How Spain Influenced the America Cannabis
CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Culture, Offbeat by

How Spain Influenced the America’s with Cannabis

How Did Cannabis Make its Way to the America’s?

Its National Hispanic Heritage Month. The time where we recognize Americans with ancestry in Spanish-speaking nations. To help bring awareness of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we explore Spain’s role in bringing marijuana to the America’s. How hemp made its way to California and how cannabis spread across the U.S. We also explore how a famous Mexican folk song referencing marijuana came to be.

The Cannabis Journey

Cannabis plants first started in Central Asia, in the regions of Mongolia and southern Siberia in 2737 BC. From China, coastal farmers brought the plant to South Korea. Then it reached India, where it was used to relieve anxiety.
Between 2000 BC and 1400 BC, cannabis made its way to Russia and the Ukraine. Germanic tribes eventually got their hand on cannabis and introduced it to central Europe. From there it made its way into Britain during the 5th century with the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
Cannabis migrated to various regions across the world over the following centuries. It traveled through Africa and reached South America before turning northwards. Cannabis arrived in North America with the Spanish and Portuguese during their bloody conquests.

Mayans, Aztecs and Hallucinogens Before Cannabis

‘Entheogen’ is used to describe plants and substances used for traditional sacred rituals. In the early history of Mesoamerica, entheogens were widely used to achieve transcendence. They included all kinds of inebriants from tobacco and marijuana to alcohol and opium in their religious practices. These psychedelic substances played an important role in the spiritual practices of American cultures for millennia before western settlers arrived.
The Mayans flourished in Central America for nearly 2000 years. Yet their last major city fell to the Spanish in 1697 as did their religion. The Mayan’s religious practices included communication between the real world and the spiritual world. They used herbs such as mushrooms and other hallucinogens to help ‘bridge the gap’ between the two worlds.
The Aztecs had similar practices as the Mayans. During the 14th-16th centuries, they used entheogenic plants and animals within their societies. The Aztecs used several types of hallucinogenic plants and used animals as sacrifices to the Gods.

Spain and the Spread of Hemp Production

Before the English and French were planning trips to the new world, Spain was promoting hemp production in its colonies throughout South America. In 1545, hemp seeds were sown in the Quillota Valley in Chile.
Hemp was mostly used to make rope for the army stationed in Chile. The rest of the hemp was used to repair and replace worn-out rigging on ships docked in Santiago, Chile. Surpluses were shipped to north Peru.
Hemp was eventually brought to Mexico by Pedro Cuadrado. He was a conquistador in Corte’s army. Cuadrado and a friend raised a successful hemp production business in Mexico. In 1550, the Spanish governor forced the business to limit production because the natives were using the plants for something other than rope.

Hemp Travels to California

In 1801, the Spanish chose the area around San Jose as an experimental farm area to raise hemp. From 1807 to 1810, California increased annual hemp production to over 22,000 pounds. During the Mexican revolution of 1810, California became detached from the main seat of government. Subsidies that stimulated hemp production ended, and the commercial production of hemp was shut down.

Mexican Mary and Jane

Toward the end of the 19th century, cannabis was in Mexico. It was found growing wild and peasants grew it to smoke in pipes. They also ate it with sugar cane, milk and chiles. Witchdoctors also used cannabis to help the locals cure their illnesses. Within the first few decades, cannabis cigarettes became common, and the contents were called “marijuana”.
Now-a-days, marijuana means cannabis. But no one is sure why cannabis cigarettes were called marijuana. Today we know marijuana cigarettes as joints, jays, doobies or blunts. One possible root of the word seems to come from the Mexican military slang “Maria y Juana” which means Mary and Jane. As in a prostitute or brothel where marijuana cigarettes were bought and sold.
The word marijuana could have also derived from the Spanish word “mallihuan” which means prisoner. And the word mallihuan could have been altered later to sound like marijuana. And don’t forget how Larry Anslinger popularized the term in an attempt to demonize the plant. However the word marijuana came to be, it became widespread in Mexico and eventually made its way to America.

Welcome to the US Cannabis

Cannabis eventually ‘arrived’ to the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. During that time, immigrants fled to the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1911 and brought weed with them. The revolution overthrew General Porfiro Diaz in 1910, which increased the Mexican migration and the use of marijuana in the US.
Eventually, the migrant workforce pushed deeper into the US. The towns where they migrated to first were in Texas and New Mexico. But they camped in shanty towns and there was an influx of people trying to find work as unskilled laborers. In order to find a better place to live and seek better opportunities, migrants moved further north.
During most of the 20th century, newspapers disseminated racist propaganda and stereotypes. They did this partly to prevent a perceived invasion and partly because they could. Mexicans had an association with Cannabis that most Americans didn’t. This made targeting cannabis users easier to justify socially than targeting people with Mexican heritage.
Targeting marijuana has continued to the modern day. It remains a stand-in for racial prejudices as the current American President regularly shows. Social appropriation has tied American’s to cannabis like never before. What once was a method to persecute minorities is beginning to backfire on privileged majorities as legalization spreads.

The Famous ‘Roach’

General Diaz was overthrown by Francisco Madero. One of the men in Madero’s forces was Doroteo Arango, who we know today as Pancho Villa. Pancho Villa and his loyal men turned on their commanding officer General Victoriano. Villa was eventually arrested and condemned to death. But he escaped prison and joined up with his troops called the Division del Norte and fled to the US.
Soon, the Mexican’s created a popular folksong, “La Cucaracha”, which became the anthem of Villa’s army. It was a derogatory song against Villa. Villa was always seen smoking marijuana. And his army wouldn’t move without toking before battles.
In the clean version of the song, Villa is the roach who couldn’t walk without his back leg (aka couldn’t walk without his weed). In the original version, it straight up says he couldn’t walk without his weed. It is a song so popular that many outside the Hispanic culture know it to this day. But many people only know of the short clean version. Maybe we can update the song to work for today’s ‘roaches’.

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CategoriesCulture, List by

5 Ways To Tell Your Parents That You Smoke Weed

So you want to tell you parents you smoke weed, but you don’t know how to? That’s fair. Been there. No matter what age you are, unless it’s just blatantly obvious that you parents are cool with it, it’s still kind of awkward to be like “Yo parents, I know as a kid you told me not to, but man…ya boy be blowing big kush. Like it’s really not a game. I gets high.”

Me personally, that’s kiiinda how it happened for me. Only, ummm..not as subtle. I was headed to my parents from The Grocery Store™ with a fresh sack of Dat Loudium in my pocket. I’m high as fuck, but the whole time I’m thinking “Yo remember to take that out of your pocket. Remember to take that out of your pocket.” What happens?

You: “You forgot to take it out of your pocket.”

Yup, you guessed right. I walked into my parents house with an eighth of skunkington in my right pocket. Gave my mom a hug with the right side, and then she goes “Aaaanddd you smell like smoke.” Up until this point, I’m fairly certain she knew that I smoked, but this was the first time it was just blatantly out there so I told her. Yeah, I smoke and I also get paid to write about it.

Chances are you’d prefer to not have a pocket full of goodies at your confession. For that reason, here are a few other ways to tell you parents that you enjoy a nice dose of THC every once in awhile:

1. Text

This is the most practical way. Just toss it out in a text and wait for the three dots to pop up. Just outta nowhere on a window hope into the family group chat with a “Hey, what are y’all doing?” Then when you get courtesy You?, hit them with a “Not shit, just smoking a blunt and chillin.” This gives you the power of disappearing if they start coming at you with crazy phone calls. But it’s already out there so next time you see them, the conversation is already warming up. Think of it as the appetizer before the entree.

2. Email a Dear John Letter

This is for everyone who wants to be taken seriously. Come at them with an email like a professional. Hit them with the To Whom It May Concern greeting, complete with a fire Thanks For Your Consideration signature. This right here says “Hey, i get high, but I’m still on top of my business.” Maybe even attach a resume of your cannabis career thus far: major in college; time in the industry; relevant experience, references; all of that.

3. Walk into Sunday Dinner with the red eye

This is for my people that want to say “Look, I smoke weed and you can’t do shit about it. This is me. This is who I am.” If you’re the type of person who likes to attack issues head-on, but you haven’t been able to do so with a parental cannabis confession for some reason, this is the method for you. Just walk into the crib/restaurant like a young Dank Lucas on your boss shit, and let it all out there. The message will be loud and clear: “Ya boy is high, are we thinking the calamari for starters or what?”

4. Hot Box Your Car then pick them up for lunch

This is for my passive-aggressive people. Hotboxing the whip then scooping up the rents for a club sandwich at McCalisters is a nice way of confessing. Cause if you don’t address the issue, they won’t. So you just wait for a comment about that smell then say “Well, I’ve been meaning to ask you…ya boy gets eights for $50, but if y’all wanna split something…” And if they don’t say anything, they’ll still talk about it amongst themselves which still gets the job done for you.

5. Start dressing like a stereotype

When you think pothead, the first image in your head is a person rocking Bob Marley tie-dye shirts, weed socks, and drug rug hoodies. I know I’m right because as soon as you see a stranger dressed as such, you automatically assume they’re high or know where to find that fire. Your parents are definitely no different. If you can’t bring yourself to straight jump out the window with I Smoke Weed tatted on your forehead, then try this silent approach. Grow your hair out, toss on a Rastafari wristband, and start talking about how y’all should take a family trip to Amsterdam. If that doesn’t work, then shit, you’ve got 4 other options listed above. Good luck, my friends.

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CategoriesCulture, Science by

Deep Water Culture: Growing with the Flow

Who wants to grow Deep Water Culture cannabis?

From geriatrics treating depression or arthritis to college hippies in a dorm room, people everywhere want to try their hand at growing some dank herb. It can be tempting to grow your own when thinking about the cost of a dispensary or going through “my guy”. The hundreds to thousands of dollars spent on equipment is an investment in never having to pay for weed again. Except for the power… and the nutrients… and the lights…
With so many states voting to advance recreational regulations, there has been an explosion in the recreational farmer population. Many people come upon a seed in their flower while loading a bowl and keep it while others will scour the internet for weeks to find the perfect pairing of genetics. Since seeds remain viable for years under normal circumstances, it can be easy to amass a small collection of genetics.
Fresh Weed Smell
Once the decision is made to germinate the seed, preparations must be made for the growing process. Growing in soil has been the standard for centuries but advances in technology and scientific understanding of plants has changed the growing landscape. Advances in lighting tech over the last few decades introduced LED lighting while chemists have been playing with different forms and formulations of nutrient substitutes that are like natural and synthetic steroids for cannabis.

What Is Deep Water Culture (DWC)?

Before we get down to the details, let’s get an overview of this style of system. In a DWC system, the roots of a plant are kept in a well-oxygenated solution made up of water and nutrients. A net pot or grow cup is attached to the center of a lid while the roots are allowed to cascade into a nutrient solution in a reservoir below. Air is pumped into the reservoir with an air pump and an air stone.
This setup keeps the water supplied with enough oxygen for the roots to breath. The grow pot or net cup is filled with a grow media such a gravel, clay pellets, lava rock etc. and suspended in the solution. Most DWC systems use timers to pump water automatically by flooding the baskets. This feeds the roots dangling into the buckets below.
One great aspect of any DWC system is that they are easy to customize, meaning they can adapt to almost any size grow space. It allows new growers to start out with smaller gardens with anywhere from one to six-plant sites, while larger format grows can add on an unlimited number of plant sites to their gardens.

There are three critical parts to Deep Water Culture.

growing weed
Oxygen: Because the roots are in the water and not soil, the water needs to be well oxygenated so the plant doesn’t drown. This is usually done with an air pump and air stone.
Water: This system works as if you’re growing in soil but permanently watering your plants. Pumps, timers and monitors relieve a large amount of the work by automating the lighting, watering, aeration and even some feeding elements of the grow.
Nutrition: Quality soil contains all of the micro and macro nutrients that plants use to survive and thrive.  Because DWC doesn’t use soil, supplementing the oxygen-rich water with nutrients allows the plants to grow properly.
Popping a seed forces the cultivator to commit to caring for the plant. For those more inclined to the DIY genre of living, Deep Water Culture (DWC) is ideal. It requires a bit of micromanaging but offers many advantages to traditional growing at an approachable level to novice growers and obnoxiously handy-people alike.

It is called Deep Water Culture for two reasons.  

deep water culture 1
First, it typically uses a deep reservoir that can hold water.  More water means more stability in your nutrient solution but systems as small as 5 gallons are doable. Small systems are more difficult to keep balanced as well because of the reduced margin of error buffer zone. Some automation is required to ensure stability in the system while the cultivator sleeps but that just means less monitoring and maintenance!
The second reason is because of how the root mass is continuously submerged in water.  Other methods like ebb and flow systems expose the plant’s root zone to air and drench them in water periodically.  In DWC, the plant’s root system is mostly submerged around the clock. This makes oxygenating the water a necessity.
Because of how sensitive this style of cultivation is to temperature and nutrient levels, many growers invest in chillers and reverse-osmosis machines to ensure the water remains in optimal condition for the plants. Once again, the automation of water coolers streamlines the process and can be considered mandatory for commercial applications.

It’s not all smelly flowers and happy hippies.

processing room
There are some issues with this type of system that can cause headaches down the road. These are mostly avoidable if regular maintenance is performed. Like mentioned earlier, in small systems, pH, water level, and nutrient concentration may fluctuate wildly. This makes the margin for error on these systems extremely small and requires constant monitoring.
An electricity outage or a pump failure can be a disaster. The plants use up the oxygen available in the water quickly when everything is going well. A plant can easily drown if the power is not restored. Even if the power is restored quickly, your roots may still “drown” in the low-oxygen nutrient solution if it timers get reset from the outage.
If a grower is willing to overcome the challenges involved in Deep Water Culture growing, the results are amazing. People report as much as 20% increases in overall yield and only needing half the flowering time that soil provides. Side by side tests by everyone from seed banks to home growers repeatedly show that the extra effort it takes to keep a DWC setup in the green more than makes up for it in the bottom line. Thanks for reading.

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Guides, Science by

Treating Common Cannabis Pests

Spider mites, thrips, fungus gnats…

If you are a cannabis grower you’ve likely been warned about these insects more than once. There are many pests that can endanger your crops. But some turn up a lot more often than others. Knowing how to identify and deal with the most common offenders can  be the difference between doing some extra work and losing a whole crop.
To start off, the best way to prevent a garden infestation is through prevention. Being aware of the symptoms and, above all, knowing how to eradicate them efficiently can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Not to mention months of caring for them. The main goal is to not give any potential pests or diseases a place to hide/nest/grow. This is best accomplished with some soap.
Wash the walls, floors and all surfaces with soap and water. Using diluted chlorine, bleach (although never together) or other disinfectant works too. Do the same with pots, buckets, utensils and any other equipment you plan to use. Make sure that nothing comes into the garden that might be able to carry stowaways.

It’s important to make sure everything is clean inside and out.

When changing reservoirs, make sure to wash and disinfect them as well. You never know what might be growing in there, even if the previous plant didn’t show signs of problems, eventually something will go wrong.
You may also want to cover the floor with plastic sheeting. The kind available at most home improvement stores but thick enough that you won’t tear through it. Carpets and similar flooring types make great homes for both pests and molds/fungi. Covering them with plastic ensures that they remain in good condition and won’t offer sanctuary to pests.
Keeping your air and water temperatures along with room humidity at the ideal levels while using adequate air circulation will prevent most pests/infections from ever getting started in a marijuana grow. As will filtering the air intake to block the path many marijuana pests use to gain access to the plants.

Soil-borne pests

One of the many advantages to using hydroponic/aeroponic systems to grow cannabis is that they prevent many insect and other infestations. There is no place for many types of larvae to incubate or hatch. When choosing soil, look for sterilized or composted soil. If using native soil, make sure to sterilize or compost it as well to prevent hitchhikers.
Covering soil in diatomaceous earth will prevent flying and crawling insects from laying eggs in your corp. This is because the sharp edges damage their tiny bodies like rubbing them across sand-paper. A less effective alternative uses a 1/2” or so of fine perlite on top of the soil as a barrier. Insect eggs generally don’t grow in perlite and most insects wont burrow deep enough to hit soil.

 Spider mites

garden pestsBest Prevention:
Keep the room clean throughout the grow. Fully disinfect and sterilize everything before attempting to start the grow. Also make sure to keep the room tidy and free of excess soil.

How to Identify:

Spider mites live underneath the leaves plants and are invisible to the naked or untrained eye. The mites drink the chlorophyll for sustenance. They also have eight legs which classifies them as a tiny spider instead of as an insect.
Spider mites are visible under a magnifying power of 15x or more. The magnified mites are whitish, red, or (most commonly) brown with two spots. These mites spin webs which makes them easier to spot. Once seen, it unfortunately means the mites are already a generation or two in.
Misting the undersides of leaves reveals the webs easily to the naked eye. Once fertilized, females remain so for life. After mating they can lay about 100 eggs every 5 days. With 75% of all spider mite eggs being female, their numbers can grow rapidly.

Repression Measures:

Spider mites ideal temperatures range between 70 and 80F or 21-27C. They also need average to high humidity to stay happy. Cooling a grow room to 60F/16C and dropping the relative humidity slows the reproduction rate of the spider mite.
Cooling the room reduces the damage an infestation can do. At 50% humidity and below the mites start getting uncomfortable. By spraying jets of water across undersides of leaves, growers can blast larger colonies loose and slow the spread of these pests considerably.

Best Predators:

Neoseiulus (Amblyseius) californicus and Mesoseiulus (phytoseiulus) longipes are the two most common and effective options out there. They can eat up to 20 eggs or 5 adult mites every day. And once their food supply runs out, they die off.

Sprays:

Neem oil is the most effective spray available. Other effective methods include pyrethrum, horticultural oil, and insecticidal soap. Spraying three times at 5 to 10 days apart should destroy a mite population if the room remains clean. Spider mite eggs hatch after 5-10 days which makes a second application necessary.
The first spray kills the adults while the second destroys newly hatched mites. A third application will kill any stragglers left behind. Make sure to also cycle to another chemical if using pyrethrum to spay frequently. This ensures mites don’t develop a resistance to the synthetic chemical. Several miticides have DDT or fungal relatives that are toxic if inhaled by humans so choose your miticide carefully.

Thrips

Best Prevention:

Keeping a clean grow area is the only defense against a thrip infestation. These miniscule insects avoid detection by even by the most cautious grower until they reach damaging levels. Best to make sure they don’t feel welcome in the garden in the first place.

how to Identify:

The thrip hits greenhouse more than any other garden. It’s difficult for the thrip to reproduce in large quantities outdoors and they must hitchhike into indoor gardens. Their small size helps them fit through all but the finest screens and finters.
Thrips can be almost any color, move very quickly and can fly which can make it hard to get a good look at them. Thrips tend to move in herds though, grazing tiny strips off the top of leaves like tiny lawnmowers. This can strip plants of chlorophyll so thoroughly that the leaves become brittle, dark, and begin to crumble. Tiny black lines across leaf surface are fecal trails left after gorging themselves.
The flying thrip easily infests gardens if protected from outdoor conditions. The female bores a hole into the plant and leaves her eggs in a hole. The opening is so small a magnifying glass is needed to even see it. In marijuana, the thrip colonies primarily infest and reproduce inside buds. A good shake of a cola infested with thrips produces a cloud as the tiny pests fall, jump and fly  out of the buds.

Repression Measures:

Using powerful fans to move air throughout a greenhouse or growroom can prevent the thrip from latching on to plants or taking flight. Regularly misting plants with water will flood the thrips and slow their travel, reproduction, and minimize their ability to damage the plant. Sticky traps do help, however the thip doesn’t migrate much. Which reduces the effectiveness of sticky traps.

Best Predators:

Nearly any predatory mite can effectively battle thrips. Parasitic wasps work but the size of thrip populations limit their ability to be effective. You might be able to see herds skittering across your plant. And while crushing them will reduce their numbers, it is of course not effective overall.

Spray:

Pyrethrum or insecticidal soap sprayed 2-4 times at 5-10 day intervals is the recommended treatment.

Fungus Gnat

Best Prevention:

Keep the relative humidity of your garden low, and don’t over water. Make sure the surface of your grow medium doesn’t stay soggy. Covering hydroponic medium surfaces also prevents growth of green algae which can entice these pests.

How to Identify:

Fungus gnats attack plants during their adult and larval stages. The maggots are almost invisible to the human eye. This is compounded by their see-through bodies and a black heads. The maggots infest the upper roots of plants and will spread throughout an entire hydroponic root system.
Fungus gnat maggots love dark, dank, and water soaked environments. Checking the medium at the base of a plant reveals these pests. The gnat larvae are also perfectly happy going through their life in rockwool. They infest root systems, damage larger roots and consume root hairs. This results in the plant weakening, slowing its growth, and visible fading of foliage.
Adult gnats are normally grey to black, so small they are hard to see and have disproportionately long legs. Females are prolifically breeders, laying an average of 200 eggs weekly. They can also usually be found at the base of your plant along with their maggots. They basically have a Hulk-like grip and are basically impossible to remove by force.

Repression Measures:

Damaged roots make marijuana insanely vulnerable to several types of fungus and prevents nutrient uptake. Maggots will consume decaying plant matter. This means that infestations reproduce faster the more damaged your plant becomes. Reducing surface moisture in your plants medium will slow fungus gnats reproduction dramatically. basically, the drier the better. Applying an anti-algae product to the base of plants kills any green algae currently growing. It also reduces the number of food sources of maggots. Yellow sticky traps placed 2 inches away from the growing medium will catch most adults looking to spread.

Best Predators:

There are no predators proven to be effective at controlling gnat populations themselves. Although the predatory soil mite Hypoaspis and the nematode Steinemema feltiae severely impact the insect population in soil grows. Unfortunately, they are not effective countermeasures for hydroponic applications. It is also impossible to force them out. Swatting a few adults doesn’t kill the eggs they lay underground.

Spray:

Neem or insecticidal soap applied as a soil drench kills eggs and larvae in 1-3 applications. Spray containing the fungal culture Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bt-i) successfully eradicates adult gnats. The soil drenches and spray should be applied simultaneously every 5-10 days.

Do you agree?

There are way more ways to fight off these pests than I could possibly list on my own. Let us know in the comments below what pests you have come across and what you have found to be effective. I’d love to hear what else you think should have been included. Thanks for reading.

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Guides, Science by

Weed Grinder: The Ultimate Buyers Guide

In the course of every cannabis consumers journey, the question of what grinder to use comes up. Are they even needed? Is it worth it to buy a high end model? Which one is best? There seems to be an infinite supply of identical products on the internet that come in a wild range of prices making the choice even more overwhelming.
The explosion of the legal cannabis industry has created room for a new generation of paraphernalia peddlers to rise and claim that their grinder is the best ever. Space Case, Medtainer, Phoenician, and Santa Cruz Shredder are just a few of the names that come up regularly in the conversation about quality. These companies have built a reputation for excellent products but cost a pretty penny.
Finding the right weed grinder can be a frustrating and expensive process. Nobody wants to spend $100 on a grinder only to find that a $5 one works better for them. Yet if a high end grinder is so expensive, shouldn’t it be that much better than a cheap one? But what it really comes down to is how it affects the smoking experience. Grinding is not required for most methods of cannabis consumption but it does a few really great things for it.

What does grinding actually do?

By breaking up the bud, more of the weeds surface area is exposed. Surface area is important for consuming cannabis flower. The higher the surface area, the more efficiently THC is vaporized so grinding will produce a stronger hit than otherwise.
Burning (or vaping) ground product also produces a more flavorful hit. Terpenes (the chemicals that make up smells) exposed by grinding increase the aroma before, the flavor during and the taste after a hit. It can be slightly harsher from the increased smoke density but the overall experience is of a higher caliber.
It’s not just the flavor that gets a boost either. Because of the consistent and small size of particles after grinding, it is easier to make every bowl the same size. Grinding simply produces a more consistent product to smoke or vape. People interested in monitoring the amount of cannabis they consume or trying not to overload a vape pen will find that grinding the product makes a big difference.
grinder

What is the difference between them?

There are a lot of options when it comes to getting an herb grinder. Most differences can be boiled down into variations of materials, styles and features. A $100 grinder may perform worse than a $5 version in many situations if it is significantly smaller/larger or produces a course grind.
When comparing grinders, it is important to think about how you intend to use it. If most sessions require less than a gram of product, a grinder that can hold an ounce of product will be less effective than one that can hold an eighth. People with arthritis or carpel tunnel may find a larger grinder with a crank handle easier to use than a small one with threads.
Cheap grinders also have a tendency to stick or jam up over time. Occasional users may not experience a perceivable difference between two models. If grinding cannabis is part of a daily routine, the smooth action of higher end models can make a big difference. Most of the difference between high and low end grinders is due to quality of materials and finishes.

What kind of materials and finishes are safe?

Grinders come in every material possible. From wood to titanium, as long as the material is stable enough, it can be used to make a grinder. That doesn’t mean that all materials are made equally though. Glass makes a great pipe but a very bad grinder. The brittle nature of glass makes chipping and breaking under normal use almost guaranteed so people don’t normally produce glass grinders.
Materials like aluminum and acrylic are cheap, stable and are unlikely to shatter under normal use so many manufacturers rely on them. Over time, grinders made from these materials will wear out and wear off. Small pieces of plastic or metal can work their way into the product you are grinding.
Materials like titanium, food grade polyethylene and ceramic are strong enough to resist wearing out and are significantly safer to use. Since titanium and ceramic are expensive to produce, many manufacturers will use an aluminum base and coat it with a thin film of the more expensive material. As long as the finish remains intact, there is little risk of contamination to the user and it then becomes a matter of style.

What are the main styles of grinder?

The most popular styles of grinder are manual and range from two to four pieces. Electric grinders are becoming more popular but have yet to dominate the market. They mainly serve the subsection of the community that loves gadgets or has motor-control difficulty.
Each style has a specialized use and will function better in situations it is designed for than the other styles. Manufacturers classify their grinders by the number of pieces and the diameter of the assembly.
Two piece grinders are best when used indoors and with a tray to dump the ground material. Three piece grinders remove the need for an extra tray while four piece add a screened off area at the bottom. The screen separates the trichomes that break off during the grinding process and collects them for later use.
Since trichomes are the plants chemical factories, this fine powder is very high in cannabinoids like THC and CBD. Vaporizers work best when using finely ground product so 4 piece models are very popular. Any style will produce vaporizable product as long as the teeth grind the cannabis evenly.

What about the teeth?

The parts of the grinder that actually do the work are called the teeth. They can come in a few shapes and configurations in any style or material of grinder. Their whole purpose is to break up the cannabis evenly but they go about it in different ways.
Pin shaped teeth are found on wood grinders pretty often and are better for grinding sage or thyme than cannabis.Diamond shaped teeth tear through dense nugs and can break up stems that are dry. They act like scissors, shearing the bud apart. They have straight sides and are the most common type of teeth on aluminum grinders.
Pyramid shaped teeth are able to produce a more consistent grind than diamond teeth but also produce smaller chunks. These are common on higher end grinders but can still be found on low end models. If these teeth are cheaply produced, the tips can sheer off and contaminate the cannabis. Inhaling burning acrylic or aluminum is dangerous and can have long term health consequences so they are best to avoid.

What size is right?

Most stores will stock a few different sizes of the same grinder. The manufacturers classify their sizes based on diameter. So a 2.5″ grinder is about two and a half inches from side to side. Each size generally corresponds to a different product amount. 1.5″ models are great if grinding less than 2 grams of cannabis while a 3.5″ model will chew through an ounce in no time. In the end, it comes down to personal preference and need. Does it feel good in the hand? Does it have the right number of pieces? Is it made of high quality materials? If so, it should serve you well in the years to come. Thanks for reading.
 
 

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Guides, Science by

Accidents and the Dangers of Driving on Weed

Most people have been taught that alcohol increases the risk of accidents.

Smoking and driving can get you a DUI for an accident even in states where cannabis is legal. Current state laws for marijuana have focused on regulating it like alcohol while on the road. This is especially true when it comes to consuming and driving. Yet evidence of marijuana’s culpability in on-road accidents is difficult to prove.
Many states have reduced penalties for cannabis related crimes over the last few years. Yet as states continue to loosen regulations on marijuana safety, law enforcement is struggling to figure out how to establish a legal limit for drivers. They have focused on setting a blood-content test just like the .08 limit for alcohol.
A new study shows the challenges in accurately testing drivers.
One of the most difficult parts of testing is developing a threshold for what’s considered too high to drive. The conductors of the study concluded that “THC concentrations drop rapidly during the time required to collect a blood specimen in the U.S., generally within two to four hours.”
The low amount of time cannabis remains active for oral tests using the drivers’ saliva make it harder to fail than traditional tests. Saliva tests can be done roadside without a long wait but researchers found oral tests don’t provide “a precise measure of the level of impairment.”
Politicians are hesitant to implement concentration-based cannabis-driving legislation because it might ” unfairly target individuals not acutely intoxicated, because residual THC can be detected in blood for up to a month of sustained abstinence in chronic frequent smokers.” Depending on the direction that the new Attorney General Jeff Sessions takes the Justice Department over the coming years, detecting residual cannabinoids may be more important than registering intoxication.

Smoking weed is not safe while driving.

Cannabis intoxication has been shown to mildly impair a drivers psychomotor skills. It doesn’t appear to be severe or long lasting though. In driving simulator tests, this impairment was typically manifested by decreasing driving speed and needing more time to respond to emergency situations.
Yet this impairment does not appear to play a significant role in on-road traffic accidents. A review of seven different studies involving 7,934 drivers showed in 2002, “Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes.” And it’s not like people haven’t tried to prove a link either.
A Massive body of research exists that explores the impact of marijuana on psychomotor skills and actual driving performance. Researchers have done driving simulator studies, on-road performance studies, crash culpability studies, and reviews of the existing evidence. To date, the result of this research has shown how mildly cannabis affects driving abilities but that won’t stop the cops from hauling you off for having it in your system if you get in an accident.

Bad accidents

Marijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills.

Yet it does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol. Researchers conducting a study for the National Institute on Drug Abuse said alcohol “significantly increased lane departures/minimum and maximum lateral acceleration”. Cannabis did not have the same correlation between consumption and decreased performance.

Researchers for the Highway Traffic Safety Administration funded study concluded Cannabis-influenced drivers are better able to measure their intoxication “may attempt to drive more cautiously to compensate for impairing effects, whereas alcohol-influenced drivers often underestimate their impairment and take more risk.”

People keep studying the link between cannabis, alcohol and car accidents.

The prevalence of both alcohol and cannabis use and the extreme morbidity associated with car crashes has lead to repeated research on the link between the two. According to another study, “drunk drivers are involved in 25% of motor vehicle fatalities, and many accidents involve drivers who test positive for cannabis.”
The researchers say that while both alcohol and cannabis impair performance in a “dose-related fashion” the “effects of cannabis vary more between individuals than they do with alcohol because of tolerance, differences in smoking technique, and different absorptions of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.”
The effects of a cannabis “high” vary according to dose but are more pronounced with highly automatic driving functions than with more complex tasks.” Basically making it easier to focus on a plan than instinctively react to something. With alcohol the opposite pattern of impairment is produced and people get distracted easier.

Cannabis and alcohol have a synergistic effect.

Because of an increased awareness that they are impaired, “marijuana smokers tend to compensate more effectively while driving than drunks” by utilizing a variety of strategies. Mixing marijuana with alcohol removes the ability to use such strategies as the two substances increase the potency of the other when mixed.
Cannabis and alcohol work on many of the same levels in the brain and both inherently affect chemical production in the brain. Mixing cannabis and booze will amplify the effects of both and can lead to serious repercussions. While studies have been inconclusive regarding whether cannabis use causes an increased risk of accidents; in contrast, unanimity exists that alcohol use increases the risk of crashes.
In addition, the risk from driving under the influence of alcohol and cannabis together is higher than the risk of driving under the influence of either alone. One study even recommends that patients who smoke cannabis wait several hours before driving, and avoid combining the two drugs.

Even schools have studied how dangerous driving while high is.

The first study to analyze the effects of cannabis on driving was conducted by Researchers at the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator, sponsored by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The researchers found that cannabis use caused almost no impairment. The impairment that it did cause was similar to the change observed while under the influence of a legal alcohol limit. They basically couldn’t get cannabis to impair driving as much as one beer.
They tested impairment mainly with a simulator. “Once in the simulator—a 1996 Malibu sedan mounted in a 24-feet diameter dome—the drivers were assessed on weaving within the lane, how often the car left the lane, and the speed of the weaving. Drivers with only alcohol in their systems showed impairment in all three areas while those strictly under the influence of vaporized cannabis only demonstrated problems weaving within the lane.”

More research is needed to find the right limits.

All these study’s findings show that alcohol is a much more dangerous drug than cannabis yet regulated in a more relaxed manner. While driving while under the influence of cannabis can still get you locked up, it is unclear how dangerous it is. More research is needed to show exactly how much cannabis should be legally allowable but for the time being, driving after consuming any cannabis remains illegal.
Until the whole world switches over to autonomous vehicles and we don’t have to worry about driver error any more, people are still going to get into accidents (sober or not). It is best not to contribute to the problem and simply don’t drive while high. You never know when you might need to instinctually react to something in your lane. Thanks for reading.

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Culture, Marijuana Legalization, Marijuana News, Medical, Science by

DEA: Marijuana is Not a Gateway Drug

Marijuana has been called a gateway drug for over 80 years.

The battle lines were drawn long before anyone currently driving the gateway debate had assumed power. Political figures have demonized cannabis and those who consume it for almost a century and worked to create a massive industrial prison complex designed to harvest people. Low income and minority people have borne the brunt of the assault.
Americans have been tricked into accepting the most ridiculous claims about cannabis and a whole generation of people have grown up behind bars because of it. Politicians have used slippery speech to sway public opinion and outright changed the law in order to suite their desires for decades. When Reagan and Clinton enacted laws that put more people in jail than the Romans had slaves.
Larry Anslinger didn’t care about how many would suffer without the healing properties of cannabis, he was motivated by an zealous hatred for the plant to create the movie Reefer Madness. President Nixon was motivated by a religious desire to punish people regardless of what his own investigators proved. Reagan had no mercy for people caught in the crossfire when he enacted draconian mandatory punishments for minor drug infractions.gateway

We stand at the dawn of a new era of American drug policy.

Despite an abundance of empirical evidence about the medical benefit of cannabis from reputable medical professionals from the Shafer Commission to Sanjay Gupta, it remains a schedule 1 controlled substance. This classifies weed as having “no medical benefits” and creates massive hurdles for scientists and doctors looking to research cannabis. It also puts it in the same medical category as heroin.
With the rise of Trump and the appointment of Jeff Sessions to Attorney General, the entire industry is bracing for another impact. Part of the collective wince comes from the evasive actions of top officials on the matter through election season. Instead of giving clear messages about how they plan to pursue policy, government officials are as vague as possible about how they plan to pursue policy.
This evasive attitude has made many wary of the how the Trump Administration plans to deal with cannabis. Statements in the past by Jeff Sessions like “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” and his past issues of discriminatory prosecution during the Civil Rights movement has helped to stir up old debates.

The debate surrounding legalizing marijuana has resurrected the Gateway Theory.

This theory presumes that experimenting with marijuana inevitably results in the use of harder drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Until recently, the DEA website contained dozens of lies and inaccuracies and it begrudgingly changed them only after being threatened with legal action.
Many people don’t know that it is illegal for federal agencies to spread incorrect information. Yet when it comes to cannabis, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been doing it for years. In less than a month, a petition from Change.org calling on the DEA by a to stop lying about medical cannabis received 85,000+ signatures.
The petition was started by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nonprofit organization working to increase access to medical cannabis. “The DEA has actually admitted that the theories that cannabis use leads to harder drugs (gateway theory), long-term brain damage, psychosis, and other alleged harms, are not based in scientific fact, and yet they keep distributing this false information”, says ASA. “[W]e have found 25 instances of these false claims on their website.”

The petition for updated information was direct and their arguments were air-tight.

The group argued that the document previously known as “The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse,” had a few inaccurate claims about cannabis.  They showed how the page was in violation of the Information Quality Act which requires that administrative agencies provide accurate information to the public. The DEA also had to respond to requests for correction of information within 60 days.
A separate petition was filed by the Department of Justice demanding that the DEA immediately update misinformation about cannabis. While neither the DEA nor the DOJ responded to ASA’s request, the document which contained the majority of the inaccurate statements was removed from their website.
But the governement is made up of more people than ever before. There is a lot of room for competing ideologies and goals to play out. A key observation of the Shafer Commission is that many of the risks of drug use are the result of drug policy/enforcement rather than from the drugs themselves.

The “gateway drug” stigma refuses to die.

A prime example of how this stigma presents itself is New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He wants to keep cannabis illegal in New York State because it “leads to other drugs and there’s a lot of truth to proof that that’s true.” He holds this view despite the results of a major study on medical marijuana conducted by the venerable Institute of Medicine, which included an examination of marijuana’s potential to lead to abusing other drugs.
The study found that “There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.” Even the DEA has gone on record to say “Little evidence supports the hypothesis that initiation of marijuana use leads to an abuse disorder with other illicit substances,” while refusing to reschedule cannabis in August of 2016.
The continuing stigma prevents meaningful reform of marijuana laws by perpetuating harmful misinformation.  A Rasmussen poll found that a large percentage of Americans believe the gateway argument. Nearly half of voters (46%) believed marijuana use leads to harder drugs. Thirty-seven percent (37%) did not see marijuana as a “gateway” drug.

Patterns in progression of drug use are strikingly regular.

Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people come across. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs used marijuana before the harder stuff. In fact, most adult users begin with alcohol and nicotine long before moving on to cannabis and other illicit drugs.
In 2006, the University of Pittsburgh released a thorough study which researchers spent 12 years putting together. They tracked a group of subjects from adolescence into adulthood and documented the initiation and progression of their drug use. The researchers reported that the gateway theory was not only wrong, but also detrimental to properly understanding and addressing drug abuse.
The myth of the Gateway effect needs to be put to rest once and for all. The more research that is conducted the clearer it becomes that cannabis use does not lead to abuse of other drugs. Some promising research has also shown that cannabis can actually help people kick the other stuff like heroine. As more and more states legalize medical and recreational marijuana, it is more important than ever to put the gateway myth to rest. Thanks for reading.
 

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CategoriesCulture, Marijuana Legalization, Marijuana News, Medical, Science by

A History of Medical Cannabis Part 2: Modern Cannabis

In Part 1 we talked about ancient cannabis and how it has been used throughout the ages.

Today we are going to talk about modern cannabis and how it moved from prominence as a medicine to a recreational drug. Yet medical cannabis is not relegated to the ancient past. Modern medicine uses the term marijuana instead of the ancient name: cannabis but it means the same thing.
The original name can be traced back to the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides. He was a roman army doctor from around 40-90AD who traveled widely on campaigns throughout the Roman empire. He wrote the medical text that virtually all others were based on for over a thousand years and had a special entry for both male and female cannabis plants. It wasn’t until the 1930’s when the plant became known a marijuana in an effort to re-brand it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

By 1621, medical marijuana had made its way into the English Mental Health Book.

Cannabis was entered into one of the most popular medicinal textbooks from the era to treat depression. Because of the work of an Irish doctor working for a shipping company during the colonization of the new world, medical cannabis moved to the Americas.
Cannabis treatments were a staple of a professional doctors curriculum up through the industrial revolution.  Before Alaska and Hawaii were states, America had laws on the books that supported medical marijuana in all 48 states. Cannabis was not seen as a recreational drug, it was medicine with little risk of side effects.

But in 1936 all that changed.

Pressure was being placed on the U.S. by the international community to sign the International Treaty on Controlled Substances. While not directly listing cannabis as a controlled substance, the treaty forced all countries that signed to adopt similar drug policies. Propagandists later used the treaty to get cannabis banned across the developed world.
A very popular anti-marijuana campaign burned through the nation. Funded by the government and directed by the talented propagandist Larry Anslinger, “Reefer Madness” was a sensational tale about marijuana. It featured the plant ruining people’s lives through sex, insanity, and horrific acts of violence. Although Reefer Madness was a work of pure fiction,  it was accepted by a whole generation as fact with the tenacity of religious convictions. The influential power of the Reefer Madness propaganda laid the groundwork for Larry Anslinger to get cannabis banned.
Larry Anslinger was a potent propagandist that was able to convince the developed world to outright ban cannabis use, cultivation and distribution. He used a mixed media of propaganda to accomplish this. Anslinger was a master of using media and used the newspapers, radio and television to spread a web of half-truths and outright lies.
After spreading a racially motivated panic with the Reefer Madness propaganda, Anslinger convince the U.S. to pass the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Anslinger provided his political masters a new way to target their political opponents voting base. The politically motivated police force acted quickly on the new laws to target the poor.

The Marijuana Tax Stamp Act brought America Modern Cannabis.

On the day the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was enacted (Oct. 2, 1937) the FBI and Denver Colorado police raided the Lexington Hotel. They arrested a man named Samuel R. Caldwell for selling modern cannabis. He was a 58 year-old unemployed laborer. Three days later, on Oct. 5, 1937 Caldwell became the first person convicted under U.S. federal law of distributing cannabis.
In 1942, cannabis was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia. When that happened, cannabis lost the last vestiges of medical legitimacy. Because of the International Treaty on Controlled Substances, most of the other countries in the developed world were forced to enact similar rules.

Over the next decades, criminalization of cannabis continued.

As more and more regulations were heaped on medical practitioners, they became unable to prescribe cannabis. Legal penalties increased massively with the Boggs Act of 1951. It established minimum prison sentences for simple possession of cannabis. Thanks in great part to Anslinger’s work, cannabis was classified as a schedule 1 controlled substance in 1970.
Schedule 1 substances are substances no medical benefit and high risk of abuse. The controlled Substances Act of 1970 Classified Marijuana as a having “No Accepted Medical Use”. After the passing of the Substances Act, medical practitioners were barred from prescribing modern cannabis for any medication, effectively removing the oldest known medicine from a whole generation of healers across the globe.
In 1971, the Shafer Commission was created by the U.S. president to determine the merit of criminalizing cannabis. The Shafer Commission was bi-partisan and overseen by congress. President Nixon himself ordered it to determine “if the personal use of marijuana should be criminalized.” The commission came back with an answer and Nixon ignored it because he didn’t like that they believed there was no reason to scale up action against users.
In 1971 president Nixon chose to aggressively pursue action against cannabis consumers by declaring the War on Drugs. Motivated by personal prejudice political corruption, he saw marijuana as a way to get at his political opponents. He even admitted at the time that his reasons for attacking cannabis users and increasing penalties was motivated by personal directives.

Nixon acknowledged his action was not based on empirical evidence.

He increased criminalization despite the commission he put together telling him officially and unequivocally that cannabis use should not be criminalized. Over the next two years, the Nixon built a force specifically designed to scale up violence against modern cannabis users.
The Department of Drug Enforcement (DEA) was established in 1973 by merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNND) and the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) into a single agency. It comes as no surprise that the DEA continues to aggressively pursue cannabis consumers, producers and distributors to this day. They use every tool at their disposal regardless of legality or constitutionality to continue the criminalization of marijuana.
Things continued to go downhill for cannabis in the coming years. It wasn’t until 1976 that Robert Randall (who was afflicted by glaucoma) used the Common Law Doctrine of Necessity (US v. Randall) to defend himself against criminal charges of marijuana cultivation. In 1976, federal Judge James Washington made waves with his ruling. Judge Washington ruled that Randall’s use of modern cannabis constituted a ‘medical necessity’ and the case was thrown out.
Modern cannabis 2

The next milestone for modern cannabis crusaders came in the winter of 1991.

Modern cannabis took a step forward with the passing of medical marijuana reform in California. The first medical marijuana initiative was called Proposition P and was in San Francisco. It passed with an overwhelming 79% of the vote in November of 1991.
Proposition P called on the State of California and the California Medical Association to restore hemp medical to the list of available medicines in California, and to stop penalizing physicians for prescribing hemp for medical purposes. It only effected San Francisco but the cogs of bureaucracy had been activated. It would take another 5 years for legislation to go statewide.
Voters in California passed the first statewide medical marijuana initiative on November 5, 1996. Known as Proposition 215, it permitted patients and their primary caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, muscle spasms, migraines, and several other disorders. It also protected doctors from state sponsored punishment if they recommended marijuana to their patients.

The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.

In September of 1998, the House of Representatives debated a resolution called H.J.Res. 117. They passed H.J.Res 117 at the same time Oregon, Washington and Alaska provided their medical marijuana programs. In H.J.Res. 117, Congress declared support for the existing federal drug approval process.
They decide not to reschedule marijuana despite the overwhelming evidence coming forth that it should be decriminalized. While cannabis is classified as having no medical benefit, the United States Department of Health and Human Services) currently holds a patent on medical cannabis.
Patent No. 6630507 covers the use of cannabinoids for treating a wide range of diseases and was submitted to the patent office in 1999. The Department of Health and Human Services was awarded the patent in 2003. Yet the Department of Health is not the only regulatory agency that has chosen to abandon science, compassion and reason.
Modern Cannabis

In 2002, the FDA decided how to use modern cannabis in a study.

They decided that shipping 300 pre-rolled joints to patients in metal canisters was the best way to judge modern cannabis. The material was frequently two or more years old upon receipt by patients and a close inspection of the contents of NIDA-supplied cannabis cigarettes revealed them to be a crude mixture of leaf with abundant stem and seeds.
The study concluded that “cannabis smoking, even of a crude, low-grade product, provides effective symptomatic relief of pain, muscle spasms, and intraocular pressure elevations…” and that “clinical cannabis patients are able to reduce or eliminate other prescription medicines and their accompanying side effects.” The FDA report was ignored by those in power and cannabis remained a schedule 1 controlled substance despite the undeniable evidence.
The DEA has still not reclassified cannabis. It remains a holistic herb used throughout time as a medicine that current U.S. legislators are violently opposed to. While international progress has been made with the UK rescheduling cannabis to Class B and the Netherlands also making great strides in medicinal research, the U.S. still struggles to come into the light. Use of scientific reasoning is about to get even harder for the U.S. government as President Trump decides who will take the reigns of power. Yet his choice of Jim O’Neill to head the FDA (who openly supports cannabis legalization) gives modern cannabis hope for the future. Only time will tell. Thanks for reading.
Featured image: shutterstock

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Culture, Medical, Science by

A History of Medical Cannabis Part 1: Ancient Cannabis

Medical Cannabis is known by many names.

Whether you call it; ganja, weed, dope, grass, or the medical cannabis, it all means the same thing. Cannabis is one of the earliest plants known to be harvested by man. In fact, the oldest human artifact on record is an ancient sandal made from cannabis fibers known as hemp. The fibers of the cannabis plant were used in the oldest civilizations like Rome, Assyria, Egypt and China.
Some of the oldest known medicine was also made from cannabis. The earliest record of medical marijuana use was in 2900 BC by Chinese Emperor Fu. He and a majority of his citizens used the herb for medicinal purposes. From treating headaches and nausea to acting as an aphrodisiac, the ancient Chinese were pioneers in cannabis research.

Over the centuries, marijuana was used medicinally all over the world.

Many festivities and religious ceremonies involved cannabis as well. Cannabis was so important to ancient religious rites that it was an integral part of many rites including the process of anointing. Early Christians were well aware of how cannabis worked and used it in many of their most sacred rituals.
Christians inherited many of their religious practices directly from the Hebrews. The word Christ actually means ‘the anointed one’ and many scholars believe that Christ was anointed with chrism, a cannabis-based oil. The ancient recipe for this oil recorded in Exodus (30:22-23), included over 9 pounds of cannabis flower which the Hebrews called kaneh-bosem.
The Hebrews extracted the cannabis into about 11 pints of olive oil. This cannabis concoction was then mixed with a variety of other herbs and spices in very specific ways. The mixture was normally used in anointing and rituals that would allow the priests and prophets to commune with the divine.

Cannabis was used by more than just the ancient Chinese and Hebrews though.

India has a deep and long history with the plant.  Ancient chefs created a drink known as bhang out of cannabis paste, milk and spices. Shiva is said to have loved the drink so much that he took the title “Lord of Bhang”. Bhang has remained a medical remedy/ preferred beverage in India for centuries and is prepared there to this day. Zoroaster is also said to have listed cannabis as the most important of 10,000 medicinal plants.
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission described the history and culture of cannabis in India: “To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in the bhang leaf… To see in a dream the leaves, plant, or water of bhang is lucky… No good thing can come to the man who treads underfoot the holy bhang leaf. A longing for bhang foretells happiness.”
Cannabis has been popular in India since the beginning of recorded history and is often drank. Nuts and spices like; almonds, pistachios, poppy seeds, pepper, ginger and sugar are mixed with cannabis and boiled in milk. Yogurt can also be used instead of milk. While popular in the east, bhang has never caught on with western pallets the same way.

Romans used Medical Cannabis as well.

The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides from around 40-90AD was a Roman army doctor who traveled widely on campaigns throughout the Roman empire. He studied many plants, gathering his knowledge and assembling it into a book he titled De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters).
Published around 70AD, De Materia Medica became the most important medical text for the next 1500 years. Virtually all medical texts were based off of this single work. Within its pages were contained the most important and useful plants known to mad. Included in the tome was cannabis, both kannabis emeros and kannabis agria, the male and female respectively. Dioscorides stated bluntly that the plant used in the making of rope also produced a juice that treated earache and suppress sexual longing.

Even the Egyptians were into medical cannabis.

In the ancient world, Egypt was a center of trade and information. Their position at the mouth of the Nile provided a base of strength for millennia. Part of that strength was advanced medical techniques that were passed down through the use of writing. Ancient Egyptian doctors and pharmacologists would use papyrus to record their work.
One of the oldest texts to survive to modernity is the 2nd century Fayyum Medical Papyrus. This ancient Egyptian text is believed to contain the earliest record of cannabis as an ingredient in cancer medicine. While they didn’t record enough for us to assess the successes of ancient Egyptian cancer treatments, cannabis continues to receive interest as a cancer therapy today.
Cannabis pollen was even found on the mummy of Ramesses II. He was a powerful Pharaoh who died in 1213 BC. It is unclear how the cannabis was used but prescriptions for cannabis in Ancient Egypt also included treatment for the eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas.

Cannabis is actually new to the Americas.

By the late 1700s, American medical journals began recommending hemp seeds and roots for the treatment of inflamed skin, incontinence and venereal disease. But it was Irish doctor William O’Shaughnessy who first popularized marijuana’s medical use in England and America.
O’Shaughnessy was a physician with the British East India Company during the years leading up to the American Revolution. He found marijuana eased the pain of rheumatism and was helpful against discomfort and nausea. Patients were prescribed cannabis most for cases of rabies, cholera and tetanus. Truly, Dr. O’shaughnessy was an integral part of the rise of medical cannabis in Europe and the Americas.

In the age of scientific innovation, cannabis was in medical texts.

In 1621, medical marijuana made its way into the English Mental Health Book, the most popular medicinal textbook from the time. Of all the things it could have suggested, it recommends marijuana to treat depression, the same as modern scientific research has shown.
Early Settlers had cannabis but mainly used it for fiber. The Jamestown settlers brought the marijuana plant specialized to produce fiber commonly known as hemp, to North America in 1611.
Throughout the colonial period, hemp fiber was an important export. By 1762, cannabis cultivation can become so common that Virginia awarded bounties for hemp culture and manufacture along with imposing penalties on those who did not produce it.

It wasn’t until the 1900’s that cannabis lost its medical, economic and spiritual prominence.

With the invention of television and the consolidation of media during the 1900s, cannabis moved from medical staple to outcast with surprising speed. Due to the efforts of Larry Anslinger and his associates, medical cannabis was stripped from medical texts and scientists were effectively banned from studying it.
Top image: Bigstock

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3 Ways to Enhance Your High

Here’s three simple, cheap (mostly free!), and sensible ways to enhance your weed experience.

1. HEMP WICK

Consider this: when you spark up, you’re inhaling everything in the immediate vicinity, including the gas from the lighter. I notice the taste right away, and it can cause a stomachache or a headache if you inhale too much. A Zippo lighter may help cut down on fumes, but if you want to be burning only what’s in the bowl, pick up a bundle of hemp wick. RAW ™ hemp wick seems to be popular and well-reputed.

Immediately, you should taste the difference, and how purely you can experience the unique flavors and aromas of your bud. To use the wick, ignite one end with a flame, then use the burning wick to light your joint/blunt/bowl (like a matchstick, but with no sulphur). Hemp wick is usually made with 100% cotton hemp and a coating of beeswax. The burn is slow, so the rope goes a long way. It’s a very worthwhile and cheap (around $2 a bundle) investment if you want to bring new dimensions to your cannabis experience.

2. HOT WATER

You may think you’re doing your lungs a better favor by using a water pipe over a spoon, but not necessarily. The idea is, the water filters and cools the smoke to be less harsh in the lungs and throat. Partly true! The smoke is cooled to some degree, and I certainly enjoy putting ice cubes in a water pipe to cool it further. However, I recently learned that using hot water pulls out more tar and gunk from your weed than cold water. The effects are a bit like a steam shower–though the smoke is hot, it’s moist, soothing, and better-tasting (if it tastes really rank, clean your bong, dude). Maybe even hot water and a squeeze of lemon juice would be delightful.

One thing I notice with using hot water, less coughing. It’s so much easier to breathe deeply, really feel the parts of my lungs expanding and where I’m not pushing to sit straight enough. The hit ends up being bigger, and the exhale is so much smoother. Speaking of breathing…

3. BREATHE DEEPER

Increase the amount of breaths you take before and after you toke. Cannabis, used properly, opens your lungs, airways, and strengthens the bronchi. Your cough should be deep, with intent, and they’ll pull up anything that shouldn’t be there. Don’t force yourself to cough, though. Your whole experience should be fluid.

Empty and fill your lungs a few times before a hit, trying to take in even more oxygen than the breath before it. Expand your chest, alternate breathing through the nose and mouth. Find a good rhythm for yourself, then at the bottom of an exhale, light your cannabis and inhale (at the same time, if you can manage). Breathe slowly, allowing your lungs to fill with smoke. You’ll be surprised to hear–holding the hit doesn’t actually get you higher. You might, from oxygen deprivation, feel more light-headed. The truth is, the first few seconds are the best, and all you need. After that, the smoke cools, changes flavor, loses the magic.

After you inhale, “hold” for a few seconds (better yet, keep inhaling oxygen after you pull), then breathe out every last bit as evenly as you can. If done with patience and awareness, you should feel high with no adverse affects; no coughing, spluttering, accidental throat burn. With this method, you allow your lungs to be better filters, and you’ll get some deep cleaning done while you chill out.

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