Smoking is only one way to consume THC

Our article in Legalize it! 30 about the fight against smoking was almost prophetic: As of 2005, smoking was banned in many places. And the pressure will continue to mount. So here are some further thoughts on smokeless THC use.

Vaporization technology has outgrown its infancy and now offers a great way to indulge in THC consumption completely without smoke. However, it is a technical device that you have to have with you, with enough power in the battery, and which you have to clean occasionally.

Instead of smoking or vaporize there is a third, very easy way to ingest THC - and at no cost. This form is also the most efficient one possible.

Smoking is a relatively complicated form of smoking pot. It's only been in the last few decades that cheap cigarette papers have been available that allow you to roll a joint at all. Chillums and other pipes have been around longer - they can also be made fairly easily. Some wood and a carving knife are all that's needed. But probably eating is the most original form of smoking pot. Eating resin (hashish) is very simple. Eating weed (the flowers of the hemp plant), on the other hand, can cause some digestive problems, especially when eaten in large quantities and when weed is eaten raw. After heating, such problems do not seem to exist anymore. (Continues below.)

When smoking, the THC retracts much faster than when eating. Of course, this results in a danger: You can eat a lot of hashish or hemp cookies before the first eaten ones go in. So you can overdose very quickly and then experience (depending on the person differently strong and in different ways) the unpleasant effects of a THC overdose: dizziness, nausea, anxiety. Although the symptoms subside on their own after a few hours, they can certainly cause great fright. That's why you should take it slow when eating. It is good to approach it in several steps. On the first day, for example, take a very small dose and see what happens. If this was too little, double the dose on the second day and see again. If you still don't feel anything, you can double the dose again on the third day.

The important thing is to wait at least a couple of hours after taking it before ingesting any more THC. THC eaten not only goes down slower, but also stays active longer.

Since THC is fat-soluble, it enters the bloodstream (and thus the brain) better when fat is added to the THC product. Small amounts of alcohol can also increase the body's absorption capacity. The less one has eaten beforehand, i.e. the more empty the stomach is, the faster and more concentrated the THC is absorbed. Since when smoking a large part of the THC is either burned or flows away from the joint if one does not draw, the loss of THC here is great. When eating, on the other hand, all THC enters the body. Therefore, oral intake is probably the most efficient form of smoking weed there is.

What works very well is the following: You take an amount of hash that corresponds to the usual dose when smoking and crush it. Then you sprinkle the hash into a yogurt (but please, a normal one with fat and sugar and not one that is low-fat or made with sweetener) and eat the whole thing, preferably on an empty stomach.

The body absorbs such a mixture quite quickly - the sugar promotes absorption, the fat the solubility of THC. After about an hour, the THC retracts - and now it goes up in spurts. So waves of cycling in and out follow, with the ups and downs tending to be more and more cycling in. This can go on for several hours. So, when the first surge is over and you feel a little more sober again, you shouldn't keep smoking right away, but wait again. The next surge is sure to come!

This form of getting high is more like vaporizing than smoking. With smoking, there is a high, then the slice slowly levels off. With eating, on the other hand, you approach the high in several waves. When the effect finally wears off, you usually get tired. So one should conduct such experiments with advantage at home. However, those who have gained a lot of experience with eating will become very clear about exactly what effects a certain amount of hash triggers in him or her.

In my most active stoner times (which were years ago and are legally statute-barred) I ate hash like that. Mainly because I had already smoked one or two joints in the morning and the same again at noon. In order for me to be able to increase at all, I then got into the habit of taking a hash yogurt in the afternoon at work. With time, you pretty much have that under control, so the main slice comes when you're back home. Successful scheduling is very important here. A yogurt eaten at 4 p.m. on an empty stomach kicks in from about 5 p.m. and reaches full effect from 6 p.m. on.

But even those who are no longer combat stoners can benefit from eating THC. Because there is no strain on the lungs from smoke, there are no emissions - no one can be bothered. No one is inconvenienced.

But there is one problem. You should never leave such a hash-infused yogurt around and risk someone eating it who has no experience with THC or doesn't want to smoke pot now! This is especially true if you make Guetzli, which could be looked at as normal pastry by different people. Otherwise there can be nasty surprises. Even if THC is non-toxic and no physical harm is to be feared, the psychological effect of THC, especially when taken in high doses, can scare people very badly. Such incidents should be absolutely avoided. Especially for people who have not had any experience with smoking pot.

After legalization, standardized THC pills could also be produced. This would be a very nice thing: one would have the certainty of ingesting exactly so and so many milligrams of THC. Such pills could be produced by specialized companies or even by the pharmacist. It is not difficult. All you need is large quantities of the same hash or weed. From this you can produce an oil with a certain content of THC and from this you can produce pills in a standardized and clean process, where you know exactly how much THC they contain. The exact amounts of fat, sugar, and/or alcohol could also be incorporated into the pills to allow for the optimal absorption of THC in the human body. And a lot of information would be included in a package insert. But something like this is only possible if you can work and research legally.

Until it is so far, you can use hash, as I said, that is very simple. weed eat directly is unpleasant for many - here the production of cannabutter suggests itself. Here, the THC is dissolved from the flowers and leaves and let it migrate into normal butter. This cannabutter can then be used like ordinary butter in a wide variety of pastries according to normal baking recipes. This is how it works:

Melt the butter (say 200 grams) in a pan. Add the weed (also leaves and stems, e.g. a cup full) crushed. Let simmer for a few minutes, stirring, until the butter has taken on the color of the hemp. Now pour the liquid butter (attention: hot!) through a sieve or - if you don't want any grass residues in the cannabutter - through a cotton cloth into a container. Cover the liquid cannabutter and put it in the fridge (it will keep for a few weeks). The shelf life can be increased if the butter is covered with water, but both must be refrigerated beforehand. You can also freeze cannabutter. (The remaining cannabutter still contains a considerable amount of butter. Either squeeze this out or reheat until the butter is liquid enough again. The hemp pulp and butter in the cloth can be extracted at the end with milk or brandy and used well as leftovers with honey or sugar).

Please test the pastries in small doses until you find your optimal dose.