclosed chamber with your original matter in it, in this case, cannabis concentrate. You heat this up to a certain temperature in order to make the important compound evaporate. This vapor then rises out of the chamber to a cooling chamber where it is returned to liquid form again in a much purer form.

What you get is a refined product that is free of solvents and a lot safer than concentrates because there is little in the way of additives. You can be sure you are getting 100% the right cannabinoid and this can confidently be infused or added to other products.

Most commercial businesses will extract the cannabis from the plant first using a solvent to create a concentrate and then subject this to the distillation process. If you’ve wondered what that looks like you should imagine an old fashioned still. Manufacturers will use a variety of things to manipulate the boiling point including heat, steam and vacuum pressure.

The main products that are isolated at the moment, of course, are THC and CBD. But there’s no doubt that the process will become more refined in the future as we learn about the various constituents of the cannabis plant and their uses.

Why Distillates Are So Important
We’ve come a long way from the cannabis enthusiast sitting in his or her home smoking a blunt or two with friends. Legalization has led to greater thought being put into the potential of cannabis and it’s uses as well as how to safely mass produce it. This is largely an unregulated market at the moment which means that quality of compounds can often vary from state to state.

To be honest, cannabis users have always been looking for ways to control the quality of their product. In the past, this has been more agricultural than scientific. Particularly for those who use cannabis for medicinal purposes, however, distillate may have huge potential. In fact, this is the prime area where we might see some big advances in the next few years.

It means that pure distillate could be infused into a variety of products such as oils, food and pharmaceuticals. Because they are odorless and tasteless, it means they can be used in cooking products without that often-overpowering cannabis taste you get from making something like cannabutter. For those who love their edibles, once the price comes down, this could be really timesaving.

Tailoring may take the fun out of cannabis for your average enthusiast who values the culture but for many who take CBD or other elements for medicinal purposes, it should certainly help efficacy. It’s easier, for example, to put a few drops of cannabis distillate in your food than spend hours making cannabutter.

The edibles market is already pretty big in many states across the US. For businesses that produce these commercially, it opens up a whole different range of potential cannabis products. What about cannabis chocolate? Or cannabis soda? We could even see a new range of CBD health foods aimed at a medicinal cannabis audience.

The pharmaceutical industry should also benefit. In areas where cannabis is still largely illegal such as Europe, better control with distillates means that medicinal products could soon become available. Companies can extract pure CBD and provide this in various concentrated oils. It could be infused or added to other medication.

Then there’s the topicals and cosmetic industry. What about face creams that have CBD or some terpene or cannabis extract that improves skin problems? You will most likely begin to see more canna beauty products coming onto the market in the next few years. Whether they’re a fad or do real good, still remains to be seen but they’re certainly going to be popular.

Can You Distill Cannabis at Home?
The simple answer is yes, but why would you? Distillation, as we’ve mentioned, is a fairly simple process. Many kids do it in the school science lab around the world.

All you need is a flask with a tube running from it to another flask. You heat up the concentrate until it evaporates in one flask, the vapor travels up the tube and into the cooler flask where it liquifies again.

You can buy distillation kits now and there’s plenty of advice on how to do it online. In some states where cannabis is legalized, there are evening classes you can attend. The problem is that this is quite time consuming and you need to heat the concentrate properly to get the pure distillate at the end. It’s great if you like making your own stuff but for many, it will be more trouble than it’s worth.

The Case Against Cannabis Distillate
There are few real drawbacks with distillate (though a good few dissenting voices) and we’re going to see more of it in the future.

The big criticism seems to be that the heating process destroys all the terpenes (these are particularly sensitive to temperature). We’re just beginning to understand how important these cannabis compounds could be for health and wellbeing. The solution may well be to extract these first and then infuse them back later.

Of course, there are those cannabis traditionalists who feel that the culture is being damaged by the growth of distillates. The term engineered cannabis is being bandied around in many states and it’s certainly the cause of plenty of discussion and argument. The truth is that you can’t really prevent the commercialization of cannabis and these changes will happen anyway because of legalization.

One of the key problems is that distillate is quite expensive at the moment. That’s not unusual with a new product on the market and you should expect the price to come down in the coming years as manufacturing processes improve and market forces drive the cost down.

What Does the Future Hold?
There’s huge potential with cannabis distillates, particularly opening it up to a more commercial audience. If cannabis is to be legalized in every state, then there will undoubtedly be a move to regulate the industry so that it is more accountable and safer. Some worry that commercialization is going to damage small growers and cannabis producers. Others realize that it’s something which can’t be stopped and we should embrace it.

Distillate opens up a whole new range of possibilities where cannabis, in its various forms, can be added. Will we be able to walk into our local superstore and buy CBD infused spaghetti or the latest spray perfume with added THC? Only time will tell.
 
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CANNABIS STRAINS
Understanding and Correctly Interpreting THC/CBD Levels in Cannabis
Seedsman
5 months ago
0 Comments
8 min read
Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC is the main psychoactive compound responsible for the euphoric ‘high’ that you feel after consuming cannabis, so it pays to know how much ‘content’ is in your favourite strain.

The answer to this, however, is often not as simple as taking a look at the ‘Total THC’ number on the label. Furthermore, an industry benchmark for calculating total THC or CBD (the non-psychoactive compound) has not been established as yet, and as such, producers and lab facilities calculate cannabinoids in their own unique way.

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As a cannabis consumer, you should be familiar with what percentage of cannabinoids is present in your product, namely the amount of THC or CBD that’s available for consumption. How much is available largely depends on the main ingredients of the product and how you will consume it – vape, dab, tincture, smoke, etc.

In this article, we discuss various ways through which you can get an accurate estimate on the amount of THC present in your product – the exact same logic applies when determining CBD levels.

The Relationship between THCA, THC and ‘Decarbing’

To determine the potency of any particular kind of cannabis product, we need to first understand the key differences between raw THC in its acidic form – that’s THCA – and decarboxylated THCA, which is classified as the ‘psychoactive THC’. We, therefore, need to understand how the former gets converted into the latter.

Cannabis does not make THC on its own – in its raw form, it has THCA – a non-psychoactive compound which can only be converted to THC via decarboxylation.

How to Make Heads and Tails of Cannabis Labels

Unfortunately, majority of cannabis products sold do not have a clear label saying, for example, that if there’s 23% THC then 23% is what you’ll be getting.

Legal marijuana products sold in the US are required under law to be lab-tested and labelled for both THC and CBD. However, it often isn’t as straightforward as that – upon close examination, you’ll see other numbers as well, such as THCA, CBDA and percentages for ‘Total THC’ and/or “Total Cannabinoids’.

To give you a real-world example, let’s take a product label that focuses primarily on 3 numbers: THCA, THC and Total THC. Let’s say the THC level on the label is 1% – it should be noted that majority of labels will display a low value for this because in all likelihood the plant will contain mostly THCA, which needs to be activated or ‘decarbed’ via heat. In this case, we shall assume the corresponding THCA value to be 23%.

Upon examining the Total THC percentage, we see that it’s 21.35%. Total THC generally refers to the amount of ‘dry weight THC’ that’s available after THCA has been converted to THC. So, if our label indicates 21.35% to be Total THC, we will probably be left bewildered because:

If it says THC is 1% and THCA is 23.2%, then why isn’t the collective Total THC level indicated as 24.2%? As common sense would dictate, can’t we just add the THC and THCA percentages to determine Total THC, since the THC was converted from the 23.2% THCA? Well, not quite – it’s not that simple, as much as we’d like it to be.

Reading Labels ‘Correctly’

Time to take a step back – first of all, THC is not nearly as ‘heavy’ as THCA, so that must be accounted for. If you ever get a chance to look at their chemical structures – something which we could dedicate an entire article to – you’ll see that THC is simply THCA, but with the acidic component chopped off.

Therefore, THC is lighter – to be precise, it is 87.7% lighter compared to the molecular weight of THCA. This explains why Total THC on the above product example is actually 21.35% and not 24.1%. So the next time you come across ‘Total THC’ on a cannabis product label, understand that it’s based on a calculation that takes all of this into account. This is something we’ll be elaborating on shortly.

Secondly, the decarbing process which converts THCA into THC isn’t 100% efficient – so what we’re saying is that not every single one of the THCA molecules will convert seamlessly into a THC molecule. In fact, in some cases where temperatures are really high during decarboxylation, some of that THC may get downgraded to CBN.

Many cannabis labs have estimated that 75% is a good representation of the upper limit for what percentage of THCA will likely get converted to THC. This would mean that for every four molecules from each gram of THCA that gets heated during the decarbing process, three will get converted to THC.

Bear in mind that, on one hand, this kind of calculation can yield accurate estimates for Total THC level, on the other, it can be tough to know exactly how efficient your THCA-THC conversion was; because there are multiple factors that come into play such as the amount of time the bud was exposed to heat, the heating temperature and the device which was used.

Here are 3 examples of how professional lab testers typically determine Total THC levels:

Method #1

Add the THCA percentage to THC percentage – being the simplest method, it is often not as accurate as the other two and can greatly overestimate THC levels.

Method #2

Multiply 0.877 with THCA percentage; add this value to THC percentage – this method attempts to account for the difference between THCA and THC in terms of weight. It is relatively simple and yields slightly more accurate results, but calculates only the total ‘potential’ THC level.

Method #3

Multiply 0.75 with 0.877 and THCA percentage; add the value to THC percentage – this method can be complex but yields the most accurate result. It accounts for the ‘imperfect’ conversion of THCA to THC and is a reliable method for estimating Total ‘available’ THC.

As we can see from these 3 methods, an estimate can be had on the Total THC value. To reiterate, the first method simply adds up the THC and THCA percentages, which is not only simplistic in nature but also overestimates THC content by a noticeably wide margin. The second method is a proper way of calculating maximum potential THC content that’s available.

Finally, the third method realistically demonstrates that not all THCA will successfully be converted to consumable THC – however, in actual practice, it can be complex to make this calculation. The 0.75 value that you see is what’s used by most well-established cannabis testing labs – however, the exact value depends on a variety of factors, one of which is the mode or method of consumption.

‘Available’ THC Depends on Method of Consumption

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Part of understanding available THC levels in a cannabis product revolves around the fact that a variety of consumption methods and administration routes can affect decarbing rates, and in turn, this will directly influence the total THC content.

Decarbing rate or efficiency depends not only on factors like time and heating temperature but also vaporizer build and/or technology. Different vaporization temperatures as well as vaporizer designs have a direct impact on how effectively THCA gets converted to THC in cannabis flowers and extracts;

For example, when cannabis extracts are heated for 5 minutes at 200°C, nearly all of the THCA is successfully converted to THC, without the possibility of any CBN by-products.

THCA-THC decarbing starts at approximately 180°C. If the temperature is increased, other compounds such as terpenes will also vaporize, at their own respective temperature points. At higher temperatures, however, you get combustion. This can affect not just THC levels and other cannabinoids in the strain, but also terpenes.

The key thing to understand here is that there isn’t any universal benchmarking number for temperatures at which flowers start to combust – however the ‘temp range’ for majority of electric vaping devices needs to be well below 700°C. So if you’re thinking of achieving decarbing at a faster rate to see better THCA to THC conversion, by way of increasing heating temperature, think twice.

You might end up with combustion which will not only lead to degradation and formation of CBN, but also loss of terpenes and the introduction of certain by-products – all of which will eliminate the euphoric ‘entourage effect’ of cannabis.

Key Takeaway

At the end of the day, what you’re after is the theoretical maximum dry weight percent value for THC content in your product. The very same logic goes for CBD. A properly labelled product will always show this as Total THC which should be calculated this way:

0.877 x THCA% + THC% = Total Potential THC

This is the theoretic maximum available THC in your product – it accounts for the weight difference between THCA and THC, assuming that all of the THCA has converted to THC. The actual THC available for consumption will be slightly lower than this number.

Not all cannabis products are accurately or honestly labelled.

For this reason, we always recommend buying quality products from trusted and reliable sources only.

We have detailed characteristics on all our strains on Seedsman.

References

https://ardentcannabis.com/accurately-dose-cannabis/

https://www.fundacion-canna.es/en/quantification-concentration-thc
 
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The Male Cannabis Plant – Not Quite as Useless as You Might Have Thought

Male cannabis plants generally get a bad rap in the cultivation world. For a fact, majority of growers have gotten accustomed to spot the ‘maligned males’ early on and toss them out so that their precious ‘female jewels’ cannot be pollinated.

To be completely frank, the poor image that’s been circulating around male plants is something they don’t quite deserve. So before you toss them out, understand what some of their special attributes are and how they can prove to be a lot more useful than you might think.



Think Twice before Discarding those Male Cannabis Plants

The male plant is not only much maligned but often misunderstood. Most growers go to great lengths to identify the male ones and then terminate them on sight – which might make sense in a sinsemilla garden. But, before you hastily root out those males the moment they mature, you might want to consider some of their unique characteristics – some of which may quite pleasantly surprise you.

Even though male plants aren’t as resinous as the sinsemilla female ones, fully developed males carry a fair amount of cannabinoids. Here’s a kicker: contrary to popular belief, male plants will yield a generous amount of pollen if left to grow fully. Kicker number 2: male plants grow a lot faster and taller than female ones, and even mature faster.

So if you ever think that you’re dealing with a ‘bad situation’ owing to too many male plants, think again. If you’re ‘unlucky’ enough to see every seed in your yield going male, think again! Give them the sinsemilla crop treatment and gaze in astonishment at the amount of pollen they produce. And yes – pollen does get you really ‘high’.

Understanding Cannabis Plant Sexes

The cannabis plant is ‘dioecious’ in nature, meaning that it has unique male and female counterparts, which is not the case with 80% of plant species. However, hermaphrodites (self-pollinating male plus female) cannabis does exits, particularly when growing in poor-quality soil or subjected to other environmental and/or climatic stresses such as sudden and marked changes in temperature, physical damage, drought or dramatic changes to the day/night cycle during flowering.

There may be other environmental factors that can lead to hermaphroditism, such as a natural reaction to disease or insects, or the overuse of specific kinds of fungicides and pesticides. However, it must be borne in mind that this tendency can also directly point to inferior quality plants. For, a good-quality, well-bred mother plant will usually not display signs of hermaphroditism, even when faced with environmental stresses.

Hermaphroditism can be a good thing because it ensures survival when conditions are not optimal or sometimes downright harsh. However, as in our own world, hermaphrodite cannabis plants are seen as somewhat strange – in fact, many breeders dread them and suggest getting rid of them right away – reason being that they may lead to accidental bud pollination.

This is important to understand because in cases where a pollen sac from a hermaphrodite plant comes into contact with other plant buds, those buds will seize to develop – instead, they will produce simply more seeds and flowers, which is counterintuitive. Therefore, if self-pollination is allowed to continue, it can result in deterioration in the overall health of several generations of plants to come.

So the question is – how do we identify gender of the cannabis plant? Take a look at the ‘V’ shape on your plant where the stalk meets with the stem. The first sign of gender usually appears here. During the vegetative (growing) stage, your plant will most like show ‘pre-flowers’ – this is especially true in cases where it is a clone.

It’s also important to know if your plants are hermaphrodites. This can be done in a number of ways – the first of which is to determine what kind of flowers are being produced. So the next time you cultivate your cannabis plants, always check to make sure they are not hermaphrodites – seeds in your harvested buds where no males are found, is a sure sign that they are.

For the most part, females take a while to show their gender after the flowering stage has transpired, as opposed to males. Females develop wispy white hairs, which signal the sight of the buds that will soon grow. Female cannabis plants typically form between the stalk and stem. You’ll also notice that female pistils are never green but a clear white.

Male plants are characterised by their grape-sized pollen which look like almost perfectly symmetrical balls. These will spur in about 7 days or more, after your plant has entered the flowering phase. The growth they produce has a very distinct yellowish-white hue and somewhat resemble bananas.

Male cannabis plants have the ability to produce generous quantities of fine pollen which can be easily scattered by the wind. Take a closer look and you’ll see 5 yellowish-white petioles – these are responsible for protecting the anthers housed inside which, in turn, transport the pollen on their surfaces. Once the pods are mature, they ‘pop’ open to reveal swollen anthers which release their pollen.

Female plants contain highly receptive pistils which are bathed in sticky resin – this allows them to snag the fine pollen. After pollination, the pistils run dry, die and fold back as the seed starts to form. In about 6 weeks, the seeds will flourish which is marked by the calyx splitting open.

What to do with Your Male Plant – 5 Common Uses

Breeding

There may be times when you want your bud to be more potent and resinous – or you may prefer to see the flowering stage ending sooner than the usual cycle.

This is one of many scenarios where male plants prove particularly useful. We already know that their main role is to breed seeds, right? But did you also know that every time a male pollinates a female, it lends at least 50% of the seed’s genetic blueprint? Keeping this in mind, it pays to learn a thing or two about male cannabis plant genetics that are in your garden.

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For instance, can they easily resist pests and mould? How quickly can they grow? If the answer is in the positive to these two questions alone, you have enough grounds to pass on these favourable traits to further the quality of new cannabis generations.

Since male plants can’t be smoked to determine their quality, here’s how you will look for the ones with good genetics – these 5 steps will not only help you get rid of the undesirable males but also find the ideal ones for breeding:

  • Get rid of the autoflowering or early flowering males; they tend to produce hermaphrodites
  • Remove males that have a tendency to grow unusually fast or taller than the others; these types of males are ideally suited to producing fibres and not flowers
  • Hold on to the ones that have large and hollow stems; toss away stems that have too much spongy white tissue (pith)
  • Pick male plants which have yielded tight and dense flowers; discard those that have a loose and airy makeup
  • Male plants with the most prominent odour are the best quality ones
Hemp Fibre

Male cannabis plants boast strong and fibrous stalks – they’re perfect for creating hemp fibre. What makes males special for this purpose is their ability to provide soft and fine fibres which in turn provide for the finest fabric weave.

Even if making fibre isn’t something you’re particularly interested in, male plant fibre is still ideal for hemp products like clothing and tablecloths.

Good Companions for Garden Enhancement

Smoking cannabis isn’t the only way to get good use out of them. One of cannabis plants’ defences includes aromatic terpenes which work brilliantly to repel pests. Therefore, it’s a superb companion plant.

Place a few male plants strategically between your vegetables and keep them free of pests without the need for harsh and harmful pesticides.

For large gardens, you can have a dedicated space just for male cannabis plants. However, you’ll need to keep them at a distance from the female ones. To cut down the risk of inadvertent pollination as much as possible, plant sunflowers which act as a natural barrier between the male and female cannabis plants.

So as it turns out, there’s no need to discard your male plants just to avoid accidental pollination – otherwise, you’re wasting perfectly smokable cannabis.

Delicious and Healthy THCA Juice

I’ve you’ve never consumed raw cannabis juice, here’s your chance. The cannabolic acids in cannabis juice, such as CBDA and THCA, provide the same health benefits as compared to medical marijuana consumed in conventional ways.

Conveniently, male plants have the same cannabinoid concentration as their female counterparts. So you can enjoy a healthy juice full of cannabinoids, without fearing a ‘high’.

By holding on to your male plants, you’re actually supporting the herb’s sustained genetic survival. It’s all too easy to ignore the significance of male plants just for convenience’s sake, but in doing so, some strains may become extinct down the line.

Get some great genetics regular seeds here.

References

https://www.leafly.com/news/growing/4-ways-to-make-use-of-male-cannabis-plants

https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog-cannabis-plants-male-female-and-hermaphrodite-n513
 
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Top Tips on How to Get Unhigh

There’s nothing worse than getting too high. That’s why cannabis connoisseurs are always careful about the strains they choose and their method of delivery. The truth is that it’s easy to overdo things, especially when you’re making your own concentrate or growing your own cannabis plants.

But, if you’ve taken too big a hit or indulged too much on those edibles, is there anything you can do except wait for it all to pass?



Here we take a look at how to get unhigh or at least take the edge off things.

Top 4 Reasons You Got Too High
  1. It was your first time and you were a little inexperienced. When you’re not used to the effects of cannabis and THC, being too high is actually relative.
  2. You were relaxing with friends and trying to keep up with them. This is the most common reason for overdoing things.
  3. It’s the first time you tried concentrates and you simply used too much and inhaled too deeply.
  4. You tried edibles but ate too much, forgetting the effects take much longer to show up in the bloodstream than with other methods like smoking, vaping or dabbing.
How to Get Unhigh: The First Rule is Don’t Panic!
Our first piece of advice is to try and not panic. That’s not always easy to do, especially if it’s your first experience of being out of control.

Most extreme highs will pass over time and it’s unlikely that you are going to do yourself serious harm. You may feel some paranoia or anxiety but just find a comfortable and safe space to work through it. Panicking isn’t going to solve anything. Remember this:

  • You are not going to die.
  • You will recover.
All you’re going to be left with is a little grogginess and the prospect of maybe a few days getting your head back together again. Most experienced cannabis users know this, which is why you don’t see them worrying when they’ve over-indulged.

Understanding Your Own Limits
We all react to cannabis in our individual ways. If you’re in a group, everyone will get high at a different rate and feel the effects based on their own psychology and physiology. If you are a beginner when it comes to cannabis, you probably won’t know what to expect. Over time, however, as you become more experienced you’ll get a better handle on what works for you and what doesn’t.

Most people who have used cannabis recreationally have overdone it at some point. Understanding your own body may not be an exact, scientific solution for how to get unhigh but, as with most things, prevention is generally better than the cure.

Make sure that you always take cannabis with friends you trust and know. Being surrounded by strangers when you are ultra-high can make you even more paranoid and anxious. Research the best way to take different products.

For example, if you have edibles don’t over-indulge. Food takes longer to get into the bloodstream than smoke. It could be one or two hours before you start to feel the effect. Don’t be tempted to eat more because you think the edible is not giving you a high.

Never feel that you have to keep up with your peers either. Go at your own pace. No one really cares whether you can take large amounts of cannabis or not.

Time Honored Tips When You’re Too High
Go online and you’ll find plenty of articles on how to get unhigh. This underlines the fact that it happens quite a lot, even with experienced cannabis users. Some of these methods will work for you, others might not. They’re all certainly worth a try!

Water, More Water and Munchies
You won’t be surprised to learn, as with over-indulgence with booze, plenty of water and some tasty snacks can help take the edge off your cannabis high. It’s not exactly going to flush the THC out of your system but it will stop your mouth drying out and keep you hydrated while you recover.

You should, of course, steer far from any alcohol as it will undoubtedly make your situation worse. Research has shown that the concentration of THC in your blood can be boosted by taking even a small amount of alcohol. So put away the beers and the spirits before you get out your cannabis. You don’t need to combine the two.

Snacks can help keep you centered and give you something to focus on. Don’t worry about the quality or the healthiness, anything from salty chips to burger and fries are all fair game when you have an excessive high. You can deal with the increase in your waistline the next day once you’re feeling better.

Does Black Pepper Work?
Any guide on how to get unhigh usually includes crunching on a black pepper corn or two. Whether this is an old wives tale or something more substantial is not entirely clear but chewing on some whole black pepper corns is thought to take the edge off a bad high. Some cannabis enthusiasts swear by it while others are not so convinced it does anything at all.

Our advice? Give it a try anyway. It may be that the act of crunching on a pepper distracts you enough to forget the high for a while. It seems to work better if you are suffering a little paranoia and anxiety as well.

The Best Cure is Rest
If you can relax, then try to do so. This is not always easy when you’re high but at some point you will run out of steam. Find a comfortable bed or sofa, wrap yourself up and try some deep breathing, taking the air in through your nose and exhaling out through your mouth. While it’s no easy task to switch your brain into neutral, if you can manage to drop off for a while it can actually work wonders.

Walking to Get Unhigh
Going to sleep for a while isn’t that easy for most of us, so you might want to reverse things and go for a walk instead. A little fresh air and exercise can do you good but a lot depends on what state you are in and where you live. If the neighbors don’t know you get high and don’t like it either, it might be better to stay hidden away until you’re feeling better.

Vigorous walking can help pump the blood around your body and get that THC working its way through your system. If you’re feeling anxious or paranoid, however, it might be worth waiting. The last thing you want is to get lost while you are in an over excited state like this.

If you can’t get out just yet, another thing you can do is strip off and get in the shower. This should help you relax and feel a little fresher afterwards.

The Distraction Technique
The most common approach for how to get unhigh is to distract yourself. Pretend it’s not all happening and, soon enough, time will have passed and your symptoms will start to calm down. There are lots of things you could do. Many people play a video game, watch a film, listen to music or simply curl up with a loved one.

Can CBD Help?
CBD is often useful in strains to combat the effect of THC and it might seem reasonable that, if you are suffering from too big a high, taking more of this particular substance may help. CBD can certainly help you fight anxiety but there isn’t much evidence that it works when taken after the fact.

At the end of the day, the only thing you can really do when it comes to a big high that you can’t control is wait. Make sure you don’t get in a car and drive or doing anything stupid that could put yourself in danger. If you’re supposed to go to work, call in sick – you’re not going to be much use anyway.

Have a look at our high CBD cannabis seeds on our online store.

Above all, don’t panic. If you are suffering from a really bad anxiety induced high that doesn’t seem to be calming down, you may want to see your doctor. By the time you get there and get some treatment, however, the paranoia may well have passed.

The one thing you can do is make a note of what caused your high. Did you smoke too much? Are you using a high THC strain that isn’t right for you?

Whatever the cause, you need to learn from it. Most people do and change their behavior or exposure accordingly. It helps to write down your experience as soon as possible after the event so that you can get a handle on what happened and understand it better.


Finally, no one has died from a cannabis overdose so the key thing is not to worry when you suddenly find yourself going over the edge. Our advice is raid the fridge, drink plenty of water and get some rest. In a few hours you’ll be feeling okay again.
 
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A Guide to Kush Cannabis: What is it and which are the best strains?

If you’ve taken a look at the strains and seeds we have on offer at Seedsman, you may well have seen names like Kush, Purple and Haze bouncing about. To any novice, they can appear a little confusing. While you might understand the difference between Indica and Sativa strains, other terms are more cultural than morphological.

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Take Kush, for example. When you see this connected to a seed strain it can mean several things, mostly to do with flavor, smell, even the effects of the cannabis or its place of origin. Many will have a strong genetic component that connects them all together and will include these characteristics.

So, to help you out, we’ll take a look at this one particular term and what it means for your cannabis as well as the most popular strains to try out.

What is Kush?
On our site, you may see seeds such as Afghan Kush or Skywalker Kush. It’s a definitive variety of cannabis that was discovered back in the 70s and originates from the Hindu Kush Mountains, a region that is bordered by both Pakistan and Afghanistan. It grows naturally in this region and was bought back to the US by people travelling there. Afghan Kush is something of a legend and most cannabis connoisseurs will have tried it at some point.

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Any strain that has the genetics of the Kush plant will share some common characteristics. Over the last few decades, it has become a popular variety for cannabis connoisseurs. Here’s what you usually get:

  • It’s quite a colorful and distinctive plant. You’ll find leaves that have more than a hint of purple in them and the colas are a striking green.
  • When you look a little closer at the fine hairs or pistils of the plant you’ll notice that they can turn to a bronze or rusty color. The plants themselves are quite squat and thick with buds that are dense and knotty.
  • As your Kush plant begins to grow and flower, you’ll notice some very distinct aromas too and they can fill your home if you are cultivating indoors. It can be floral, pungent, spicy, there’s even a hint of citrus. Once you’ve dried and cured your crop, you’ll find that earthy scent transferring into the flavor quite readily.
  • But what about the effect of Kush? Well, this is a cerebral cannabis that often makes it good for meditation and contemplation. You’ll often find sedative effects and euphoria, in fact, everything you need to make the world just right.
  • Many people choose Kush varieties because they can grow reasonably well in harsher climates. They’re not a plant that grows high so can be well maintained indoors and outdoors and you generally achieve a pretty good yield.
While Kush does mean that certain attributes will be there because of the genetics of the plant, there will be variations between different strains. That means Afghan Kush is slightly different from Skywalker Kush which is different from Master Kush. These slight variations are what connoisseurs generally look for when choosing a new seed strain.

Now that we’ve found out what Kush is all about, let’s take a closer look at the different seed varieties we have on sale at Seedsman.

  1. Afghan Kush
If you’re looking for something traditional, pure Indica and long-lasting that will transport you back to the 70s in style, this strain is perfect. It is one of the most popular varieties in the US and delivers a strong high that is great for both recreational and medicinal use. It’s often used for helping to control pain, insomnia, and stress relief but if you want to just kick back and relax it’s perfect.

This is a plant that is easy to grow from seed and doesn’t take much looking after. It’s got a pretty good tolerance to over watering and you shouldn’t have too much trouble with mold. All in all, it’s a seed that will grow in most conditions.

  1. Skywalker Kush
This is a high THC seed combines OG Kush and Skywalker genetics and is a photoperiod, feminized plant that is again easy to grow and cultivate almost anywhere. If you’re looking for higher yields while still maintaining quality, this is going to be a great choice, especially for first-time growers.

You can expect a reasonably quick flowering time within 63 days and THC levels up to 20% that deliver a pretty good relaxing high. It does grow a little taller than most Kush varieties so will require some sort of SCRoG set up. This is not as difficult as it sounds and will ensure that you keep your yield as high as possible.

  1. Misty Kush
This strain shows how complicated the genetics can get with cannabis seeds. It combines the well-respected Master Kush with Medusa (itself a combination of Misty, White Widow, and Skunk#1). It’s a plant that will grow both indoor and outdoors and should deliver a crop up to 600 gr/m² that is high in quality buds.

Taste and flavor-wise, don’t be surprised if you catch some citrus and lemon overtones with more than a hint of sweetness. This is a strain that is popular for medicinal use, helping with cramps, depression, and chronic pain relief. It provides a long-lasting and powerful high that is tempered by a medium level quantity of CBD in the strain.

  1. Kush Bomb
If you are looking for higher levels of THC, perhaps up to 25%, then this Southern Cali Kush and Big Bomb combination might just fit the bill. This is a relaxing cannabis with lemon and diesel overtones which combine to make a great stress buster for all occasions. It’s an Indica/Sativa mix which delivers spectacularly good yields up to 700 gr/m² indoors.

If you’re lucky, you can start getting flowers coming through as early as seven weeks. It’s a strain that makes you relaxed and mellow and it’s one product in our catalogue that is becoming increasingly popular.

  1. Critical Kush
This is another popular choice on the Seedsman site and crosses OG Kush with Critical Mass. It’s a pure Indica strain and delivers high yields and good potency. You’ll need to carry out some maintenance during the flowering phase as the buds can get pretty heavy and drag the plant down a little. But if you don’t mind that this is a great choice for growers with a little bit of experience.

This strain will more than deliver on expectations with a strong, relaxing effect that makes it one of the favorites for cannabis connoisseurs. Expect first flowering to start in about 50 days. This is a suitable strain for growing in varied climates, both indoors and outdoors and never seems to disappoint.

  1. OG Kush
Ocean Grown Kush is a classic by any standards and it’s no surprise there is such a demand for this seed strain. Its origins are slightly shrouded in mystery but that doesn’t stop it from being one of our biggest bestsellers. This is an Indica/Sativa feminized strain that is ideal for growing indoors and outdoors.

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You’ll recognize that distinctive Kush diesel and lemon flavor immediately and you won’t be disappointed by the relaxing and uplifting high you get. This is an award-winning seed strain that everyone needs to try at least once in their lifetime. Expect flowering to take place at around 8 weeks and a healthy yield of about 500 gr/m².

  1. Kong’s CBD Kush
If you’re looking for a more focused medical cannabis strain, this combination of Blue Afghan and Sumo’s OG Kush should fit the bill nicely. It’s a mainly Indica strain that delivers a sweet and earthy flavor with a relatively high level of THC and a medium one of CBD, both playing off each other. This plant produces a higher yield outdoors than indoors but can be grown in both locations.

Because of the CBD content, it delivers a high without being overly psychoactive and has been used for pain relief and by those who want to cope with stress better.

  1. Gordo Master Kush
This is another popular choice on the Seedsman site and combines Kush and Bubba Kush for an intense, long-lasting high that will keep you on the couch for a good while. It’s a mostly Indica strain that delivers medium yields but will develop buds that really pack a punch. THC content should be over 20% while the CBD is less than 1%.

You can grow the Gordo Master Kush indoors and outdoors and you should expect flowering to take place shortly after the 50-day mark. If you are looking to relax after a long, hard day at work and really chill out, this is a great option.

There is a lot of choice when it comes to Kush varieties and you can always be sure that you are getting a quality strain that delivers certain key characteristics. Everyone has their favorite, so why not browse our catalogue on Seedsman today?
 
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Ever Tried Cannabis Edibles? Here’s Why You Should

Like nowhere else in the world, cannabis culture has grown and developed in the US. We all know that cannabis users are an innovative bunch, constantly looking for different and interesting ways take their favorite drug, whether it’s for recreational or medicinal purposes.

That doesn’t mean people are missing out on traditional methods of taking cannabis. Edibles are still a big favorite.

Cannabis edibles have been around for a long, long while. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to take weed by smoking, vaping or dabbing, for instance, eating it is probably your next best option. The good news is there is a lot you can do to make tasty treats and there are plenty of recipes online.

Here we’ll take a closer look at the history and the etiquette surrounding cannabis edibles, as well as some of the myths you should quickly debunk.

The History of Cannabis Edibles
You need to head to the Indian sub-continent to take a look at the beginnings of cannabis edibles. The Hindu culture were making stuff with weed over 3,000 years ago. Bhang is a traditional drink that is native to Northern India and is made from cannabis leaves, milk, spices and sometimes a little yoghurt. You can also get Bhang goli which are basically balls of cannabis paste used in cooking.

Most references to cannabis edibles in the modern world originate from The Alice B Toklas Cookbook, written in the mid-50s. It’s a book that became hugely important to the 60s counter-culture but is still used today. If you want to know how to make hashish fudge, this is the book you need to buy. Nowadays, of course, the internet has provided access to a whole new range of delicious cannabis recipes.

Types of Cannabis Edibles
When people think about cannabis edibles, the first thing that comes to mind is cannabutter. This is the basic constituent used to make a whole range of baked goods such as cookies and brownies. As in India, you can also infuse cannabis into drinks such as Indian Bhang or simply make tea by putting leaves in hot water. Capsules, tinctures and cannabis coconut oils are becoming increasingly popular, especially in areas where cannabis has been legalized.

5 Myths About Cannabis Edibles
There are quite a few misconceptions concerning cannabis edibles and there are regular mistakes that people make when cooking with their favorite weed.

Here are our top five:

1. You can just throw your cannabis in the mixing bowl
Many people make this mistake, certainly when they are trying out edibles for the first time. They get a bunch of cannabis leaves and simply throw them into the mix. They cook it all up and wonder why it is so ineffective and tastes pretty bland. The trick with cooking with cannabis is activating the THC. This essentially means you need to cook it first. That’s why making cannabutter is important. It may take time and effort but you won’t get high without it.

2. You need to keep your cannabis on the simmer for at least two days
One thing that puts people off making cannabis edibles is that time it takes. There’s another misconception that you need to bubble away your butter mix on the stove for at least a couple of days. This isn’t actually true and we don’t know where the idea really came from. You do need to cook your butter for a good few hours, however, but that should be more than enough to activate the THC and get all the goodness out.

3. Desserts are better than other dishes
Cannabis edibles are normally associated with cookies, brownies and fudge so it’s no surprise this particular myth has gained traction over the years. There’s no evidence that one type of cooking with cannabis produces a stronger effect than any other. If you are replacing butter with cannabutter in your cooking it should essentially get you high or deliver the CBD you are looking for. It’s the quantity of ingredients that are going to dictate the power of the finished dish.

4. Edibles are a great introduction
If you’ve never tried cannabis before, some people suggest that edibles are a great introduction. The truth is that cannabis edibles are not ideal simply because you have less control of the potency. The fact that edibles also take a lot longer to work than other products means newbies can often make mistakes in consumption, eating more than they should.

It’s easy to get way too high by eating too much in the first place. Having said that, many people who get introduced to cannabis for the first time do so through edibles.

5. The labels on cannabis edibles are useless
Shop bought products nowadays need to have some nutritional values put on their labels. For cannabis edibles, this means giving an idea of the strength of THC in each cookie or brownie bar. There’s a notion that most manufacturers have picked that number out of a hat and it’s not a reliable guide to the actual THC level.

As with most things, it depends on the manufacturer. Some are better and more trusted than others. What you do need to know is that it’s quite difficult to accurately judge the amount of THC in a particular product. Treat the labels as a guide rather than gospel.

Tips for Making Great Cannabis Edibles
The main point of the cooking process in making cannabutter is to release all that lovely THC so that it has a psychoactive effect. We cover this in our blog in more detail here. If you are doing this for the first time, however, there are also some basic rookie mistakes you might like to avoid.

Here are our top tips for getting your cannabutter and cannabis edibles right first time:

  • Don’t throw leaves straight into your cooking. You need to heat up and simmer your cannabutter and then use this as the base for your culinary exploits. If you don’t want to waste time with making cannabutter, you can decarboxylate your cannabis by placing it on a baking tray and sticking it in the oven and essentially roast it for an hour (we suggest a temperature of 110 to 120°C).
  • If you’re roasting your cannabis make sure that you pre-heat the oven and stir your bud every ten minutes. If you’re cooking with butter, one thing you’ll want to avoid is the mixture drying out. Adding a little water now and again can keep things bubbling away nicely and it isn’t the heresy that some so-called cannabis experts would have you believe.
  • Most experts say that you shouldn’t grind your cannabis bud too finely – especially if you are infusing into another substance such as butter or oil. That’s mainly because it gives the butter a stronger, grassy flavor which can affect the taste when cooking.
  • Less is more when it comes to making cannabutter. You don’t need to use a lot of your bud or leaves to make your mix or get the effect you are looking for. Neither should you be using your prime bud – save that for something else like vaping or smoking.
  • When it comes to straining your cannabutter or oil, don’t be tempted to try and press as much through as possible. You want the unadulterated butter rather than all the green bits and foliage that will add a bad taste to the final product.
How to Check the Strength of Your Cannabutter
One big problem that newbies have when cooking with cannabis edibles is the strength of their ingredient. Whether you’re trying out a new strain or making brownies for the first time, our advice is to start small. That way you won’t be exposing yourself to very high doses of THC.

The other thing to remember is to give your cannabis edibles time to work. It can take at least a couple of hours for the drug to get through your system before you see any effect at all. Don’t get sucked into the idea that the cannabis isn’t working. It’s easy to take too much, especially if the edibles you have made are particularly tasty. Once you have gained a bit of experience, however, you’ll know what works and what to expect. As a newbie, you just need to be a little bit on guard.

Finally, when cooking with cannabis edibles, make sure you stir the mix properly. If you don’t, you could end up with one or two brownies that have hardly any cannabis in them and one that really packs a punch. The better you mix, the better you distribute.

How Long Do Cannabis Edibles Last?
As with any food product, cannabis edibles have a shelf-life. If you are buying ready-made edibles, the sell-by date should be on the packaging. If you are making your own, a couple of days in the fridge is probably the limit though you can freeze if you are making a big batch. Our advice is never make more than you are likely to consume.
 
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Whet the Appetite with This Ultimate Weed Brownie Recipe

Cannabis can be ‘responsibly’ enjoyed in a variety of forms – from topicals to oils, vapes and joints. However, for many, their very first venture into the wonderful and trippy world of cannabis begins with edibles.

After all, one of the easiest ways of recreationally or medicinally consuming cannabis is to simply eat it – do this right, and you’re in for one scrumptious experience coupled with a powerful long-lasting high.

Cannabis edibles offer consumers a range of options, allowing them to experience THC’s often intense and euphoric effects which kick in slowly in most cases. Edibles are also particularly handy for those who are health conscious and don’t wish to inhale the herb in a blunt, spliff or joint.



Enter the World of Marijuana Edibles

Marijuana brownies – everybody loves them. What’s there not to like, really?

One of the many intricacies involved in making perfect weed brownies, includes processing your herb so that the good stuff – THC – can be extracted, otherwise you won’t feel the desired euphoric effects.

Furthermore, on the subject of cannabis edibles, there are also other elements to consider when making really great marijuana brownies. For instance, your body metabolises THC in differently when eating cannabis in an edible like brownies, as opposed to vaping or smoking it.

Therefore, one of the key things to consider is dosage, which will be noticeably smaller than the traditional smoking method. Also, the amount of time that it takes for an edible to metabolise in your system depends on how much food you’ve consumed that day, your metabolism, and especially if it’s your first time. If it is, then you need to start with the lowest possible dose to initially assess the effects. For most first-timers, they can be quite intense, even if they are regular cannabis smokers.

The right marijuana brownie recipe is never complete without properly made cannabis butter. In this case, the strain you pick will significantly impact the ‘end result’ of your brownies. For instance, an Indica stain will give you a relaxed feeling, while a Sativa strain will spark creative and exciting energy.

But again, both strains can effectively render your day useless or ruin it almost completely if you eat too much!

Why Brownies are the Go-to Choice When it Comes to Weed Edibles

Every time anyone gets handed over a homemade brownie, we’re willing to bet that one of the most common initial responses is: “Is there anything ‘funny’ in there?”

And who can blame them? The THC-laden chocolatey delights are so ubiquitous that these awkward exchanges are often people’s very first ‘unintentional’ foray into the world of cannabis edibles. But once they’re there, there’s no going back – that’s how brilliant marijuana brownies are, if made right, that is.

Some regular bakers might opt for cocoa powder while others almost always go for chocolate ganache when making their ‘special brownies’. No matter which one you choose, both will, in fact, give you that moist and gooey brownie texture. However, if you want to add that extra fudge factor then you can certainly combine the two.

Brownies share similar attributes with extra-dense cake in terms of baking – and, in both cases, the pan and baking time will govern how much fudge you’re left with. So for reference, a nice and wide pan will result in a thick and chewy fudge, while smaller portioned pans will see your stuff baking up really quickly and gaining height.

Let’s Discuss Specifics

A common question many novices ask is “how much herb do I need for the brownies?”

This is a perfectly legitimate question because it can be a deal breaker if the correct approach isn’t adopted.

Fact: most folks don’t go through the trouble of making cannabis brownies unless they were looking to get ‘high’, but that doesn’t mean going out of your way to almost wrecking yourself from the effects.

Therefore, a more appropriate question to consider at this stage would be “How much herb am I going to need to make some cannabis butter?”

In our opinion, that is the actual difference maker between run-of-the-mill cannabis-infused brownies and those which offer an out of this world experience. It’s also important to consider that since cannabis edibles act slowly but offer more power psychoactive highs; whatever you think may be needed in terms of volume will most likely be significantly more than what’s actually needed.

For instance, if your recipe demands half a cup of butter, use a quarter cup of cannabis butter instead, along with a quarter cup of regular butter. This will not only make your butter last longer but also prevent you from ‘accidentally’ consuming too much in the first round.

This particular approach is quite useful if your buddies are really fond of snacking, or you find yourself getting too anxious about what the dosage is, especially for beginners. So, use your own discretion and judgement. We would tell you very honestly that more does not necessarily mean better – just because a high is more intense doesn’t mean it’s automatically better.

Extracting that Wonderful THC Using Butter

Even though it’s all too easy to leave the guesswork to a device such as Levo or The Magical Butter Machine to prepare your home cannabis butter – for smaller batches of cannabis infused brownies, which most beginners should set out to do anyway – we recommend this easy and straightforward method:

  • Seal up 1 stick of butter with 1/8 of mid-high grade, finely ground decarboxylated bud
  • Heat up in a pot at 71-77°C for 1-2 hours
  • Shorter cook times unlock more of the ‘early’ cannabinoids such as THC and CBD, in additional to preserving those aromatic terpenes that give each strain their signature taste and smell
  • Longer cook times will yield ‘sleepier’ butter which contains more CBN – the cannabinoid which made the ‘couch lock’ syndrome famous – a state where you are so ‘high’ that you are literally glued to the couch for at least a few hours. If you or any of your friends are dealing with sleep issues, this may not be the best option.
Making Your Marijuana Brownies

With the cannabis butter ready, we now need to divert our attention towards making the weed brownies. You’ll need:

  • A stick of salted butter infused with 3.5g (1/8 of an ounce, see above) of cannabis
  • ¾ cup of cocoa powder
  • 2 cups sugar


  • 1 cup cake flour
  • ¼ cup vegetable shortening
  • Half teaspoon salt
  • Quarter teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 vanilla bean (guts only)
  • Wooden spoon
  • Microwave oven
Let’s proceed to make those brownies, shall we?

  • Pre-heat oven to 176°C.
  • Many weed brownie lovers like to prepare their butter in a sous-vide bag and that’s fine. Just make sure you toss the bag in some warm water in a bowl which will allow it to soften up properly before the batter is mixed.
  • Remember, baking brownies in general requires the standard wet bowl plus dry bowl batter technique;
  • So the first thing to do is mix all the dry ingredients together.
  • Combine your vanilla and eggs in a second bowl.
  • Gently melt the chocolate in a microwave oven at intermittent intervals or use a double boiler.
  • Slowly stream the chocolate mixture into the eggs, mix with a wooden spoon or spatula and then fold it in with the cannabis butter (everything needs to be evenly mixed).
  • Now fold the wet batter into the already combined dry ingredients, stir generously until you see a thick gloop starting to form.
  • Scoop out the fudge into a greased and parchment lined pan no larger than 9×7. Smooth out the mixture but also make sure to knock it against the kitchen counter a few times to ensure no air is trapped inside.
  • Bake for about 15 minutes then rotate the pan. Now bake again for 15 minutes.
  • Remove from the oven and let the pan cool off for 10 minutes.
  • You may notice that your brownies are nice and warm, almost ready to be consumed; however, a solid structure can only be had once you let them cool off properly.
  • Use a piece of paper to take them out of the pan and allow them to cool off further on a wire rack.
Whether you make portions or not, bear in mind that every square-inch of marijuana brownies we’ve made with the recommended cannabis dose can contain over 25mg of THC – so serve in smaller chunks as even this can be a very potent dose. For non-habitual smokers, this may prove to be too much.

For all ‘cannabis edible newbies’, we’d actually recommend between 5-10mg of THC initially. So split your brownie in half, be patient and have a little to assess its effects – before going for more an hour or so later.
 
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Growing Cannabis Indoors – Your Guide to the Right Lighting

There are some serious benefits to be had when growing your cannabis indoors. For instance, you may not have to buy grown marijuana anytime soon (probably never if you keep it up). You don’t end up relying on a shoddy guy around the corner who says he has ‘something’ for you but will deliver ‘something else’ when you pay up. And, you can grow your own herb very discreetly, without the neighbours ever taking notice.

Let’s face it – growing cannabis indoors is really simple because it’s a strong and fast growing plant – no wonder some refer to it as ‘weed’ because it literally grows like a weed. Even if you grow it under ‘not the most ideal’ conditions, it’s still hard to mess up. Plus, the turnaround is reasonably quick – in just 4 month, you have a smokable product in your hands.


Now, all of the above is true if you pay attention to one very critical element of growing your herb indoors: lighting.

Although there are other elements involved when it comes to effective indoor marijuana yields, lighting is one of the most important ones because it’s going to be on your crop pretty much all the time. Mess this up, and you’ve messed up the entire lot and your investment as well.

Cannabis needs lots of light to grow properly – although exactly how much light depends on the weight of your harvest – so the better the lighting, the more the harvest.

For Starters: Indoor Marijuana Grow Lights Basics

Since we’ve opted to do this indoors, we need to settle for a room that is 100% light-proof. Why is this important? Because we need to select the light and darkness hours according to set intervals so that the photosynthesis process can take its natural course.

For example, during the vegetative phase, your plants will need to be exposed to ideal lighting conditions for a minimum of 18 hours, and consequently 6 hours of complete darkness. Similarly, during the flowering phase, you’re going to expose them to a 12 hours on/12 hours off cycle.

For indoor production, LEDs or HPS lights work great. Go with 400-Watt lights for the vegetative phase, while 600-Watt HPS for the flowering phase per each square metre is a good starting point. However, we should point out that the extra investment in LEDs at this point is well worth it because they last practically forever. As a matter of fact, the technology has at long last caught up with the HID lamps that professional growers have been accustomed to for years.

Another aspect to consider as far as lighting goes is reflective walls. White walls are, therefore, ideal. Reflective walls ensure that all the light remains focused on your plants while they are on. Dark walls can absorb a lot of the light which is counter-productive.

By using a light timing switch, you can create the most ideal lighting conditions for your plant and make things easier for yourself.

Your Lighting Choices for Growing Marijuana Indoors

Here are commonly used marijuana grow lights you should consider – depending on your budget and cultivation needs, we’ve reviewed some of the key highlights for you:

LED – Best Energy Efficiency

Even though they are relatively new in the market, Light Emitting Diode growth lights have grown really popular among cannabis cultivators. The only downside: the initial cost. Nonetheless, if you’re willing to shell out a little extra cash, you should invest in LEDs due to their long life. Fortunately, with demand so high and LED being the preferred choice for new and expert growers alike, you might see price cuts sometime in the near future.


Another benefit of LED lights is that they are quite small, making them not only energy efficient but space efficient as well. And, despite being small, their functionality is never compromised.

Pros

  • No matter how long you want to use them, their running temperature will remain low. You’re never at risk of accidentally burning your crop if left unattended for longer durations.
  • In terms of energy efficiency, LEDs are the undisputed best grow lights. They don’t need too much energy and still produce impressive amounts of light.
  • As stated earlier, LEDs last almost forever; in fact, the average LED light lasts anywhere between an average of 50,000 to 100,000 hours at least.
Cons

  • High initial cost, which tends to discourage most novice growers. However, once you take into account the benefits in the long-term, the relatively high price is easily justifiable.
  • Some LEDs don’t produce as much light intensity as desired since they require such low energy to run; however, this is something that can be brand specific. Get 30-Watt LEDs and you should be fine.
Fluorescent CFL– Best Compactness and Price

Fluorescent grow lights are available in the CFL and T5 category. Compact bulbs, otherwise known as CFL, can be easily bought from your local hardware shop and work well for small or generally narrow areas.

However, for professional-level production, you should invest in T5 grow lights (we’ll be discussing those right at the end) which can be found in a home and garden shop – these are characterised by their long, tube-like shape, just so you know.

One thing to keep in mind about CFL lamps is that they are well-suited to small yields only during the vegetative and flowering phases. And even though T5 lights generally work well for small plants, they are not the best for the later stages.

Fluorescent lights are your best bet for the initial seeding or growth stages. They are also the best lighting choice for cloning since the light isn’t very intense – it won’t burn your plants.

Pros

  • These are really light on the wallet; in fact, the cheapest grow lights currently available.
  • The cool temperatures produced by CFLs ensure that your plant suffers the least amount of stress.
  • They are also a good choice for beginners who have a limited knowledge on cannabis cultivation.
Cons

  • Not the best choice for large rooms, although just right for a single plant in a relatively small space.
  • Strength/intensity of the light may be a problem; you can forget about getting large yields.
  • Not the best grow light choice for the final stages of growth.
Fluorescent T5 – Absolute Best Price and Good Quality

Similar to CFLs, T5s are best known for their cool running temperatures, making them ideal for the propagation phase. The T stands for ‘tubular’ – or shaped like a tube. The number ‘5’ signifies 5/8-inch if a diameter.

T5 lights are typically 2-4 feet long, although in most cases, they are used in groups of four. They also need a reflector which is hung on top of plants. This reflector or hood maximises the intensity of light. Therefore, for cloning, seedling and propagation, these are best.

Pros

  • Very low heat, making it very hard for the plant to get burned due to excessive heat; optimal environmental conditions that are required during the initial growth stages.
  • An estimated 20,000-hour lifespan at the very least.
Cons

  • Not the best option for the flowering stage as the yields may end up smaller than anticipated.
  • Due to their limited reach, T5s need to be positioned fairly close to the plant, accompanied by a hood or reflector.
HID – Best for Vegetative and Flowering Phases

High intensity discharge lights – the kind of lighting you often see in exotic car headlamps. The large bulb generates light through gas ignition within the bulb. In addition to being energy efficient, HIDs provide a lot of intensity. They can be further classified into MH (Metal Halide) lights and HPS (High-pressure Sodium) lights.

If you are looking for the very best and most optimal lighting conditions for ‘vegging’ your herb, MH grow lights’ high light output fits the bill perfectly. It comes highly recommended for the vegging phase due to the high-strength blue light it emits.

HPS lights emit yellowish-orangish-reddish beams which are perfect for the flowering phase. However, you should not be limited to choosing either the MH or HPS variety but a combination of both for the most favourable outcomes.

Pros

  • Over the long term, the cost of running HID lights is noticeably less compared to other types of grow lights.
  • The usable light they produce is more than enough for any grower, and far more than the usual fluorescent lights.
  • Based on your growing needs, you can reduce the light output as all HIDs are ‘dimmable’.
Cons

  • HIDs produce a lot of heat and can be, in some cases, stressful for the plant.
  • Using them is not as simple as inserting a plug into a normal wall socket; additional installation tools like a ballast may be required.
This article has hopefully given you a fair idea of how critical lighting is when cultivating marijuana in an enclosed indoor space. Choose carefully, as certain grow lights may be better suited to individual growth stages.
 
Bad Trip on Weed? Our Guide on What To Do

Anyone who’s taken cannabis regularly will know the symptoms of a bad trip, either because they’ve had one themselves or know someone who has.
If you’re in the middle of a bad trip, it can seem impossible to stop. There are a few different things you can try to alleviate the symptoms and bring yourself back down to Earth. The best solution, of course, is to avoid having a bad trip on weed altogether. A little knowledge and experience can make a big difference.
Here’s our guide to avoiding a bad trip as well as how to cope if you do get it wrong.
What’s a Bad Trip on Weed?
This is going to vary from person to person. Let’s face it, one individual’s high is another’s nightmare.
Your own psychology will play a part, so will your experience and even where you are at the time. If you’ve ever been too drunk, a bad trip on weed can seem a little like that. It feels as if you’ve taken way too much and you have no control over anything. Of course, a bad trip can happen even only taken a small amount of weed, particularly if you are not used to it.
In severe cases, it can be quite an unpleasant experience. You want it to stop but can’t find a way to ease the high or euphoria. You might see your heartbeat increase, your vision blur and get the sweats. The first time a bad trip on weed occurs it can be a pretty frightening experience. It can also include paranoia and feelings of anxiety.
What Causes a Bad Cannabis Trip?
It could be the particular cannabis strain you have taken. Trying new varieties delivers different highs, even for the most experienced among us. How you take your weed can change your experience too. If you’ve gone from traditional smoking to dabbing, for instance, you may take too much in one go and give yourself a bad trip.
People who consume edibles for the first time might experience a bad trip on weed – they eat too much thinking there’s not much effect, not realizing edibles can take a couple of hours to work. It’s usually not catastrophic and at least you’ll know better next time.
The big thing to remember is that even though you’re having a bad trip on weed, you’re not going to die. It will pass and you will start to feel better. It just might take a while before you come down and feel normal again.
What Are the Symptoms?
As we’ve said, this can vary from person to person. Some of the common symptoms of a bad trip on weed include:
  • You might feel your face becoming numb. This can be quite alarming but don’t let it worry you too much.
  • You may also start sweating and feel your heart rate or pulse increasing and you might feel short of breath.
  • Look in the mirror, and you might find that your face looks pale.
  • You may feel increasingly anxious and this can start to spill over into paranoia.
All this might make you think that you are having a psychotic episode but its most likely down to the weed. In some cases, because you feel afraid it can have an effect on your stomach. It’s not unusual to feel sick or even vomit.
The sensation of being too high may mean we’re a little irrational so understanding what is happening is important. It helps if you are with other people as they will be able to calm you down. If you are on your own, the trick is to try and relax and let the feeling pass.
We’ll cover some ways to do this below.
Do Different Types of Cannabis Give You a Bad Trip?
Like changing your drink, trying a different type of weed may well lead to a bad trip, especially if you choose a more powerful strain. Some of the super strong weeds out there nowadays are more likely to do this and you should try to avoid these, even when you are sharing a joint or two at a party. Our advice is to make sure you research what you are taking a little better and tailor your consumption to match.
Top Tips on Avoiding a Bad Trip on Weed
Preventing having a bad trip should be your first priority. With so many different factors involved, including your own personal biology and what’s on offer to smoke, it’s not certain that you can totally reduce the risk of getting it wrong.
  • Your environment can turn a normal trip into a bad one. Always makes sure that you’re in a comfortable, reasonably familiar location before you try anything new.
  • The same goes for who you smoke, vape, eat or dab weed with. If you’re stuck with strangers you’ve never met before it can exacerbate your symptoms and turn something bad but okay into an experience that’s nightmarish. Take your weed in the company of friends, not strangers.
  • If you’re taking a new strain of weed for the first time or using a different method of delivery, start small and wait for the effect rather than going in no holds barred.
  • Make sure that you take weed on a full stomach and have water to keep yourself fully hydrated.
  • Don’t mix weed with alcohol as it can exacerbate the high and take you out of your comfort zone.
What to Do When You Have a Bad Trip
The first thing to do is understand what a bad trip is so that you know what to look out for. You may find your anxiety levels starting to rise, for example, which is going to be a cue for you to do something about it.
The first thing that you physically want to do with a bad trip on weed is get yourself to a comfortable, hopefully familiar, place. You need to try and tell yourself this is only temporary. It will pass in a relatively short while. If you feel the bad trip coming, excuse yourself from the crowd and find somewhere quiet to sit.
Sweet things may help. Get yourself a sugary drink like a soda and put it down your neck. You can also try cake or cookies and chocolate just to give your blood sugar levels a boost. If you’re a regular coffee drinker, a few cups can lift your awareness but avoid this if you don’t have much caffeine normally as it can be counterproductive.
If you’re feeling panicked or paranoid, it is important to have someone with you to help you calm down and get you through the bad trip. Watching TV or listening to music might seem like a good idea but this can actually intensify your negative feelings if the wrong stuff is played.
Here are some common remedies for dealing with a bad trip on weed:
  • Relax: You’re going to be fine and this will all soon pass. Remind yourself that you’re not in danger and think about things that make you feel secure.
  • Try a squeeze of lemon: Limonene is a terpene that has been shown to reduce highs so this might help in the short-term.
  • Crunch a peppercorn: There’s anecdotal evidence that this works but no research to back it up. Worth a try, however, if you’ve got some handy in the kitchen.
  • Get some fresh air: Once you do start to come down a little, some fresh air is a good idea. Make sure you go with someone and don’t wander too far from your base.
  • Eat and drink: East something sweet and have plenty of water to flush things through your system. Staying hydrated should help keep the high under more control.
  • Talk it through: If you’re paranoid and out of it, it can be difficult to talk with someone but it can help settle you down.
  • Rest is the best therapy: When you can, sit back, close your eyes and rest. If you can drift off to sleep, you should wake up feeling a lot better.
Helping a Friend With a Bad Trip on Weed
If you are taking weed regularly, you are likely to come across someone else who is having a bad trip at some point and it’s important to understand how to handle them. You’ll need to be calm yourself and provide plenty of reassurance.
Try not to be too obsessive in helping them but just make sure they know you are there and listen to them if they start having concerns. Make sure they are kept hydrated and don’t let them try any more weed until they have recovered. If they want to go outside for fresh air, accompany them. The last thing you want is for your friend roaming the streets or out in the woods when they are feeling paranoid.While it may feel like the end of the world when you have a bad trip, the main thing to remember is that it won’t last. You’ll soon be feeling better and you’ll be just that little bit older and wiser to boot.
 
Drug Test at Work? A Guide to Getting THC Out of Your System

Drug testing at work is becoming more and more popular, particularly for certain sectors and industries where in the past it has been ignored. While cannabis may be legal in many states, you might not want your boss to know that you have been using it either.
Getting the THC out of your system is, of course, not an exact science. Even if you know how it behaves and understand the steps to take, you can’t always be sure that you are fully prepared for your next drugs test.
EZ Test Kits offer easy-to-use kits designed to test the purity of certain drugs.

Many people simply want to give themselves a detox and re-center their systems. The following hints and tips should help you as well.
Why Drugs Tests Have Become More Popular At Work?
Many industries have had drugs testing for years. That includes reputable construction firms and the reason of this is fairly evident. It’s dangerous to be high when you’re handling heavy machinery or helping build a skyscraper.
In recent years, more corporations have added drug testing to their HR processes. While it’s used to reduce the number of accidents at work, there are other reasons for introducing it into any particular business.
One reason is that we’ve all become a lot more health conscious. You’re seeing more drug testing in the corporate environment simply because many businesses now run health and wellness programs. If a test does show THC in your system it doesn’t mean that you’ll immediately get the can. It could mean you’ll get advice on being more health conscious or a lecture on the dangers of drugs.
While it can be a big pain, employers have the right to ensure that their employees are not abusing substances that may put their reputation or other staff at risk.
What Does a Drugs Test Involve?
There are three different methods for testing for drugs in your system. The first and most common is a urine test. You pee into a plastic cup and your sample gets sent to the lab. The other two methods are either a blood test or a hair follicle test.
Most labs are looking for a certain level of THC (or other drug) in your bodily fluids. They’re often not actually worried that you took cannabis at all but that you are using it regularly enough for it to show up in your test.
For cannabis, they will be looking for a metabolite (a product that is left once your body has processed the drug). In this case, it’s something called THC-COOH and they’ll check to see if this metabolite is over a certain level, for example, 50mg/ml.
How Long Does THC Stay in Your System?
The big question, before we get round to discussing how to get THC out of your system, is how long it hangs around in your body. The bad news is that it lasts a lot longer than alcohol and that’s what causes problems for anyone who uses cannabis.
Each metabolite has what is called a ‘half-life’. That basically denotes the length of time it takes for half of the THC metabolite to disappear from your urine or blood. In the case of cannabis, it’s about seven days.
But what does this actually mean?
After seven days, half of the THC will have left your body. In another 7 days another half will have disappeared. This continues until there is nothing but a trace of the metabolite left.
It takes, on average, about 4 to 5 weeks for you to be almost completely free of the THC-COOH but (and this is the important part) only if you don’t use cannabis at all during this period.
For cannabis lovers, this presents a significant problem. First, most people don’t get 4 weeks’ notice that a test is going to be carried out. If you’re a regular user, it may also take a lot longer for the THC to exit your system as levels will build up over time. If you’re a reasonably heavy user, it could take as long as three months to get all the THC out of your system in order to pass a drug test at work.
There are other factors that could impact on your THC levels apart from the quantity you regularly consume:
  • If you have more body fat, THC metabolites can be stored in these giving you a higher reading.
  • Your metabolism, or how fast you burn carbs, can influence how quickly you remove the THC from your system.
  • How you take your cannabis can also make a difference. If you are using concentrates, for example, you may be dosing higher levels of THC than if you smoke or ingest consumables.
The good news is that there are some ways to flush the THC out of your system though the effectiveness of these can vary from person to person.
Getting THC Out of Your System: A Guide To The Most Common Ways
If you have an upcoming drugs test, our advice is not to panic. Do you research and check your company policy to find out what levels they accept and what your rights are.
If you are a regular user and already believe you’re beyond help, make sure that you quit using cannabis before the test even if you’ve only been given short notice.
Drink Plenty of Water
This is probably the simplest method and doesn’t take much effort. It’s the only choice if you have a drugs test sprung on you and don’t have any time to detox. Flushing involves drinking as much water as possible to hopefully dilute your urine and get some of the THC metabolites out of your body.
There is one slight problem, however, with this method. Drug labs are usually pretty quick to identify when someone has been taking in lots of water. The urine is a lot clearer for a start. There is one popular way around this and that’s to take a creatine (this is low in ‘diluted’ urine samples) and a couple of B2 or B12 tablets. The latter should give your urine some color.
Of course, this solution not fail safe and there’s no guarantee that this approach will work but if you haven’t been given much warning of a drugs test it’s practically the only option open to you.
Detox Your Body
If you have a lot more time, it’s better to go for a full detox. That means first of all cutting out cannabis use altogether. It’s not often that you get that much warning, however. Some corporations do a drugs test before you actually join them (mainly to make sure they’re not taking on an addict), so you do have a lot more time.
Detoxing is pretty easy. Switch to a healthy diet with plenty of vegetables and properly prepared foods. Avoid unhealthy snacks and stick to water if you want to see the best results.
For quicker effects, you can buy detox plans in most stores but how effective these are in ridding your body of THC quickly is not certain. Some claim to detox your body in a week and there are same day cleansers that you can take if your test is imminent. Our advice is not to trust that these will solve all your problems but as a panic measure they’re certainly worth a try.
Other Ways to Pass Your Next Drugs Test
Sometimes, of course, you have no option but to cheat. If you have a friend that doesn’t use cannabis, then you may like to borrow their urine rather than use your own. This depends on finding someone who is willing to do it for you and assumes that the collection of the urine if fairly lax in the first place.
Another option is to buy what are called fake urine sample kits. Do these work? They are supposed to synthetically resemble urine in look and composition but there is certainly no guarantee that they will fool a professional lab. The big problem is that you have to keep your fake urine warm and you need to be in a situation where you can swap it for your own sample – in most labs you probably won’t have the opportunity.
One other word of warning: If you are caught using a fake urine kit, it can be almost as bad as being found to be taking drugs. It at least shows you have something to hide!
There are a couple of other things that you can do if you believe you may only be slightly over the limit for THC or any other drug. The first is to make sure that you take the sample from mid-stream as you pee rather than the beginning or the end (where metabolites have higher concentrations). You should also avoid doing any exercise as this can help cause a spike in metabolites.
The other option, of course, is not to work for a company that requires drugs testing. Fortunately, there are still plenty about and it saves having to risk turning up positive and potentially needing to explain yourself.
 
5 Incredible New Studies on CBD You Need to Hear About

New Studies on CBD
Searching through the internet for accurate information nowadays is one of the most challenging things to do. While there are some perennially reputable sources that offer accurate, knowledgeable information, many simply spread unfounded, irresponsible “facts” that offer completely the wrong advice to those in need. It is essential that for subjects such as studies on CBD, a cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant, that people hear the correct information, as there are many who wish to use it for medical purposes. To ensure that our readers are receiving accurate information on CBD, we have compiled the 5 very latest studies on the cannabinoid…and some of the results are quite remarkable.
1.CBD can suppress long-term fear memories

In a July 2017 study published in the Journal of Neuropharmacology, it was observed that CBD had the ability suppress long term memories, which is sure to excite those who are using cannabis to help with their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
During the study, the test subjects short-term fear memories were not suppressed but long-term memories were, indicating that CBD directly interacts with the dorsal hippocampus.
2. CBD can improve the life of some epilepsy patients

In a study from August 2017, published by the National Centre of Epilepsy in Ecuador, revealed that CBD can improve the lives of patients with refractory epilepsy and regular seizures.
15 patients with serious epilepsy were asked to record results over one month when using CBD. The results are phenomenal:
  • 40% reported a decrease in seizures
  • 27% reported a complete disappearance of seizures
  • 43% reported improvements in the eating habits
  • 60% reported an improvement in speech
  • 50% reported an improvement in sleep
  • 100% reported an improvement of mood.
The only downsides that patients recorded were drowsiness and fatigue at some points throughout the day.
3. CBD has a significant affect on pain

A study by the Sao Paulo Department of Neuroscience published in June 2017 revealed that CBD influences the brain’s response to pain.
The animal subjects were injected with CBD and then subjected to pain through incision. The results showed that rats were in significantly less pain when CBD was introduced to their bodies. This suggests that CBD could be incorporated into pain relief management, especially pain associated with incision-type injuries.
4. CBD has the ability reduce blood pressure

In a report published by the University of Nottingham, England in June 2017, CBD was found to reduce blood pressure in healthy humans.
The study conducted tests on nine healthy male volunteers. Each was given 600mg of CBD. The results showed that the cannabinoid reduced blood pressure during rest, while also reducing blood pressure when the heart rate rises.
5. CBD can help with reducing anxiety and improving confidence

In a report published in May 2017 by the Sao Paulo Department of Neuroscience, CBD was shown to have anxiolytic effects in a number of human subjects.
During testing, 12 volunteers were asked to take part in public speaking, with and without CBD in the body. The results showed a significant drop in heart rate, blood pressure and general anxiety when CBD had been consumed compared to when it hadn’t.
 
Cannabis Plant Anatomy – Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know

There are few modern symbols today that stand out as much as the green cannabis leaf. However, many cannabis users, old and new, have never had the chance to see an adult plant up close, given its restricted status and classification as a ‘Schedule I’ substance.
Even if you have been lucky enough to see a cannabis bud up close and personal, you may have wondered about the function those sugary crystals serve, or the bright orange hairs, or the dense knobs surrounded by tiny leaves, for that matter.

We’ve written this article specifically to address all of the above, helping cannabis lovers familiarise themselves with how the various components of the plant work.
Understanding the Difference between Marijuana Plant Sexes
Right off the bat, we need to consider the fact that mast cannabis buds are dioecious in nature – there are clear and distinct differences between the male and female ones. For instance, the cannabinoid-rich flowers are always female while the pollen sacs producing ones are male.
However, it is quite possible that some plants emerge as monoecious in nature – they can harbour both pollen sacs and flowers, although this isn’t too common.
For rather obvious reasons – female plants garner a lot more attention in the cannabis research world – for one, they produce significantly higher cannabinoids, including the key psychoactive compound THC.
Many cannabis experts see male plants as ‘undesirable’, owing to their generally low cannabinoid potential. It is also believed that higher exposure to female plants will encourage them to seed faster. Still, male plants play a critical role as far as cultivation and breeding goes. In addition, they are also useful due to their abundant supply of fibres.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the anatomy of a cannabis plant.
The Anatomy of a Cannabis Plant
Here are the most crucial components of a cannabis plant:
The Roots
It’s important to start here because the roots suck in water and essential nutrients from the soil into the plant. As the seed continues to grow, a central taproot will also grow and spread into a fibrous network safely housed within the soil.
Cannabis plants are typically characterised by small, white-looking roots which like to fill out their respective potting mediums. So eventually, a sponge-like root network is conceived to keep up with the high water demand.
The Branches and Stems
Cannabis plants typically grow from a single central stem which branches off into nodes of leaves on either side. The central stem’s role is to provide structural support and house a system of vascular tubes, supplying the plant with water and essential nutrients. If the entire plant were a town or city, you can think of the stem as the main arterial highway.
Xylem is another component of the central stem system, which helps the water and nutrients seamlessly move around in the tubes.
The Fan-like Leaves
This is without the doubt the most identifiable part of a cannabis plant – however, many cannabis users are under the misconception that the fan leaves are responsible for the THC content. This isn’t true, as the fan leaves themselves have fairly low THC levels.
Cannabis leaves, much like the leaves of any plant, really, serve the same function – to collect solar energy and act as a shade to protect the buds from sunburn.
Initial Structures (Pre-sex)
Modified leaf structures known as bracts house potential pollen sacs/buds-to-be. These ‘pre-flowering’ structures are pear-shaped bundles, tightly nestled around braches that grow away from the main stem.
If you see white, whip-like hairs surfacing from the bract, the plant you’re looking at is a female. If you observe a bract that looks full and bulbous – kind of like crab claws – it is a male plant which produces pollen sacs.
To maintain an even grow, plants must be ‘sexed’ before the pollen has a chance to emerge – the pollen has a tendency to spread to female plants very easily and produce seeds. Apart from seed production, fertilised plants do not yield resin, which means they do not provide for a good cannabis smoking experience.
Therefore, seasoned breeders pollinate flowers under strictly controlled conditions to eliminate the possibility of cross contamination.
The Flowers (or Buds)
Flowers play a variety of signature roles, such as attracting pollinators, producing key compounds for the plant and producing seeds, once they have been fertilised.
Every female plant flourishes into a main flowering top called the cola. To boost yields in low growth areas, growers have learned to create several main colas through methods like LST (low-stress training), topping and pinching.
While the main cola (apical bud) grows at the top-most tip of the plant, smaller cola clusters also grow along the neighbouring sites of lower branches.
The Pistil and Stigma
The pistil is essentially the reproductive part of a female flower, while the vibrant, hair-like strands you may have seen on the pistil are known as stigmas – the latter serve a unique purpose in that they collect pollen from the male flowers.
Over the course of a cannabis plant’s maturity cycle, the stigmas will start to go from a white hue to a progressively yellow to orange, then red, and finally, a brown hue. Even though they play their part in the reproductive process, they add very little in terms of potency or taste.
The Calyx and Trichome
Calyxes are recognisable by their compact teardrop fold shape and constitute most of the bud. They clearly stand apart from the surrounding sugar leaves and when fertilised, act as the seed incubator for the female plant. When not fertilised, calyxes serve as the main ‘trichome hub’ for cannabis.
Trichomes are, in fact, the minutest component of the cannabis plant, but they are interestingly enough, the main attraction.
They can be distinguished as small, hair-like formations, responsible for producing the resin within cannabis plants, and creating the medicinal as well as psychoactive effect (the high) that the herb is so famous for.
However, as far the plant is concerned, trichomes act as a shield against infection and disease, as well as a predator and UV repellent. To delve into more detail, there are 3 types of trichomes running along the entire plant which vary in size.
The largest among these are produced on the calyxes and the sugar leaves that surround them. It is these trichomes that contain the most amount of terpenes and cannabinoids. They will start out clear but tend to take a cloudy appearance with an amber hue, as they develop.
How to Pick High-quality Buds
Now that we are familiar with the basic anatomy of a cannabis plant, can we really distinguish between good-quality and bad-quality marijuana plants? We certainly can!
First of all, generally poor-quality cannabis is something you’d want to avoid entirely, even if the price is insanely too-good-to-be-true. You’re wasting money because not only will the high be lacklustre, but you’ll also be inviting really bad headaches and sleepy vibes.
Second, pay attention to the colour of the flower – if it looks lighter than usual, you can bet its poor quality buds. Good-quality buds are supposed to look nice and dense. They’re not only hard to squeeze but also make this crunchy sound when squeezed – it’s hard to miss and you’ll know for sure that you have good-quality stuff on your hands.
Now, let’s examine the colour – the ‘greenness’ is more or less representative of the plant’s health. It shows how the plant was cared for during the fertilisation and growing process – plus, it also shows if the curing and drying process was properly carried out. This is extremely important.
A healthy plant will see the green practically popping due to all the rich trichomes – picture walking into an HDTV store and seeing the colour of grass or trees pop in the product demo videos. That’s the colour you’re looking for. The buds look like they’ve just been plugged from the plant, even though they have probably been dried and cured several weeks prior.
If you notice that the buds are too leafy, then they were not cared for in the best conditions. Leaves don’t really get you high, which means carelessness on the grower’s part.
Also, if that iconic cannabis smell isn’t there, then the flower is not good quality. Some strains have an earthy smell – but the smell is a cannabis kind of earthy fragrance, not a soil kind of earthy smell. You’ll know for sure after you have smoked a few good quality strains.
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Another thing to note is that good-quality herb is always really sticky – not because of humidity but because of the rich and goeey trichomes. However, they should also be crispy and crunchy to the touch, just to reiterate.
The more crystals you see on the plant, the better – this means it is high in THC. Once you’ve grinded your herb, you’ll see brown hairs (pistils) which are also characteristic of high quality.
 
How To Make Hash

How to Make Hash: A Quick Guide
Cannabis, hashish, weed and grass have often been thought to mean the same thing. The truth is hash, in particular, is something quite different and relates to a specific part of the cannabis plant – the trichomes. If you didn’t know this, don’t worry.
A lot of people don’t.
Hashish, and its close cousin charas, was one of the first cannabis products to find it’s way into the Western psyche, mainly from Africa, at the beginning to the 19th Century. At the time and throughout the next hundred to two hundred years, hash was associated closely with mysticism and it’s still a favorite with many cannabis connoisseurs.
Today, we take a closer look at hash, what it is and, more importantly, how to make it at home.
Check out the Seedsman Hash Plant CBD Fem Seeds.
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Everything You Need To Know About Kief
What is Hash?
The term trichomes comes from the Greek word for hair. Take a look at any plant flower and you’ll find tiny, almost microscopic, outgrowths. While these may be small, they’re actually pretty powerful and important. Think of the them as the mini cannabis factory – they produce a whole range of cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids.
Cannabis trichomes aren’t just found in abundance on the flowers, you can get it from the trim leaves too. These leaves that can often appear to be redundant, but actually contain plenty of trichomes which can be harvested too and turned into hash.
Another word you will often hear for trichomes is ‘kief’ which refers to the small, bulbous crystal that forms at the end of the hair like structure. Mostly nowadays these two words are largely interchangeable.
The key for how to make hash well is in the extraction process as well as the preparation, which is carried out when the leaves have been dried and even cured. There are a number of ways that you can do this, some simple, some a little more complex.
If you fancy some hash and have a few dried buds handy, the good news is that you can have some ready in next to no time.
The Simplest Way to Make Hash
Hand rolling is the most common way to make hash quickly and effectively. You’ll find as you handle your plant, you’re going to get residue on your hand. This is mainly from the trichomes and is kind of a sticky resin. Before you go ‘yuck’, by rubbing your hands together you can bring all that resin together to make small buds of hash.
Of course, you need to collect a good deal of trichomes on your hands to make hash this way. And it can take quite a while, too. But, then again, you really shouldn’t let anything go to waste when it comes to harvesting your crop. Even a small amount of hash can give you hours of entertainment.
The other simple method is to collect the kief residue that often forms at the bottom of a grinder when you’re processing your buds. For this you’re going to need a small pollen press as well. These are pretty cheap and come in a variety of forms but are essentially designed to take that collected, slightly dusty residue and compact it into a block of hash.
All you need to do next with it is crumble a little into your next joint. Simple collect up all that residue, load it into your grinder and you’re almost ready to go.
Dry Sifting
Also known as flat screening, this is a little more complicated but easy nonetheless. You’ll need a silk screen with a very fine mesh to carry out this method of making hash. It’s a pretty efficient way of getting those finer trichomes separated from the rest of your harvest and basically involves sifting everything as finely as possible. Most people sift onto a clear surface like glass which makes it easy to see and collect the powdered residue.
This works great with trim and you’ll be surprised how much you collect with just a little bit of patience. You can, if you want to spend the extra money, nowadays get mechanical sifters that will do the job for you though that’s not much fun. It’s less mess and less time consuming, however, but you need to make sure you purchase a quality product. If you’re making a lot of hash, you may want to invest.
How to Make Hash Using a Blender
A more arduous method of making hash is to use a common or garden kitchen blender. First put all that harvested trim into the blender along with some water to cover. Next add some cubes of ice. Blend until everything is chopped fine.
Next, get a reasonably sized jar and some silkscreen. Place the silkscreen over the jar and pour your blended mix into it. You’ll find the fine trichomes and parts of trim will seep through into the jar. Leave this to settle for about 30 minutes. The hash, because it’s heavier, will settle in the bottom. Once it has, pour out about two-thirds of the liquid and then add some fresh, ice cold water. Let it settle again. Repeat.
If you do this about four or five times, you should get a high quality hash left over. All you need to do then is filter it through a coffee filter and then let the kief dry. You don’t need to heat it up or press it, the hash can be used straight away.
Using Dry Ice
This method can be a little more difficult but if you don’t mind handling dry ice it produces a pure hash that is better tasting and more powerful. You’ll need a few extras bits of equipment here. First, there’s a bubble bag which is designed to filter your hash. These are readily available online and shouldn’t cost much and are always a good investment anyway.
The key is the size of the mesh. If you want a really pure end product, then you need to go for around 73 µm. With this kind of product you should always go for quality so don’t be afraid of spending a little bit more.
You’ll also need a decent size bucket, dry ice and a pair of safety gloves. The first thing to do is to collect all your cannabis and trim, in fact everything that you want to make the hash from. Put it in your bucket with the dry ice and stir around (remembering to wear your safety gloves). Stir it and give it a shake. What this should do, in conjunction with the dry ice, is separate the resin from the plant material.
Next comes the tricky stage. Make sure you have a reasonably large, flat surface to work on. Take your bubble bag, put it over the top of the bucket and turn over, making sure you have secure hold of everything. This is going to take a bit of shaking and rocking to get all the fine, powdered hash to
come through. Use some card to pull it all together on the surface once you have finished. You may have to work for a while to get every last ounce out of the bucket but the effort is well worth it.
Once you’ve finished you can create a hash block using a pollen press.
What is Charas?
If you’re learning how to make hash, you’ve probably come across the word charas. This is a form of hash that originally comes from areas like Pakistan and India. Charas is made from live cannabis cuttings rather than dried and harvested plants and produced in balls and sticks which are then smoked in a specialist pipe called a chillum.
It’s easy to do if a little messy. You need to be quite gentle, using a rubbing and squeezing method on the buds you have collected to get the resin out. By consistently rubbing you should be able to make a ball of resin that is then ready to smoke. If you want to save it for later, you can wrap it in plastic film to make sure it stays moist.
Choosing the Right Method
While there is no right way to make hash, a lot will depend on what you want to achieve. For most people, the handroll or dry sifting method is usually the most efficient. If you want higher quality, however, the other methods outlined are going to work better.
Much will also depend on the amount of money you want to spend. A mechanical drum for sifting, for example, can set you back at least a few hundred dollars for a quality machine. The good news is that there’s a hash making method for every budget and you ca always try different ones to see what works for yu.
How to Smoke Your Hash
Finally, you can take your hash in a variety of ways. You can add it to food and drinks in the traditional way or put it with tobacco and smoke in a joint. Others use it for dabbing and it’s often used with hash oils nowadays. What you should always remember, however, is that hash is generally a lot stronger than ordinary cannabis buds so be careful how much you use at any one given time.
 
Cannabis Knowhow – What is Decarboxylation and Why is it Important?

If you’ve ever seen in a movie how one of the characters consumes an entire stash of raw cannabis for whatever reason, followed by the typical ‘eyes popping wide open, gasps being heard left and right’ scenario – know that you’ve been misled into thinking that that’s what happens as a result.
In reality, the aftermath is quite different – in fact, the effects of consuming raw cannabis (even in fairly large amounts) are mediocre at best. And if you’ve ever done that, based on what your expert cannabis friend once told you, well, you wasted a lot of the good stuff that’s inside that cannabis.
Let’s cut to the chase and clear the air, shall we? There’s a process known as decarboxylation, which is absolutely 100% necessary to bring out the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
Decarboxylation Explained at Length & Why it’s Important
From a scientific standpoint, decarboxylation is a chemical reaction which removes a carboxyl group from cannabis and releases carbon dioxide in the process as well. But why would you be interested in knowing this as a cannabis consumer?
You see, the buzz or high that you feel from cannabis would not be possible without the decarboxylation process. Well, the buzz would be there, but lackluster at best. This is because raw cannabis contains no THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) whatsoever – i.e. the most psychoactive component responsible for a strain’s potency or ‘high potential’.
It’s also important to understand that raw cannabis plants contain the acidic form of cannabinoids, which is THC-A: Tetrahydrocannabinolic Acid – the stuff that will not get you high. Therefore, intervening factors such as age or heat to put that cannabis through the decarboxylation process is what converts the THC-A into THC.
How to Bring about Decarboxylation
Just to reiterate, the two main catalysts responsible for decarboxylating cannabis are time and heat. You may be thinking that cannabis which is smoked or vaped would be going through the decarboxylation process automatically, right?
Well, this is where many cannabis users are doing it wrong because smoking or vaping flowers which have been decarboxylated first, noticeably improves the overall potency and experience. Therefore, if you’re not decarboxylating your cannabis properly prior to consumption, then you should reconsider. How to properly “decarb” your cannabis is something we’ll be discussing in detail later on in the article.
Why You Can’t do without Decarboxylation
Other than the fact that cannabis must be decarboxylated to maximize its high or ‘buzz’ potential, the full medicinal potential of certain cannabinoids in it can also be unlocked through this process – namely CBNs, CBDs, and CBGs. Without getting too technical, these are the most abundant cannabinoids in cannabis; by unlocking them, you can enjoy the complete range of medicinal benefits they offer.
However, apart from the medicinal benefits (pain relief being the most popular one), if you’re simply looking to maximise the potential and potency of your cannabis, you need to decarboxylate it. And this applies across the board not just to cannabis flowers but also kief, hashish, and hashish oils.
Another important point to touch upon is that many cannabis users are under the impression that when they consume cannabis as part of a recipe, cooking it will more than suffice as far as decarboxylation is concerned since your food will be heated at some stage.
The heat will activate some of the good stuff in your cannabis (THC) but not all of it. So at the end of the day, you’re wasting your plant’s full potential.
Do All Varieties of Cannabis Need to Undergo Decarboxylation?
Well, the answer to this is mostly ‘yes’, although some might argue that it depends on the effects each user desires.
For instance, those looking to get a THC-induced high through an edible should decarboxylate their plant. In addition, many users have reported that decarboxylating the flower prior to smoking it boosts potency, although some claim that this boost is not very noticeable. We would recommend that you
decarb the plant anyway, as you’ve got nothing to lose, even if decarbing it means a mild (but noticeable) increase in the potency.
Here’s an interesting fun fact: if the cannabis you’re purchasing contains the cannabinoid CBD then it has already been decarbed.
Cannabis Decarboxylation Explained in 3 Easy Steps
1. Prior to the Decarbing Process – Measure Potency
Cannabinoids in their raw acid form will have a noticeably greater mass than their decarbed version, and this is an important factor to consider while screening your cannabis for potency.
For instance, cannabinoids like CBDA (Cannabidiolic Acid) and THCA (Tetrahydrocannabinolic Acid) will use just over 12% of their mass when heated – the resulting potency can then be measured by multiplying the ‘acid form’ with 0.877.
So, if you’re vaporising a CBD hemp strain and want to determine the CBD concentration level, you can do so by:
CBD + (0.877 x CBDA) = Total CBD
2. Optimal Decarbing Temperature and Time
However, this is just one aspect of the entire equation. There are also terpenes in the plant which need to be taken into consideration before heat can be applied. As a general rule of thumb, always use the minimum amount of temperature over a longer timeframe as opposed to applying a high temperature to save time. The latter is a mistake because we need to do our best to preserve those terpenes and not burn them off completely.
Furthermore, when terpenes are burned at relatively higher temperatures (148°C and higher), they can leave behind undesirable tastes and smells.
THCA, for example, decarboxylates after 30-45 minutes of exposure at roughly 104°C, although complete decarboxylation may require more time. Just to reiterate, it is always a good idea to never exceed the temperature threshold above since majority of mono and sesquiterpenes have high volatility
– you’re essentially gaining nothing apart from the undesirable aromas and flavours. In fact, we’d recommend keeping the temperature in the 93-95°C range, as a safe starting point.
3. Decarbing Cannabis at Home
Whether you have a cannabis concentrate, kief or flower, you can easily decarb it using the following baking method:
  • Pre-heat your oven to 104°C – 115°C*
  • Place parchment paper on a baking sheet
  • Grind the cannabis into fine pieces and spread it evenly across the pan. Make sure there are no empty spaces.
  • Bake for 30 to 60 minutes*
  • Once you’re done, you will notice that your cannabis has been slightly reduced in volume and has taken a darker brown tone – this is completely normal.
*Note: since time and temperatures can have a noticeable bearing on the process, we’d recommend experimenting with this to determine the ideal setting based on your decarbing needs.
As a starting point, you might try decarbing your high CBD strains for at least 2 hours at 104°C, but we’re also going to leave a little disclaimer here that we have not personally lab tested this.
Apart from baking, cannabis can be decarbed in other ways as well such as infusing it with cooking oils or lecithin.
Methods like these can help you create infusions which can be integrated with many cooking recipes, cannabis capsules and topicals. Since the decarbed cannabinoids are already present, these infusions provide for a ‘maximum effect’ no matter how you choose to consume them.
You might be thinking “do I really have to go through the decarb process even if I’m cooking cannabis with my consumables?”
Absolutely, yes! In order to achieve maximum potency, you need to do this. So, let’s say you’re stirring hash oil or kief into a brownie batter or other similar cooking tasks where cannabis is being mixed – you would want to 100% decarb it first to extract the highest level of potency.
Lab tests have also indicated that when you’re making slow and long cooking infusions like cannabis oil or butter, decarbing will definitely help you achieve higher potency.
Things that Might Go Wrong While Decarbing
Most brands of ovens are inaccurate as far as temperature goes – many have hot and cold spots even after pre-heating them to a desired temperature. We would highly recommend using an oven thermometer to determine the right temperature before decarbing.
So you need to make sure that it is actually 115°C, for example, irrespective of what setting the dial is at – we chose this value as an average based on majority of decarbing processes – actual temperature setting may vary depending on your decarbing needs and cannabinoid strain.
Sometimes, decarbing kief, for example, can result in a powdery solution which is very easy to integrate with recipes. At other times, however, certain strains may result in a gummy solution. This is completely normal, although the main point we want to stress on is the time and temperature variable – find something that works for you and experiment with the time/temperature ranges we mentioned throughout the article.
In Closing
Hopefully, this piece has put the spotlight on how certain processes affect cannabis decarboxylation, what the process itself is and why it’s considered critical to maximising potency.
You’re now familiar with how the decarbing process works for cannabis – if you ever come across another scene on TV where one of the actors plops down on the ground right after consuming an entire bag of raw cannabis, you can just laugh it off – in fact, laugh it off all the way to the kitchen as you get to work baking and infusing your own batch of cannabis
 
Marijuana, Blood Pressure and Your Health: Your Questions Answered

While much of the talk online is about the health benefits of cannabis, there’s no doubt that some people are worried about the detrimental effects that might be caused. Marijuana blood pressure issues have been around almost as long as the drug itself but as yet we don’t seem to have a definitive answer.
The problem is that this can be a little tricky to understand if you are checking the research. In some cases marijuana lowers blood pressure, in others it raises it. Many anecdotal accounts suggest that certain amounts of marijuana can improve hypertension. So, where do we stand?

Here’s our look at marijuana, blood pressure and your health:
Hypertension At a Glance
  • A third of adults in the US have hypertension or high blood pressure.
  • Hypertension increases your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.
  • There are a number of factors that can influence blood pressure including diet, lack of exercise, how much you drink and whether you smoke or not.
  • There’s also genetics – whether you inherited heart problems from your parents.
There are short-term and long-term effects when it comes to marijuana and blood pressure. Take a hit of cannabis and you will probably find your BP going up or down. That’s what happens in the short-term and it’s not necessarily harmful.
The big issue is the long-term effects of marijuana on blood pressure and whether this actually increases your chances of developing heart or vascular problems. The scant research that has been carried out would suggest not.
The State of the Research
While there have been quite a few studies on the immediate effects of cannabis on blood pressure, there has been much less research investigating the longer term impact. Many of these studies have been carried out on animals and, as any scientist knows, it can be difficult to accurately associate the results with humans. That’s simply because animal studies can be poor indicators of human reactions to similar circumstances. They don’t transmit over.
Marijuana is often considered in a generalized way rather than differentiating between strains that will have specific levels of THC, CBD or other cannabinoids. All these could potentially affect blood pressure in widely different ways.
Then you have the variations you might see in someone who smokes cannabis as opposed to someone who takes edibles – there’s very little research done in this area at all. It’s safe to assume that someone who smokes cannabis with tobacco is likely to have more heart problems, but we don’t know if this is exactly true.
Marijuana and Blood Pressure: Short-Term Effects
You will expect marijuana to have an effect on you and that will include your blood pressure. If you’ve never had cannabis before, you should experience a small but significant rise in blood pressure followed by a slight decrease. This elevated marijuana induced blood pressure should take effect within about ten minutes.
More regular users of cannabis will develop some level of tolerance depending on their own physiology. That tolerance building up may lead, at least in some people, to blood pressure reducing shortly after administering. There has been anecdotal evidence that suggest taking cannabis regularly can support stable blood pressure, particularly in those with hypertension. Research has shown that endocannabinoids that are naturally in our bodies provide a protective measure in myocardial ischemia which taking marijuana might mimic.
There’s also some suggestion in recent research that your posture, whether you are sitting, standing or lying down when you take your cannabis, could have an impact on how your blood pressure is affected. This happens naturally anyway whether you take cannabis or not.
Marijuana and Blood Pressure: Long-Term Effects
There have been few reliable studies that suggest marijuana on its own leads to health conditions such as hypertension. The trouble is separating out the behaviour of the individual as well as the effect of the cannabis. For example, if you are a regular user you might also be someone who doesn’t take regular exercise or makes bad nutrition choices, both of which can have a major impact on heart health.
The most often cited piece of research is titled the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. This did not find any causal effect for heart disease in 3,617 participants but did note that poor nutritional or lifestyle choices could be a factor. That doesn’t mean marijuana on its own couldn’t cause a major cardiovascular event. If you have taken too high a dose of THC, for example, you could conceivably cause damage to your heart or vascular system. There are few if any reports of cannabis being involved in strokes or myocardial infarction, however.
It’s not all good news for marijuana users with respect to blood pressure. A study by Harvard University suggests that when you take cannabis you increase your risk of a heart attack fivefold. The biggest at-risk demographic are senior citizens. It takes a couple of hours for that risk to return to normal.
Harvard health also says:
“Most of the evidence linking marijuana to heart attack and stroke is based on reports from people who smoked it. So it’s hard to separate the effects of cannabinoid compounds on the cardiovascular system from the hazards posed by the irritants and carcinogens contained in the smoke.”
Marijuana, Blood Pressure and Heart Health: Are There Benefits?
While the detrimental health effects of cannabis are sketchy at least, is there actually some merit to the suggestion that it can actually help improve things for those suffering from hypertension?
The body’s natural endocannabinoid system has at least some role in protecting heart and vascular health, according to some studies.
We have a naturally occurring form of THC called anandamide that seems to play a role in relaxing blood vessels, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure. There has been some serious thought given to the potential that cannabinoids could help moderate cardiovascular health for patients. Despite this relationship having been known since the 70s, progress has been slow in this area, unfortunately. We haven’t yet seen cannabis-based medication that can be used to reduce high blood pressure and it’s not likely we will any time soon.
More evidence is required, of course, and the lack of formal studies and research is a little worrying. There is a lot of anecdotal support out there, however, with many people using cannabis to self-medicate and reduce their blood pressure.
Staying Healthy on Cannabis
There are a few things that we do know for certain when it comes to marijuana and blood pressure.
  • The first is that with initial use your heart rate and blood pressure go up, with your heart having to work harder.
  • If you are smoking your cannabis you will reduce the amount of oxygen that can be carried in your blood.
  • That can lead to more demands on your heart. The effect, however, is generally not thought to be cumulative.
  • A while after taking your cannabis you should be back to normal where blood pressure is concerned.
If you are a regular user of marijuana and want to maintain your health, there are a number of things you can do. For a start, make sure that you still get plenty of exercise and make healthy eating choices. Try to avoid taking alcohol with cannabis as this can actually be detrimental.
A lot will depend on the way that you administer your cannabis. If you smoke, it will necessarily impact on your cardiovascular health compared to if you are vaping or taking your marijuana through edibles. If you do smoke, consider switching to a safer option.
 
Drug Test at Work? A Guide to Getting THC Out of Your System

Drug testing at work is becoming more and more popular, particularly for certain sectors and industries where in the past it has been ignored. While cannabis may be legal in many states, you might not want your boss to know that you have been using it either.
Getting the THC out of your system is, of course, not an exact science. Even if you know how it behaves and understand the steps to take, you can’t always be sure that you are fully prepared for your next drugs test.
EZ Test Kits offer easy-to-use kits designed to test the purity of certain drugs.

Many people simply want to give themselves a detox and re-center their systems. The following hints and tips should help you as well.
Why Drugs Tests Have Become More Popular At Work?
Many industries have had drugs testing for years. That includes reputable construction firms and the reason of this is fairly evident. It’s dangerous to be high when you’re handling heavy machinery or helping build a skyscraper.
In recent years, more corporations have added drug testing to their HR processes. While it’s used to reduce the number of accidents at work, there are other reasons for introducing it into any particular business.
One reason is that we’ve all become a lot more health conscious. You’re seeing more drug testing in the corporate environment simply because many businesses now run health and wellness programs. If a test does show THC in your system it doesn’t mean that you’ll immediately get the can. It could mean you’ll get advice on being more health conscious or a lecture on the dangers of drugs.
While it can be a big pain, employers have the right to ensure that their employees are not abusing substances that may put their reputation or other staff at risk.
What Does a Drugs Test Involve?
There are three different methods for testing for drugs in your system. The first and most common is a urine test. You pee into a plastic cup and your sample gets sent to the lab. The other two methods are either a blood test or a hair follicle test.
Most labs are looking for a certain level of THC (or other drug) in your bodily fluids. They’re often not actually worried that you took cannabis at all but that you are using it regularly enough for it to show up in your test.
For cannabis, they will be looking for a metabolite (a product that is left once your body has processed the drug). In this case, it’s something called THC-COOH and they’ll check to see if this metabolite is over a certain level, for example, 50mg/ml.
How Long Does THC Stay in Your System?
The big question, before we get round to discussing how to get THC out of your system, is how long it hangs around in your body. The bad news is that it lasts a lot longer than alcohol and that’s what causes problems for anyone who uses cannabis.
Each metabolite has what is called a ‘half-life’. That basically denotes the length of time it takes for half of the THC metabolite to disappear from your urine or blood. In the case of cannabis, it’s about seven days.
But what does this actually mean?
After seven days, half of the THC will have left your body. In another 7 days another half will have disappeared. This continues until there is nothing but a trace of the metabolite left.
It takes, on average, about 4 to 5 weeks for you to be almost completely free of the THC-COOH but (and this is the important part) only if you don’t use cannabis at all during this period.
For cannabis lovers, this presents a significant problem. First, most people don’t get 4 weeks’ notice that a test is going to be carried out. If you’re a regular user, it may also take a lot longer for the THC to exit your system as levels will build up over time. If you’re a reasonably heavy user, it could take as long as three months to get all the THC out of your system in order to pass a drug test at work.
There are other factors that could impact on your THC levels apart from the quantity you regularly consume:
  • If you have more body fat, THC metabolites can be stored in these giving you a higher reading.
  • Your metabolism, or how fast you burn carbs, can influence how quickly you remove the THC from your system.
  • How you take your cannabis can also make a difference. If you are using concentrates, for example, you may be dosing higher levels of THC than if you smoke or ingest consumables.
The good news is that there are some ways to flush the THC out of your system though the effectiveness of these can vary from person to person.
Getting THC Out of Your System: A Guide To The Most Common Ways
If you have an upcoming drugs test, our advice is not to panic. Do you research and check your company policy to find out what levels they accept and what your rights are.
If you are a regular user and already believe you’re beyond help, make sure that you quit using cannabis before the test even if you’ve only been given short notice.
Drink Plenty of Water
This is probably the simplest method and doesn’t take much effort. It’s the only choice if you have a drugs test sprung on you and don’t have any time to detox. Flushing involves drinking as much water as possible to hopefully dilute your urine and get some of the THC metabolites out of your body.
There is one slight problem, however, with this method. Drug labs are usually pretty quick to identify when someone has been taking in lots of water. The urine is a lot clearer for a start. There is one popular way around this and that’s to take a creatine (this is low in ‘diluted’ urine samples) and a couple of B2 or B12 tablets. The latter should give your urine some color.
Of course, this solution not fail safe and there’s no guarantee that this approach will work but if you haven’t been given much warning of a drugs test it’s practically the only option open to you.
Detox Your Body
If you have a lot more time, it’s better to go for a full detox. That means first of all cutting out cannabis use altogether. It’s not often that you get that much warning, however. Some corporations do a drugs test before you actually join them (mainly to make sure they’re not taking on an addict), so you do have a lot more time.
Detoxing is pretty easy. Switch to a healthy diet with plenty of vegetables and properly prepared foods. Avoid unhealthy snacks and stick to water if you want to see the best results.
For quicker effects, you can buy detox plans in most stores but how effective these are in ridding your body of THC quickly is not certain. Some claim to detox your body in a week and there are same day cleansers that you can take if your test is imminent. Our advice is not to trust that these will solve all your problems but as a panic measure they’re certainly worth a try.
Other Ways to Pass Your Next Drugs Test
Sometimes, of course, you have no option but to cheat. If you have a friend that doesn’t use cannabis, then you may like to borrow their urine rather than use your own. This depends on finding someone who is willing to do it for you and assumes that the collection of the urine if fairly lax in the first place.
Another option is to buy what are called fake urine sample kits. Do these work? They are supposed to synthetically resemble urine in look and composition but there is certainly no guarantee that they will fool a professional lab. The big problem is that you have to keep your fake urine warm and you need to be in a situation where you can swap it for your own sample – in most labs you probably won’t have the opportunity.
One other word of warning: If you are caught using a fake urine kit, it can be almost as bad as being found to be taking drugs. It at least shows you have something to hide!
There are a couple of other things that you can do if you believe you may only be slightly over the limit for THC or any other drug. The first is to make sure that you take the sample from mid-stream as you pee rather than the beginning or the end (where metabolites have higher concentrations). You should also avoid doing any exercise as this can help cause a spike in metabolites.
The other option, of course, is not to work for a company that requires drugs testing. Fortunately, there are still plenty about and it saves having to risk turning up positive and potentially needing to explain yourself.
 
Pain No More: The Best Cannabis Strains for All Kinds of Pain Relief

In today’s technology driven, high-stress ‘life in the fast lane’, chronic pain is something that affects a lot more people than, say, those suffering from diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined.
Chronic pain is the #1 most common culprit of long-term disability in the US. A recent study revealed that approximately 100 million adults in the US are chronic pain sufferers. In another study, an estimated 20 million US adults suffer from neuropathic pain, a debilitating condition that manifests itself due to damage from the motor, automatic or sensory nerves – leading to often intolerable pain in the hands and feet.
Here’s another gloomy statistic – at least 10% of the world’s population suffers from chronic pain. That’s a staggering near-60 million people who have to put up with chronic pain on a daily basis.
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The Main Problem with Traditional Pain Relievers
A pressing concern revolving around pain is that even though perpetual efforts have been made by researchers and scientists to identify the exact causes of specific kinds of pain in the body – one thing is for certain that pain does not originate from a single source and can be a vexing problem to remedy. It can be so complex, in fact, that there isn’t any effective medicine for proving relief from specific kinds of pain.
One thing is for certain, however – that chronic pain may be the result of a host of issues including disease, injury, traumatic physical experiences, biological factors, etc. As a result, doctors and other medical experts are quick to prescribe staple medicines for pain relief including aspirin, epidurals, local anaesthetics, cortisone, NSAIDS and opioids.
For acute pain following surgery, for instance, doctors will typically prescribe opiates – highly potent drugs derived from chemicals. As far as chronic pain is concerned, these drugs may still be prescribed but they seldom work. And, in cases where they tend to be effective, they can also cause adverse effects like sedation and nausea. Furthermore, chronic pain sufferers have a tendency to develop high tolerance to opiates. The same can be said for NSAIDS and other off-the-counter pain killers.
Cannabis as a Painkiller
Many doctors have been hesitant to recommend cannabis as a pain killer, but current laws have led to majority of physicians resorting to pharmaceutical drugs to treat different kinds of pain.
However, there is a silver lining – one that is prominent and noteworthy enough to make any chronic pain sufferer sit up straight with eyes wide open: earlier in 2018, NASEM (National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine) presented substantial evidence to conclude that cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, especially THC and CBD, can effectively be used to treat chronic pain.
Further studies have also suggested that cannabis has the potential to provide relief from nerve pain by activating specific receptors in the human endocannabinoid (ECS) system, and regulate certain neuro-pathways, which can directly help manage pain.
Researchers also discovered in a separate study that THC and CBD-rich strains may provide relief from arthritic pain.
To sum it all up – those seeking relief from all kinds of pain – there is irrefutable evidence that medical marijuana can provide relief, and, without the often unpleasant after effects that are typically associated with strong pain relief drugs including opiates.
Those who have already secured a medical marijuana card have met a crucial qualifying condition to use cannabis for a variety of reasons including relief from arthritis, neck pain, joint pain, nerve pain, non-migraine headaches, serious chronic pain, fibromyalgia and a range of other pain conditions.
The Best Cannabis Strains for Pain Relief
Suffice it to say, marijuana’s potential and reputation as a painkiller has shifted quite a lot in recent years. The medical community as well as the general public are now starting to not only understand but appreciate cannabis’s potential as a painkiller.
With so many indica, sativa and hybrid strains to chose from, it can be overwhelming to handpick the ones to find relief from certain kinds of pain. After all, every strain type comes with its own unique feel – one may work brilliantly for one patient while it may provide a lacklustre effect at best for another.
Even though patients may have to experiment a little to find the best marijuana strain for pain relief, having a basic understanding of what effects each of the three strains have will certainly help you choose the right ones.
In general, sativas are vastly popular and preferred, given their ability to provide an upbeat, invigorating and energetic high, helping patients become more adept in physical activities and social engagements. The positive high can work wonders to alleviate a variety of pain-inducing health conditions and inflammation.
Relatively, indicas offer a very relaxing, sedating and ‘full body’ kind of high – ideal for patients who suffer from severe chronic pain.
Then there are hybrids which encompass sativa and indica elements, providing for a balanced effect which is neither too invigorating nor too sedating.
Now that you’re armed with some basic knowhow, here are currently some of the most effective strains for pain relief:
Granddaddy Purple (GDP)
GDP is a very popular indica strain among cannabis smoking circles – delivering a powerful psychoactive high which is an ideal combination of physical relaxation and cerebral euphoria. Like the majority of indica strains available today, GDP is very effective in remedying pain, muscle spasms and stress, delivering between 17-23% THC and just 0.1% CBD.
Jack Flash
If you’re dealing with nerve pain, half-hybrid, half-indica is perfect – no wonder it won the 98’ Dutch High Life Cup, with its signature 14-20% THC content.
As the name suggests, Jack Flash is one of the best strains for providing quick pain relief. Within minutes, users have reported feeling a headrush, which is replaced by highly euphoric and ‘happy’ feeling. In addition to the sustained mood elevation, you will also feel the nerve pain starting to dissipate.
Jack Herer
Eponymously named after the pro-cannabis activist, this sativa strain not only provides quick relief from chronic pain but also treats fatigue, depression, lack of appetite and a lot more.
Boasting an earthy and pungent flavour with hints of pine, this acclaimed strain offers 18-23% THC content with traces of 0.03-0.2% CBD.
White Widow
This hybrid cannabis strain has been derived from two unique strains – an indica South Indian strain and a South American sativa strain. The pain relief potential can be only described as ‘borderline excellent’, providing not only quick relief but also a very uplifting and euphoric high, which can treat depression, stress and lack of appetite.
Check out Seedsman’s White Widow.
Blue Widow
This intriguing strain goes by many names including Blue Venom, White Berry or Berry White, just to name a few. However, its potent effects are unmistakable. Blue Widow’s heavy resin is courtesy of a cross between White Widow and Blue strains, providing users with generous amounts of THC. This makes it one of the best choices for pain relief from arthritis and other inflammatory conditions.
Harlequin
The sativa-dominant strain provides an optimal ratio of cannabinoids to provide quick relief from nerve pain, while also ensuring that users never experience a high that’s too potent. The THC content ranges between 7-15% while CBD is also typically in the 15% range.
If you’re looking for a strain that soothes nerve pain but also keeps you sharp and active, while helping your relax – this is one of the best one you can buy today. The herbal flavour is a real treat for the senses while the unusually high CBD content makes it a super analgesic – helping you deal with joint pains, migraines, muscle spasms and much more.
Cannatonic
This hybrid strain is high in terpenes and CBD – making it a popular choice for chronic pain and migraine patients. The low 6% THC content means you can enjoy the therapeutic effects without going into a psychoactive high. Given its aromatic qualities and floral notes with small traces of spice, Cannatonic is a great daytime choice as it does not impede social interaction or productivity in the least bit.
Sour Diesel
The sativa-dominant strain has enjoyed widespread popularity among medicinal cannabis consumers, providing a host of benefits which include relief from pain, stress, depression and appetite disorders.
With THC content in the 18-23% range and CBD in the 1-3% range, there’s absolutely no denying Sour Diesel’s ‘pungent’ ability to alleviate pain while simultaneously providing an energetic and uplifting high.
GSC – Girl Scout Cookies
The sweet and earthy scent is a dead giveaway that you’re about to smoke some GSC. The full-body relaxation and sedation will definitely be appreciated by those who seek instant relief from pain.
The Hybrid’s THC content is a generous 17-28% with a CBD range of just 0.09-0.2%. GSC has unsurprisingly won several Cannabis Cup awards – more proof that it works remarkably to alleviate almost any kind of pain associated with fatigue or stress.
In Closing
With research progressing in the US and other countries, marijuana strains for pain relief continue to become more readily available. However, some of the most common ones listed above should offer a good starting point.
 
Rosin – What it is and Ways of Easily Making it at Home

Rosin – What it is and Ways of Easily Making it at Home
You’ll probably agree with us when we say the world of cannabis concentrates continues to become more diverse.
What started with the first commercial extract in cannabis history, hash, has now lead to a variety of extracts including kief, oil, wax, BHO and rosin – all offering their own unique taste, experience and, of course, ‘pleasure factor’.
Even though each product is prepared differently, the underlying objective is the same: extract those wonderful trichomes from the female cannabis flowers.
How Rosin is Unique
Rosin is a solid marijuana concentrate which is produced with the help of only heat and pressure – there’s no need to use solvents, as is the case when preparing other concentrates.
We believe rosin deserves to be right on top of the concentrate pyramid. But just to be clear – we do love the other concentrates and what they bring to the table.
BHO products, for instance, like wax, hatter, live resin or sauce are great – however, they contain solvents. Concentrates made improperly have residual solvents, which means you don’t get the best concentrated healing effect. In fact, in some cases, solvents may introduce unwanted contaminants which can pose a risk to your health.
However, even if you’re not worried about the presence of solvents in your cannabis concentrates, you should definitely care about the source that your concentrate originates from – i.e. the plant.
Let’s take BHO, for example, which can mask certain imperfections by drowning out mould or mildew or washing over chemical solvents. Rosin is not capable of doing any ‘masking’ because it paints a 1:1 picture of what the plant’s genetic makeup and structure is at the core.
Therefore, if the rosin has been extracted from an older and oxidised plant, it will exhibit a darker colour. If the plant is less resinous or generally dry, the yields will decrease accordingly. Subsequently, if you start off with over-sifted kief, you can bet the extra chlorophyll will lend to a darker colour.
What we’re getting at is this: rosin is completely honest. When made properly, it remains 100% unadulterated – it actually stands to be the best way of preserving the cannabinoids and terpenes that make marijuana so healing and enjoyable to consume.
We Get it, it’s Great – Shouldn’t it be More Popular?
Even though rosin may not be talked about as much as the other ‘usual suspects’ like kief, hash, live resin or dry sift – it is actually popular – well, in Southern California anyway. However, rosin is also gaining popularity in Colorado, especially since the amount of solvents legally permissible in concentrates has gone up. In fact, the permissible amount of Butane has gone up by 525% – that’s 800 ppm to 5,000 ppm!
Suffice it to say, people are now paying attention to rosin as a ‘legit’ concentrate and not just something you prepare at home using a hair straightening iron.
Ways to Consume Rosin
Dabbing is a great way to enjoy rosin – a method which is enjoyed quite a bit by users in the 18-30 demographic. However, CO2 being one of the most popular concentrates, isn’t dabbed, surprisingly enough. Rather, it is smoked through a vaping device, which actually appeals to many users, given its portability, minimal maintenance and practically no odour at all.
We’ve summarised an easy method for dabbing rosin at the end of the article but if you want to vape rosin in a vape pen, here’s how:
Rosin Vapin’
The first thing we need to do is to find a way to make that rosin a little less viscous. This can be accomplished through terpenes. Alternatively, you could also use a combination of vegetable glycerine (VG) and propylene glycol (PG), which are both mild solvents.
Majority of e-juices sold today combine the two, even though the best quality rosin vape pens are made using single-source terpenes which are re-introduced in order to achieve a certain level of consistency. However, the process can be technical and requires a deep and thorough understanding of steam distillation in order to produce a solvent-free vape.
Therefore, we recommend using the above two solvents to thin down rosin, because this way you can bypass the distillation method when vaping – a process best left to cannabis manufacturing labs or distributors.
A little background on the two solvents is noteworthy. PG is a by-product of petroleum. By nature, it is colourless and odourless, and supposedly has the ability to carry flavour a little better than VG. Studies have vouched for its safety in terms of oral ingestion and the FDA has categorised it as ‘safe for consumption’ and a food additive. In fact, PG can be found in a number of everyday products such as shampoos, beauty products, toothpaste, pet food, etc.
VG, on the other hand, is extracted from vegetable oil. It is the most benign solvent currently available. It doesn’t have the ability to carry flavour as well as the former and it also has a more viscous profile than PG. In addition, it does not independently work as effectively when it comes to thinning down rosin.
The way we see it, the best way to use PG is to combine it with VG because it is a natural solvent which means it makes for a much smoother hit.
VG can be found in baked goods, beauty products, artificial sweeteners, toothpaste, etc. The FDA has categorised it as ‘safe to consume’. When it comes to making rosin e-juice, a PG-VG ration of 2:1 is ideal. If you want to bypass making your juice altogether, then there are pre-mixed wax liquidizers that you can buy.
After you’ve gotten your e-juice, just add the rosin to it. Here, we’d recommend a 1:1 ratio – there is an exception however – if your e-juice contains a higher ratio of VG to PG, you may need to use more rosin. Adding a little water always helps.
Next, you’re going to heat the liquid for no more than 10 to 15 seconds and then give it a stir. If you find that the liquid is too viscous, add more thinner. At this point, keep in mind that you will have to experiment a little, so give it a few tries and you will get it right. Pull the liquid into your cartridge using a syringe.
We know what you’re thinking: “All this is fantastic but I don’t want to use solvents with my rosin even if they are benign, because then the whole idea of a ‘solvent-less concentrate’ is pretty much lost”.
Well, that is a completely valid point. Decarboxylating your rosin is a great alternative as it will allow you to make some really high-quality edibles.
We understand that many cannabis purists simply do not want to cosy up to the idea of using VG, PG or liquid terpenes for that matter, with their rosin. We can completely relate. As it turns out, you’re not limited to just dabs when consuming rosin. You can ‘decarb’ it so that it can be consumed as a premium-quality edible.
Rosin Edibles
Decarbing is a process that allows an extra carboxyl group to be released from a cannabinoid. The ‘high’ you get from cannabis cannot be experienced until this carboxyl group is released. For instance, the cannabinoid THCA has no psychoactive effects – but once it dries and is exposed to heat, part of it converts to THC, which is psychoactive.
You may have noticed how raw cannabis flowers purchased from a dispensary contain a lot of THCA. So when you burn your cannabis in order to smoke it, what you’re doing is releasing the extra carboxyl group – you’re effectively decarbing it while smoking, so to speak However, when it comes to edibles, decarbing has to be carried out before you can ingest them. This is done by applying heat over a set timeframe.
Rosin Dabs
One of the easiest ways, in fact, to make rosin at home is through the solvent-less method, which takes anywhere between 30-40 minutes to complete.
What you’ll need is a heat source, some cannabis flowers and parchment paper that can resist grease and moisture. In addition, you’ll need:
  • A 2-inch hair straightener to melt the resinous material away from the buds
  • Dab tool or dab stick
  • Oven gloves to press the straightener
  • The process of decarbing rosin requires 220°C – and this is what you’re going to set your hair straightener to – remember to place it on an even surface
  • Put a single bud in the middle of a folded piece of parchment paper
  • Scrape the rosin off from the parchment paper using the dab tool
  • The last two steps need to be repeated so that all the resin can be squeezed out from the buds
To calculate the yield size, divide the buds’ weight by 5. So, for example, 30g buds will yield approximately 6g rosin and 10g buds will yield about 2g.
Enjoy your home-made rosin dab!
 
Everything You Need to Know about Hashish

Let’s kick things off with a definition of hashish, as described in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
“The concentrated resin from the flowering tops of female hemp plants (Cannabis sativa or C. indica) that is smoked, chewed, or drunk for its intoxicating effect.” – Source
In order to truly understand what hashish is, we need to acknowledge the duality it shares with the female Cannabis Sativa plant.
Let’s shed light upon the physical makings of the plant first: the rich and fibrous leafy structure which contains essential amino acids and boasts a host of benefits.
Now, let’s focus on the cannabis plant essence – also referred to as trichomes – which are directly responsible for the aromatic terpenes and cannabinoids used for medical and therapeutic purposes.
When trichomes – the cannabis plant essence – is separated from the plant material, that’s when hashish forms. This process takes place when ripe and resinous gland heads visible on top of the female cannabis plants are separated and then collected.
The above method, however, isn’t the only one in use for separating hashish from the main cannabis plant material as rapid cannabis legalisation in the west has given birth to new hash preparation methods, which are taking the legal hashish distribution market by storm.
Understanding Hashish’s Origins

Hashish is actually an Arabic word which more or less translates to “grass”. Widespread use dates back to AD 900 – however, some cannabis experts argue that methods referred to as “charas” – the personal collection of resin directly from the hands of cannabis harvesters – have existed even before the above period.
Hashish eventually found its way into the western world around the start of the 19th century, thanks largely to early European ventures and exploration into Africa. For many years, European doctors would
bring hashish home to study it, which led to the discovery of a variety of extraction methods, paving the way for refinement which inspired hashish-based medications.
As one might imagine, cannabis extractions formed a major part of western pharmacopoeia by the early 20th century – unfortunately, legal prohibition by US authorities around the same time meant that hashish was practically eradicated from the mainstream western medicine market, after which it found a home in the black market.
Are There Different Types of Hashish?
The 1960s, referred to many cannabis users as ‘the happy times’, led to the re-emergence of hashish. Morocco, Afghanistan and Nepal were among the first countries to export generous amounts of hashish to western nations, courtesy of rising interest among western tourists. At the time, the only hashish varieties that existed were the hard-pressed, brick-like types which were made from a process involving heat and pressure.
The introduction of the master sifter machine in the late 1980s saw a new method of making hashish – i.e. vibration to separate gland heads from the cannabis plant material. All the while, cannabis experts started experimenting with something called water extraction to make hashish – what we refer to as ice water extract or water hash today.
How to Make Hashish – Top 3 Ways
Described below are just some of the ways in which you can safely extract trichomes from the main cannabis plant and turn them into hashish. Follow these methods verbatim and the end result will be hashish that has physical consistency and provides for a distinct high and aroma.
Hand Rolling
This is undeniably the easiest way to make hashish and requires absolutely no equipment or materials at all. However, bear in mind that it can be a time-consuming process and will bear small yields at a time.
You’ll need to have clean hands and non-dried cannabis buds. Some cannabis users will say that it’s okay to use dried cannabis trimmings for this purpose, but that would be a mistake as it would not produce a desirable yield.
Even though it’s important to keep your hands very clean prior to the hand-rolling process, you should consider using a non-scented, non-residual soap, because we’re after organic results and don’t want any chemicals contaminating the hashish.
Placing the bud between your palms, gently roll it in a circular motion. Be careful not to apply too much pressure as this will contaminate the hashish with plant particles.
As you keep rolling, you will start to see a thick, black resin on your hands and fingers. This is more or less hashish or “charas”, as it is referred to in many South East Asian countries. Scrape the fresh hashish off your hands onto a clean surface and gently press it together until it forms a small ball or block.
Dry Sifting
This also happens to be among the easiest and most well-known ways of making hashish. Cannabis trimmings are sifted through a fine sieve to create a very potent kief – this can be later pressed into a block.
For optimal results, you should freeze the cannabis overnight in a ziplock bag, which will make it easier to separate the plant material from the trichomes. Before beginning, make sure you have a credit card, silkscreen, baking paper and cannabis trimmings.
Find a clean surface such as a kitchen top or table and place a sheet of baking paper on that surface. Make sure that sheet of paper is a bit bigger in diameter than your silkscreen. Place the silkscreen right above the baking paper.
Now, you want to place the cannabis trimmings on top of this silkscreen while making sure that any noticeably large pieces are broken into smaller ones. Using your hands, gently move around the trimmings in the silkscreen – this separates the plant material from the trichomes. Trace amounts of kief will start to form on the baking paper that’s beneath the screen.
Don’t stop moving the trimmings around until you see at least 10-20% kief beneath the sieve, in proportion to the trimmings you used. So for instance, if your trimmings amount to approximately 100g, then you should aim for 10-20g of kief.
Once you’ve completed sifting your trimmings, you need to press the collected kief. This is where the credit card comes in – form a uniform pile on the baking paper with the card and press it down into a thin hashish block.
Blending
Again, a very straightforward way of making hashish at home by simply using a few household items; you’ll need a coffee filter, a blender, cannabis trimmings, silkscreen, ice water and a fairly large glass jar.
Start by placing your trimmings in a blender full of ice and enough water to cover them completely. Blending for a minute approximately should yield a nice and thick, frothy mixture.
Drain the mixture through the silkscreen and into the large glass jar – this should be allowed to settle for at least 25-30 minutes. Now, pour about 2/3 of the blended mixture into the jar; you need to pour slowly otherwise some of the hashish at the bottom may be left behind.
Fill the jar all the way to the top with some more ice water and let the mixture settle for about 3 minutes. You need to repeat the previous two steps – pouring 2/3 of the water into the jar and adding more ice water to let the mixture settle for 3 minutes – before moving on to the final step.
However, before the final step can be executed, you must drain out all the water from the jar without losing any of that hashish. The remaining mixture can be strained using the coffee filter, after which it should be gently squeezed to remove excess water.
And now for the final step – the damp and cold mass you see after properly draining out the mixture is hashish. You’ll now need to dry it, after which it is ready for consumption.
What’s the Best Way to Consume Hashish?
This can be done in quite a few ways. Traditionally speaking, hashish has been taken orally as a solid or infused in a drink – such as the traditional Indian beverage “bhang”.
However, hashish can also be smoked in a cigarette or through a bong, either in itself or along with common cannabis flowers.
Certain varieties of hashish can melt away easily when vaporised on a hot surface – the process is referred to as dabbing. When dabbing hashish, screens need to be used, as resins sometimes leave carbon deposits behind since they may not melt properly.
A higher quality alternative is hashish oil like full-melt ice water hashish or full-melt dry sift which can actually melt completely on top of a nail, leaving no carbon deposits behind.
Since you may be just learning how to produce and consume hashish, you may want to consult a budtender in regards to the equipment that may be needed, in case you want to give something else a try other than the above 3 methods.
Closing – Hashish: The “Mainstream Cannabis”
Hashish is a widely consumed drug today, consumed both recreationally and medically. Products ranging from the traditional pressed varieties to full melt water types are available in nearly every market.
We hope this article has provided valuable insights into what hashish is and what are some of the most popular ways of making it, and consuming it.
Hashish has surely secured its place in the ever-changing cannabis industry, given the rise of the dabbing culture which has fuelled gravitation toward cannabis concentrates.
 
Using Bitcoin to Buy Cannabis Seeds – The Lightning Network

What is Bitcoin?
Even though in many parts of the world, people are still paying the conventional way using physical currency, a newer and easier-to-use virtual currency known as Bitcoin has sparked quite a revolution, when it comes to conveniently and quickly making online payments.
For a fact, many financial analysts and economists worldwide have unanimously declared that physical currency may have overstayed its welcome. The whole idea behind Bitcoin may soon make physical currency obsolete. So what is it exactly?
Bitcoin allows users to process payments using a virtual currency system – one that shares the exact same values all over the globe. This makes Bitcoin not just the world’s first successful crypto-currency but also the first ‘global’ currency of its kind.
The process is a walk in the park and extremely secure – when you make payments using Bitcoin, you are safe in the knowledge that you are engaging in true private transactions online – with no numbers or information to identify users on either end. There’s no need for middlemen to have transactions processed unlike conventional internet-based payments, and there’s also no need whatsoever to involve your bank. The sender and receiver are the only two parties that are actively aware of the transaction.
Since Bitcoin is a global virtual currency, it is not subjected to the typical currency manipulation practices majority of banks engage in. Instead, it incorporates highly specialised coding procedures to ensure stability and prevent manipulations in value from occurring. So, in a way, Bitcoin can be referred to as decentralised currency.
Why Choose Bitcoin Over Traditional Online Payment Methods?
To be frank, this comes down to the sheer simplicity and anonymity Bitcoin exclusively offers to its users. One might see Bitcoin payments as the online equivalent of meeting a seller in person and paying him/her cash, without anyone ever knowing or intervening. And to reiterate, there is no account of the transaction or the need for middlemen – apart from the acknowledgement or receipt you receive from the seller.
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Why Choose Bitcoin Over Other Payment Methods
For the first time, a virtual currency like Bitcoin ensures that every single one of your online transactions is kept 100% anonymous and fully confidential. And this makes the proposition of using Bitcoin to buy cannabis seeds very, very appealing.
Bitcoin offers a unique, safe and secure way to transfer money online as it is entirely impossible for hackers or third-parties to intercept transactions with the intent of stealing sensitive personal information. And since there are no middlemen involved, there’s no need to pay any banking or processing fees, or third-party transaction fees for that matter.
How Easy is Bitcoin to Use?

At Seedsman, we make it super-easy and convenient to buy cannabis seeds with Bitcoin. We recommend the Bitcoin Made Easy website for buying Bitcoins, as it is run by a group of seasoned techies who, in fact, have played a direct role in building the internet exchanges of the late 1990s.
In order to understand how easy it is to purchase Bitcoins online and use them to buy cannabis seeds, you need to understand how the Coinbase system works.
The tech veterans at Bitcoin Made Easy have sifted through all major Bitcoin Exchanges, Bitcoin spending and buying, and opening accounts. They have found Coinbase to be the best way, by far, for purchasing or selling Bitcoins worldwide.
Why choose Coinbase? Because it is not only really easy to use but also offers the lowest charges for purchasing Bitcoin through a debit or credit card. But that’s not all – Coinbase also offers £7.69 worth of free Bitcoins to new account users when they buy their very first £76.88 of Bitcoin signing up through this referral link. If you think about it, you’re not paying any fees at all on your first £153.77 of Bitcoin purchases, as long as you use this referral link.
Advantages to Using Coinbase for Purchasing Bitcoins
  • Coinbase services are available to users in nearly every major EU country including the UK, as well as Australia and the US
  • Purchased Bitcoins can be stored on the Coinbase network or mobile wallet
  • Very easy to use on your smartphone, desktop computer or tablet
  • Lowest fees of any Bitcoin exchange; between 0-4% (using the referral link to sign up)*
  • The quickest way to make Bitcoin transactions by far; no more than 15-20 minutes for the entire process
  • To avail the 0-4% fees, users must spend between £76.88 and £153.77 on Bitcoin purchases.
How to Use Coinbase
Using Coinbase is very simple and straightforward. All you need is:
  • A valid email address
  • A mobile phone, desktop computer or tablet
  • A credit or debit card (or bank account if desired)
  • And, a valid ID such as a driver’s license or E.G. Passport
Here’s a complete walkthrough on how to create a Coinbase account and start buying Bitcoins within minutes:
Navigate to this link and click on the ‘Buy Bitcoin at Coinbase Now’ tab. Sign up through this link and when you buy or sell $100 worth of Bitcoin, you’ll earn $10 worth of free Bitcoin. Go ahead and fill out the relevant details, create a strong password, click on the eCAPTCHA, certify that you’re 18 or older and click ‘sign up’.
A verification email will be sent to the registered email address that you provide – open it and verify your email address. In case you don’t see this verification pop up in your email, even after a few seconds, click the refresh icon in your browser and also check the Spam folder.

After you’ve selected your region, you’ll get a view of your Coinbase dashboard. This shows the latest exchange rates for Bitcoin along with other top virtual currencies. You’d want to click on ‘buy/sell’, then ‘add new payment method’ – out of the three options available, we’d highly recommend going with ‘credit card’ as it’s by far the fastest way to buy or sell Bitcoins and has less limitations.
After clicking on ‘credit card’, enter the relevant information, add your mailing address, click ‘next’ and then click ‘buy digital currency’. Verify your phone number, click ‘next’ and you’ll receive a verification text message containing a security code on the same phone number. Enter the code to verify your phone number.
Finally, you’ll be asked to submit a valid ID and photo for security purposes. You can hold up your ID to your computer’s webcam and follow the online prompts. Alternatively, you can also take a photo of your ID using your smartphone and upload it through the link Coinbase will send you. Verifying your ID may take a few minutes at best.
Now, under the ‘buy/sell’ tab, enter the amount you’d like to purchase and click the ‘confirm’ tab. And that’s all there is to it.
You can purchase more Bitcoins by repeating the same steps or start paying with it as desired – either by scanning the QR code from a web store with your phone to authorise payments. Or, in the Coinbase dashboard, under the ‘Accounts’ tab, choose your Bitcoin account and enter the Bitcoin wallet address of the individual or web store you want to pay. Enter the amount and click ‘send funds’.
How ‘Lightning Network’ Further Improves Bitcoin’s Scalability
As of late, Bitcoin has been facing minor hiccups in the form of scaling issues. Given the current capacity of 7-12 transactions per second, many users were left wondering if the Bitcoin network could grow enough to accommodate heavy usage and keep up with the likes of transactional giants like Visa.
Bitcoin, in its current technological state, may not be fully capable of scaling beyond the current capacity. Fortunately, thanks to a few clever minds at SegWit, Bitcoin scalability issues were addressed head on and while issues pertaining to transaction malleability were also directly dealt with. However, most notably, SegWit has paved the way for very promising upgrades which will seamlessly integrate with the Bitcoin network to improve scalability.
One of these upgrades is Lightning Network (LN) – widely considered to be the next big thing as far as upgrades to the Bitcoin network are concerned.
What Does LN Actually do and What Does it Mean to the Everyday Bitcoin User?
Without getting too technical, LN simply makes for much faster, cheaper, and higher volume Bitcoin transactions between users. So, in the simplest terms, LN connects nodes (users) within a web of payment channels (say, for the sake of Bitcoin transactions) which are entirely independent of the Bitcoin network itself. Through these channels, users or nodes can execute transactions in an ‘off-chain’ way.
To fully grasp and appreciate the concept, consider this:
Any two parties can establish a payment channel, right? However, let’s say, if Mark shares a channel with Mary, and Mary shares a channel with David, then Mark can also easily transact with David – thus, relaying the transaction through Mary. There’s no need for an ‘intermediary’ node as such. This means that a complex and interconnected network can accommodate users which are connected with each other across several interlinked channels.
All transactions conducted over LN are explicitly verified and maintained by LN nodes – they are not required to immediately settle on the native Bitcoin network. Therefore, Mark can conveniently send a few coins to Mary, and conversely, Mary can send a few back to Mark. And, all of this can be done without any confirmation wait time or paying miner fees.
Once Mark and Mary are done with their transactions, they will close the channel and settle the remaining net amount on the native Bitcoin network.
Implications of LN on Bitcoin
  • Transactions are trusted within milliseconds without any wait time for network confirmations
  • Real-time Bitcoin trading from a secure wallet without the need to deposit funds on exchanges
  • Improved privacy since only net transaction amounts will be visible on the blockchain
  • Crypto-crypto trading across different blockchains
  • Very minor fees for off-chain transactions made through LN nodes; no fees at all for miners before settling on-chain
  • Thousand-fold increase on average in regards to the Bitcoin network capacity
Place Your Seedsman Order through Bitcoin
Buying your seeds with us through Bitcoin is nothing short of an absolute breeze:
1. Browse our website, add your items to the shopping cart and choose your delivery method.
2. Choose your payment method as ‘Pay by Bitcoin’ – this gives you 4 hours to complete the order – however, we would recommend sending your Bitcoin order right away as it may take up to an hour to confirm the payment, in some cases.
3. Using your Coinbase dashboard or any other exchange you are setup on, navigate to the page which allows you to transfer your Bitcoin to us.
4. Enter how many Bitcoins you want to transfer. If you’re using Coinbase, you can scan the QR code that’s provided at the time of checkout. Confirm the transaction.
5. We’ll send you a payment confirmation via email.
Advantages of Using Bitcoin at Seedsman
We see to it that customers who use Bitcoin to purchase their cannabis seeds are adequately rewarded:
  • Enjoy 25% off on your first Bitcoin order; also applicable to those who have placed Bitcoin order with us in the past
  • Avail a 15% discount on every subsequent Bitcoin order – if any of those subsequent orders exceed €200, avail another 10% discount
  • Placing a €50 or higher order automatically entitles you to receiving 12 free seeds
  • Increase your total free seed count to 16 by placing a Bitcoin order of €100 or more
  • Use the Coinbase exchange to buy Bitcoins and receive $10 in free Bitcoin when you spend more than $100
Over 10,000 of our customers have paid for their Seedsman order using Bitcoin this year alone. Buy cannabis seeds with Bitcoin at Seedsman, and enjoy major discounts while effortlessly executing instant transactions in a 100% safe and secure way.
 
Bad Trip on Weed? Our Guide on What To Do

Anyone who’s taken cannabis regularly will know the symptoms of a bad trip, either because they’ve had one themselves or know someone who has.
If you’re in the middle of a bad trip, it can seem impossible to stop. There are a few different things you can try to alleviate the symptoms and bring yourself back down to Earth. The best solution, of course, is to avoid having a bad trip on weed altogether. A little knowledge and experience can make a big difference.
Here’s our guide to avoiding a bad trip as well as how to cope if you do get it wrong.
What’s a Bad Trip on Weed?
This is going to vary from person to person. Let’s face it, one individual’s high is another’s nightmare.
Your own psychology will play a part, so will your experience and even where you are at the time. If you’ve ever been too drunk, a bad trip on weed can seem a little like that. It feels as if you’ve taken way too much and you have no control over anything. Of course, a bad trip can happen even only taken a small amount of weed, particularly if you are not used to it.
In severe cases, it can be quite an unpleasant experience. You want it to stop but can’t find a way to ease the high or euphoria. You might see your heartbeat increase, your vision blur and get the sweats. The first time a bad trip on weed occurs it can be a pretty frightening experience. It can also include paranoia and feelings of anxiety.
What Causes a Bad Cannabis Trip?
It could be the particular cannabis strain you have taken. Trying new varieties delivers different highs, even for the most experienced among us. How you take your weed can change your experience too. If you’ve gone from traditional smoking to dabbing, for instance, you may take too much in one go and give yourself a bad trip.
People who consume edibles for the first time might experience a bad trip on weed – they eat too much thinking there’s not much effect, not realizing edibles can take a couple of hours to work. It’s usually not catastrophic and at least you’ll know better next time.
The big thing to remember is that even though you’re having a bad trip on weed, you’re not going to die. It will pass and you will start to feel better. It just might take a while before you come down and feel normal again.
What Are the Symptoms?
As we’ve said, this can vary from person to person. Some of the common symptoms of a bad trip on weed include:
  • You might feel your face becoming numb. This can be quite alarming but don’t let it worry you too much.
  • You may also start sweating and feel your heart rate or pulse increasing and you might feel short of breath.
  • Look in the mirror, and you might find that your face looks pale.
  • You may feel increasingly anxious and this can start to spill over into paranoia.
All this might make you think that you are having a psychotic episode but its most likely down to the weed. In some cases, because you feel afraid it can have an effect on your stomach. It’s not unusual to feel sick or even vomit.
The sensation of being too high may mean we’re a little irrational so understanding what is happening is important. It helps if you are with other people as they will be able to calm you down. If you are on your own, the trick is to try and relax and let the feeling pass.
We’ll cover some ways to do this below.
Do Different Types of Cannabis Give You a Bad Trip?
Like changing your drink, trying a different type of weed may well lead to a bad trip, especially if you choose a more powerful strain. Some of the super strong weeds out there nowadays are more likely to do this and you should try to avoid these, even when you are sharing a joint or two at a party. Our advice is to make sure you research what you are taking a little better and tailor your consumption to match.
Top Tips on Avoiding a Bad Trip on Weed
Preventing having a bad trip should be your first priority. With so many different factors involved, including your own personal biology and what’s on offer to smoke, it’s not certain that you can totally reduce the risk of getting it wrong.
  • Your environment can turn a normal trip into a bad one. Always makes sure that you’re in a comfortable, reasonably familiar location before you try anything new.
  • The same goes for who you smoke, vape, eat or dab weed with. If you’re stuck with strangers you’ve never met before it can exacerbate your symptoms and turn something bad but okay into an experience that’s nightmarish. Take your weed in the company of friends, not strangers.
  • If you’re taking a new strain of weed for the first time or using a different method of delivery, start small and wait for the effect rather than going in no holds barred.
  • Make sure that you take weed on a full stomach and have water to keep yourself fully hydrated.
  • Don’t mix weed with alcohol as it can exacerbate the high and take you out of your comfort zone.
What to Do When You Have a Bad Trip
The first thing to do is understand what a bad trip is so that you know what to look out for. You may find your anxiety levels starting to rise, for example, which is going to be a cue for you to do something about it.
The first thing that you physically want to do with a bad trip on weed is get yourself to a comfortable, hopefully familiar, place. You need to try and tell yourself this is only temporary. It will pass in a relatively short while. If you feel the bad trip coming, excuse yourself from the crowd and find somewhere quiet to sit.
Sweet things may help. Get yourself a sugary drink like a soda and put it down your neck. You can also try cake or cookies and chocolate just to give your blood sugar levels a boost. If you’re a regular coffee drinker, a few cups can lift your awareness but avoid this if you don’t have much caffeine normally as it can be counterproductive.
If you’re feeling panicked or paranoid, it is important to have someone with you to help you calm down and get you through the bad trip. Watching TV or listening to music might seem like a good idea but this can actually intensify your negative feelings if the wrong stuff is played.
Here are some common remedies for dealing with a bad trip on weed:
  • Relax: You’re going to be fine and this will all soon pass. Remind yourself that you’re not in danger and think about things that make you feel secure.
  • Try a squeeze of lemon: Limonene is a terpene that has been shown to reduce highs so this might help in the short-term.
  • Crunch a peppercorn: There’s anecdotal evidence that this works but no research to back it up. Worth a try, however, if you’ve got some handy in the kitchen.
  • Get some fresh air: Once you do start to come down a little, some fresh air is a good idea. Make sure you go with someone and don’t wander too far from your base.
  • Eat and drink: East something sweet and have plenty of water to flush things through your system. Staying hydrated should help keep the high under more control.
  • Talk it through: If you’re paranoid and out of it, it can be difficult to talk with someone but it can help settle you down.
  • Rest is the best therapy: When you can, sit back, close your eyes and rest. If you can drift off to sleep, you should wake up feeling a lot better.
Helping a Friend With a Bad Trip on Weed
If you are taking weed regularly, you are likely to come across someone else who is having a bad trip at some point and it’s important to understand how to handle them. You’ll need to be calm yourself and provide plenty of reassurance.
Try not to be too obsessive in helping them but just make sure they know you are there and listen to them if they start having concerns. Make sure they are kept hydrated and don’t let them try any more weed until they have recovered. If they want to go outside for fresh air, accompany them. The last thing you want is for your friend roaming the streets or out in the woods when they are feeling paranoid.While it may feel like the end of the world when you have a bad trip, the main thing to remember is that it won’t last. You’ll soon be feeling better and you’ll be just that little bit older and wiser to boot.
 
What does it Mean When a Strain of Cannabis is ‘Automatic’?

Many cannabis growers tend to look at online catalogues to find what they are looking for. And they’ll often come across strains that are ‘automatic’, or more specifically, the ‘autoflowering’ variety.
If you have ever wonder what an automatic strain is, then this article is all you need.
What is an Automatic/Autoflowering Strain?
The premise behind autoflowering strains is a very simple one: as time moves forward, they will ‘automatically’ flower, rather than flower according to a fixed or timed light cycle. Put another way, the cannabis plants flower automatically on their own after a fairly short vegetative period – no more than 2 to 4 weeks.
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However, this unique process cannot ensue without folding in genetics from the Cannabis ruderalis J plant, which has actually existed for several thousand years. This cannabis subspecies is very well known for its short stature and autoflowering characteristics.
When you cross the autoflowering ruderalis subspecies within a sativa or indica variety, you get a plant that does not need photoperiods to flower. Instead, it grows and flowers on its own. When mixed with either variety, autoflowering cannabis strains have the ability to produce superb vigour and potency.
Automatic cannabis strains are ideal for growers who are short on time, energy and especially space. In fact in this regard, feminised autoflowering strains are an excellent choice.
Traditional Strains vs. Autoflowering Strains
Let’s quickly pick apart some of the key differences between automatic strains and traditional cannabis strains. Autos do not require any kind of special light schedule that signals the plant to start budding, which holds true for photoperiod/traditional strains. In case of the latter, plants require more than 12 hours of darkness each day in order to initiate the flowering process.
When growing traditional strains out in the open, the flowering process naturally starts once the days get shorter. Therefore, outdoor growers need to plant their seeds in the spring season and choose or pick strains that are capable of fully flowering before winter arrives.
On the other hand, when it comes to growing photoperiod strains indoors, the grower can kick start flowering as he/she pleases – that is, by providing the plants longer dark periods. This can easily be accomplished by timing the grow lights to turn on after a set number of hours. So what this means is, 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness is required each day while the plants flower.
With automatic strains, growers can take a sigh of relief because there are no lighting schedules to worry about. Each autoflowering strain will bloom on its own after a few weeks, irrespective of the light schedule it is subjected to. Outdoor growers of autoflowering strains do not need to match up the strain with their local time zone. Neither are they required to plant it at the perfect time. All they have to do is plant the automatic strain during 2-3 months of consistently warm and sunny weather.
So in essence, there are actually multiple advantages to be had when growing autoflowering strains; the most notable one being that there are no lights schedules required. You only need to ensure that you have three months of warm and sunny weather that’s above 15.5°C – climactic conditions that are ideal for growing autoflowering strains.
So if you’re a grower who needs to harvest quickly before summer is even over, an autoflowering cannabis strain is your best bet.
Harvest Time
Autoflowering strains will only make vegetative growth for the first few weeks, that is, stems and leaves only. Once this short vegetative stage comes to an end, the plant will start producing buds and grow taller, even as the buds continue to form.
Typically, autoflowering plants will stop growing in an “up and out” pattern a few weeks prior to harvest. When this happens, the autoflowering plant tends to divert all its energy toward fattening up the buds. So don’t be surprised if the buds gain a reasonable amount of weight during the last couple of weeks.
When you purchase autoflowering seeds from a good and reputable breeder, they’ll let you know how long the strain requires to “autoflower”. However, you might have higher potency and produce better yields by leaving your autos a week or two longer than the recommended autoflowering period.
Photoperiod or traditional cannabis strains take a lot longer to harvest. Usually they are ready to harvest within 3 to 4 months after they have sprouted from the seed. However, the actual duration hinges quite heavily on your specific grow style and the strain you choose. In addition to the longer harvest time, the yields are also typically much lower.
Photoperiod plants perform at their level best when they are given a reasonable amount of time in the vegetative state before they can start flowering. They are also not well suited to quick harvests.
Yields
Autoflowering seeds typically yield up to 4 ounces of bud for each plant, although the amount of bud that’s produced is also dependent on the grow setup.
It’s not unusual for growers to yield only 1 to 2 ounces per autoflowering plant or even less – particularly in situations where they start off with poor genetics or rely on a mediocre lighting setup. It’s important to remember that just like any cannabis plant, autoflowering strains also need a fair amount of light to produce the best yields.
Unsurprisingly, growers who start off with great genetics, ideal conditions, and also have a fair amount of experience can easily yield as much as 6 ounces or more for every autoflowering seed.
On the subject of yields, it’s good to remember that a key advantage of growing automatic strains is that you can produce multiple harvests every year – given the short lifespan of every auto plant.
Photoperiod or a regular strains, on the other hand, vary a lot in terms of yields. This is mainly due to the fact that growers can exercise a lot more control over plant attributes like shape and size. This in turn, affects yields in a major way.
When growing all outdoors, yields will depend a lot on the climate. For instance, warm and sunny climate with several hours of light each day will produce bigger yields.
When going indoors, your growing setup is the single most important factor that determines yields.
Pros and Cons of Autoflowering Cannabis Strains
Just to quickly touch again on some of the previous points, there are many reasons that you might want to consider the autoflowering variety for both indoor and outdoor growing:
Pros
When grown outdoors, these strains will start to produce a lot of buds irrespective of how much sunlight they receive each day. This means you never have to worry about having a timed lighting setup, particularly if your aim is to have multiple harvests per season.
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When you grow them indoors, auto seeds let you rapidly grow plants from start to finish, because they have the ability to complete maturation after just three months.
Autoflowering strains are capable of easily withstanding over 12 hours of sunlight per day and still yield bigger buds in significantly less time as opposed to regular strains.
Auto strains are small and stealthy which means they are ideal for growing outdoors or ‘closet grows’, because not every grower wants their neighbours or bystanders to see what’s going on – and that’s completely okay!
Cons
However there are a few reasons so as to why autoflowering strains may not be the best choice, compared to regular sativa and indica plants.
Autoflowering strains are generally small stature-wise and are not capable of producing large yields.
Autoflowers require more electricity if grown indoors.
As a grower you don’t really have the ability to train your plants a certain way in order to capitalise on your grow space.
With this out of the way, we would still say that the Pros far outweigh the cons. Autoflowers have indeed come a long way and there have been major genetic improvements since. First of all, potency in autoflowering strains has dramatically increased since they were first introduced.
Second, there are now several hundred varieties to choose from. Because of these improvements alone, automatic seeds are a good choice for any curious grower who wants to try something new and non-traditional.
Medical Cannabis: Autoflowering Strains May be Better
Autoflowering strains may provide a lot of benefits for medical marijuana users because they tend to have higher CBD levels than photoperiod strains.
CBD is the main cannabinoid found in marijuana that offers medicinal benefits including anti-anxiety and anti-inflammatory properties. In contrast, majority of photoperiod strains available nowadays are very high in THC and low in the health promoting CBD.
This makes autoflowering seeds a very attractive choice indeed for medical marijuana users. In fact, there are specific autoflowering strains that are purely bred to have a high CBD content.
Closing Thoughts
If you’re a new grower then you should definitely try out autoflowering strains. More importantly, if you consume cannabis purely for medical reasons, autoflowering strains are the way to go.
 
Terpenes Deliver Flavor, Taste and Medical Benefits

Our understanding of cannabis and all its amazing constituents has improved considerably over the last twenty years. More research and legalization, not just in many areas of the US but around the world, have encouraged greater exploration into the possible health benefits.
There’s no doubt that people, in general, have a better, more positive approach towards cannabis than they did just a few decades ago. We’re beginning to understand that there could be major benefits in taking cannabis or its isolated components for therapeutic purposes.
One area that seems to be becoming a little clearer is terpenes. This is quite an exciting area for cannabis enthusiasts and researchers, not least those who are focused on the medical benefits. While much remains to be uncovered, head online nowadays and there’s a lot of talk about terpenes and their potential for helping with a wide range of conditions.
What are Terpenes?
Cannabis is not just CBD and THC, despite the fact that these are the most talked about compounds in online forums. Like most plants, there’s a whole bunch of different elements that could be useful.
We all know that different types of cannabis have different flavors and tastes. For example, Kush strains tend to have pungent, earthy aromas and can be citrusy or spicy. In some respects, tasting cannabis is similar to wine for many enthusiasts. The aroma and the taste is down to the terpenes that are found in each plant.
Terpenes are essential oils and they are produced by all plants, including cannabis. Their purpose seems to be to attract insects or ward off animals like herbivores which are likely to eat them. The terpenes are formed in the trichomes of the flowering plant and leaves. They’re very small, almost microscopic in some cases, but highly numerous mushroom-like growths. Whether you pick up a rose or have a cannabis plant in full bloom in your living room, what you are generally smelling are the terpenes.
Terpene development can be influenced by a range of different factors including the weather, how dry or wet the climate is, the type of soil the plant is growing in and even the time of day. Research so far has uncovered over 100 different terpenes relating to the cannabis plant and there may well be many more.
The exciting thing is not simply the smell and taste these terpenes produce but their potential medical benefits too. Some terpenes, for instance, have been associated with deep relaxation, others with greater focus. They may also interact in positive ways with other more recognized components such as THC and CBD either dampening or enhancing their performance.
A recent discovery is what is called the entourage effect where not just isolated chemicals such as THC are important but how they connect and interact with other components of the plant, including with terpenes. This is not that well understood at the moment but seems to be really important.
Connoisseurs have long had a thing for terpenes, purely on the basis of their flavors and tastes. But the change in how we perceive cannabis and its medical benefits are likely to be far more pivotal. While the research here still has a long way to go, the potential appears, at least initially, pretty promising.
The Common Cannabis Terpenes You’ve Never Heard Of
Unless you use cannabis for medicinal purposes, you may not have spent a lot of your time investigating terpenes at all. To help, here are some of the more prominent ones that have caught the imagination and which may have a lot of potential going forward.
1. Alpha-Pinene
As well as being found in pine needles and rosemary, alpha-pinene is also present in a number of cannabis plants. Characterized by a pine aroma, there are potential effects in helping improve memory and alertness. It may also counter the psychoactive impact of THC. The medical or therapeutic benefits which users have mentioned include alleviating asthma, reducing pain and combatting inflammation.
2. Limonene
If you only know a few terpenes, limonene is probably on your list. This citrus flavor and taste is popular among many users and is found in juniper and peppermint as well as cannabis. Potential medical benefits could include alleviating anxiety and depression, reducing pain and inflammation, and providing support for reducing nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
3. Myrcene
Myrcene is a terpene that delivers a rather complex aroma and taste. It’s a popular one with cannabis connoisseurs and mixes cloves and cardamom aromas in an earthy and musky scent. The characteristic of this terpene in connection with THC is a very relaxing and sedating effect. It’s used by many people for insomnia but also has potentially a role to play in pain relief and reducing inflammation.
4. Beta-Caryophyllene
If you prefer something a little spicier, this terpene brings the aromas of pepper and cloves. It’s largely used by people who are looking for stress and anxiety relief and it may also be useful in the treatment of depression.
5. Humulene
This has a more hoppy, earthy aroma and taste making it another popular choice for connoisseurs. The medical benefits are largely anti-inflammatory as well as anti-bacteriological and it is present in strains such as White Widow.
6. Linalool
Present also in lavender, cannabis seeds that have this terpene are noted for their floral aroma, delivering sedating and relaxing effects. It’s no surprise that linalool is used in helping people who suffer with anxiety and depression. It also has potential for pain relief and alleviating neurogenerative diseases such as MS.
7. Ocimene
Another woody and earthy scented terpene, present in many herbs such as basil and mint, ocimene has topical applications as an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial agent which could make it effective in lotions and skin tonics.
8. Terpinolene
It’s pine/floral aroma makes this an aromatic favorite with cannabis users. It’s a terpene that’s also present in nutmeg, apples and lilacs. Delivering relaxing effects, you can expect terpinolene to be used in combatting anxiety but it also has a role to play as an anti-fungal agent.
Why Temperature is Important for Terpenes
One thing we haven’t discussed yet is the effect that temperature has on terpenes. Key to their extraction is that each has its own vaporization temperature. For example, alpha-pinene vaporizes at 311°F while beta-caryophyllene does so at 266°F. These temperatures allow for the extraction of the terpenes directly rather than as a mix of other chemicals or compounds.
Knowing the temperature, for example, could be useful if you have a vaping device where it can be controlled. You could heat up your bud or leaves to the desired temperature and release more of the desired terpenes.
The potential here is still something that has to be better explored and a lot more work needs to be done.
Encouraging More Terpenes
If you grow your own plants, there are several things you can do to increase the number of terpenes that your crop produces. The first is choosing the right quality seeds before you even think about planting. We advise that you do your research and make sure that the cannabis seeds you decide to buy include the terpenes you are looking for.
The quality of the planting soil is always going to be a major issue if you want to grow a healthy plant with plenty of terpenes. A little low-stress training can also make a difference to the quality of your crop, although overdoing it can have exactly the opposite effect. Optimum lighting and the right temperature for your plant are also things you need to monitor closely.
The Future of Terpenes
This is a pretty exciting development for the cannabis industry and particularly for those who use it for therapeutic purposes. With the legalization of cannabis for both recreational and medical uses in recent years, we should hopefully expect more research to be done in this area.
Being able to carefully control the temperature when heating up cannabis also gives many users more control. You might also expect to see cannabis products coming onto the market which will have varying levels of particular terpenes or specific mixes of different concentrates. The technology and the research is, therefore, allowing us to be more focused in this area and for those with therapeutic needs to tailor their cannabis use more closely to their condition.
Of course, there’s still a long way to go but there is already anecdotal evidence out there which suggests terpenes certainly have many beneficial effects. We just have to wait and see what the research uncovers in the next few years.
 

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