Herbal Knowledge
Deepak Chaudhary and the Indian Landrace Exchange connect indigenous farmers with modern growers in an equitable exchange.
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Lorena Cupcake, voted “best budtender in Chicago,” has answered hundreds of questions from cannabis shoppers and patients during their time as a budtender. And now they’re turning that experience into a monthly advice column, Ask a budtender. Got a question for Cupcake? Submit your questions to askabudtender@weedmaps.com.
Dear Cupcake,
I used to smoke a lot of flower, then took a break for a couple years. Now, I mostly enjoy vape pens and chocolates I pick up when I visit my sister in Massachusetts.
There’s a lot of other products (wax, resin, shatter, tinctures) that apparently came about when I wasn’t partaking; what’s the best way to get high these days?
Dear concentrate curious,
The best way to get high is the way that works for you. As you’ve already seen, that can change over time. Everyone has their favorite methods of cannabis consumption that balance effects and experience against practical concerns like cost, convenience and safety. When you find the right fit, that’s the best method for you, at least at that moment.
One of the most important ways that we change over time is by gaining a tolerance to THC, the chemical component in cannabis that produces an intoxicating high. When you smoke weed every day, like you used to do, the CB1 receptors that interact with THC in your body lose sensitivity. Over time, cannabis doesn’t impair you as much, and you may require a higher dose to attain the same high.
Since you’re coming back from a long tolerance break, you’re likely still in the process of gaining tolerance to higher doses of cannabis. For that reason, I think it makes sense to outline your options in order — from easy-to-dose products preferred by newbies, to high-potency concentrates beloved by longtime stoners.
When I did one-on-one consultations in a medical dispensary, many patients didn’t have a robust history of recent weed smoking experiences. Some, on the recommendation of a doctor, were brand new to cannabis. Others hadn’t hit a doobie since the most popular strain was the classic Acapulco Gold.
Since they didn’t have a firm grasp on how different doses of THC affected them yet, the last thing I wanted to do was send them home with a 50 milligram fruit chew for the wildest evening of their life. Tinctures were a great option since they’re an approachable medium to those familiar with hemp-based CBD oil. They’re also easy to dose out just a few milligrams at a time.
Essentially, tinctures are oil (cannabis resin, created by glands known as trichomes) emulsified into a carrier liquid. Since the manufacturing process is a little more complicated than shaking up salad dressing, they tend to be more expensive per milligram than a budget-brand gummy. For that reason, I usually don’t recommend them to anyone who has already built up the tolerance for edibles — unless money isn’t an issue, or digestion/gut absorption is.
You mentioned enjoying chocolate bars, and I think they’re a super solid choice in the edible category. Chocolate contains three substances that mimic the effect of cannabinoids by activating receptors and inhibiting the breakdown of anandamide. Often nicknamed the bliss molecule, anandamide is partially responsible for the blissful feeling we get from fat-soluble THC. Therefore, combining THC with the fat and anandamide-boosting chemicals in chocolate is thought to make your high more long-lasting and powerful.
Gina Coleman/WeedmapsBeyond chocolate, there’s a whole world of infused gummies, cookies, crunchy snacks and fizzy drinks out there in options that vary from state to state. When gauging quality, one rule of thumb is to look for products infused with cannabis oil. While some companies formulate their recipes from the ground up, others use machinery outfitted with spray nozzles to deliver precise doses of distillate to the surface of wholesale candy or snacks. Since THC distillate has been stripped of all terpenes, it’s common to feel the effects of these edibles quite differently.
Retaining the broadest spectrum of beneficial phytochemicals in an extract is essential for creating a full, smooth high that replicates the beneficial effects of flower. Though there’s plenty of full-spectrum tinctures and edibles on the market, for some, nothing beats the fast-acting effects of inhaling smoke or vapor.
I applaud your choice of vapes, which are thought to carry fewer health risks than smoking. Vape devices use an electronic element to heat cannabis somewhere within a sweet spot of 330℉ to 365℉. If you’re ready to upgrade from oil cartridges paired with a vape battery, you can pick up a dry herb vaporizer and start dabbling in flower again. From there, it’s just a matter of figuring out which strains work for your unique preferences and biology.
You could also pick up a portable concentrate vaporizer, like the dual-use Pax 3 or the G Pen Roam, and try some of those waxes, resins and shatters you’ve seen. However, I wouldn’t feel pressured to start using concentrates just because they’re there.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I hated dabbing for a long time. I just didn’t have the tolerance to handle high-potency extracts. The first time I hit a dab, I laid awake paranoid for hours, then woke up sincerely relieved that I wasn’t high anymore. Now that I’m a regular dabber with well-worn CB1 receptors, I couldn’t replicate that experience if I tried.
Gina Coleman/WeedmapsThe beauty of dabs is that they’ll be there for you when your rising tolerance means that your old routine is no longer bringing you the same level of relief. Some people can simply take a tolerance break; one study showed that CB1 receptors become more available after just two days, and continue to upregulate over a four-week period.
Others have serious day-to-day pain or mood management needs that make these very strong, concentrated forms of cannabis an amazing resource. I chatted about the benefits of concentrates with Dances, an Los Angeles-based musician known for posting hilarious observations and brilliant ideas after hitting his Puffco Peak. “You get a more immediate, more intense high, along with a clearer flavor,” he told me via DM.
“I started dabbing regularly after recovering from a car accident,” he said. “I was already using weed for pain, but I like to get high. Dabs achieve that when added to rotation. I really feel the difference in strains; I can pick and choose how my day goes.” Plus, he added, he can also use concentrates to get what he calls “weed k-hole super high.”
That’s not the experience everyone is looking for — you might not be ready for that yet. When I took my first dab, I certainly wasn’t. The important thing is to keep trying different products and learning more about new product categories, including those I didn’t mention here (like Rick Simpson Oil, and two categories I plan to cover in next month’s column). While the methodology might change over time, cannabis will always be there to get you high — no matter your tolerance level.
Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps
The post Ask a budtender: What's the best way to get high? appeared first on Weedmaps News.
Source: wm
With so many great cannabis brands releasing exciting new products in new markets, it can be hard to keep track of every release. So we’re rounding up a few significant releases. This week, we look at releases by B-Real and Wonderbrett, dosist
, a collaboration by Burb and BLLRDR, and a true dance battle event in Michigan.
Gallery PRB-Real announced a new collaboration with popular cultivar brand Wonderbrett, along with Dr. Green Thumb and High Hopes Supply. This partnership has brought about the debut of a limited edition pre-roll containing Pineapple OZK — a cross of Pineapple OG and Wonderbrett’s own OZK. Not only will you dip into a dreamy and relaxing high with creamy notes of pineapple, B-Real has decided to pair it with his new track, “Mother Mary.”
Pick up the pre-roll at any of Dr. Greenthumb’s California locations, and download the single for a unique experience where music and cannabis collide.
Available: California
: Performance Gummy CollectionIf you’re looking for a non-GMO, fast-acting, and vegan gummy, look no further than dosist‘s newly launched Performance Gummy Collection (pictured at the top of the article). The sweets are infused with the company’s nanoblend technology, which provides a faster onset. The moods range from Sleep (5:1 THC:CBN), Bliss (THC only), and Calm (1:10 THC:CBD). Bonus: dosist is also featuring a 10 milligram THC Live Resin gummy in partnership with Bear Extraction House in the new collection.
Available: California
Ranked by BDS Analytics as the number one cannabis beverage brand in the US, Keef Brands is expanding its reach to Maine, Missouri, and Ohio. If you live in any of those states — along with their already established Arizona, California, Oklahoma, and Puerto Rico, expect to find tasty drinks including Keef Classic Original Cola (10 milligrams THC — Maine), Keef Mocktail Lemonade (100 milligrams THC — Ohio), and Keef Classic H2O Strawberry Kiwi (200 milligrams THC — Missouri), among many more stoney flavors.
Available: Arizona, California, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, Maine, Missouri, and Puerto Rico
Gallery PRBurb and BLLRDR collaborate for the first time with a limited edition hoodie featuring a quote from the legendary grower and breeder Jef Tek. The 100% cotton hoodie is $120, keeping you cozy while shouting out your favorite plant.
Available: Nationwide
JARS is a chain of dispensaries in Michigan and Arizona, boosting cannabis and community through unique events. To celebrate their West Detroit opening, they’re throwing a dance battle, complete with a $500 cash prize and budtenders onsight. Below, check out all the info you need to enter or watch the show:
Who: Hosted by JIT Happens, a dance collective specializing in the style known as “Jit.” Judges include local dance legends Mav one, Standing O, and Queen Gabby.
What: Open to all (18+) and free, the JARS Dance Battle will be a fun and competitive reason for West Detroit and the surrounding area residents to revel in the talent of its own in a real-life setting. All forms of street dance are encouraged:
Registration is open to anyone looking to take home the cash prize of $500 and bragging rights.
In celebration of the West Detroit Dispensary opening and its opening day Dance Battle, JARS Cannabis and partner Viola will also be donating $3,500 to Motor City Street Dance Academy.
When: Saturday, May 1, 2021, from 3 — 8 p.m.
Where: JARS West Detroit — 7461 W 8 Mile (M102), Detroit, MI
**Dance Battle will take place in an adjacent large open-space building.
Featured image courtesy of Gallery PR
The post 3 new weed products you should try from B-Real x Wonderbrett, dosist, and more appeared first on Weedmaps News.
Source: wm
Move over, Drunk History, there’s a new inebriated storytelling show in town. It’s called High Herstory, and features hilarious women telling and re-enacting the stories of unsung women while stoned.
Despite the internet clamoring for a high version of Drunk History for years, creator Derek Waters thought it couldn’t be done. But High Herstory creators Annette Mia-Flores (New Amsterdam), Jenny Joslin (Money Monster), and Kendall Watkins have been proving him wrong since 2017, when they first dropped a web series featuring the stories of birth control philanthropist Katharine Dexter McCormick, sexually-liberated author Mary MacLane, and feminist publisher Valerie Solanas. The show’s hosts tell stomach-stitching stories in laid-back, almost ASMR tones that throw viewers into uncontrollable laughter.
“It is a direct response to Drunk History — a more male focused show that celebrates alcohol,” Joslin told Weedmaps News. “Why can’t we get the perspective of funny women using this magical plant (which, like ladies, has also been misrepresented and suppressed) to interpret history from a female point of view?” The response from both viewers and press was enormous. “We felt like women were telling us, ‘Please make this, I have a story to tell! I want to watch this right now!’”
In a DIY path similar to HBO’s stoner dramedy High Maintenance, the trio shepherded their concept into the big leagues. At first, they tried to sell the show to a network which ultimately felt that it was too risky, so they self-produced. The first episode of the first season premiered on SocialTV — an age-gated, cannabis-friendly streaming service also hosting the Emerald Cup — on 4/20.
High Herstory is both the name of the show and a brand new media company catering to the growing segment of cannabis users who identify as women, projected to be 50% of the market by 2022. Both are explicit efforts by a robust community to dismantle the racist, sexist, and oppressive attitudes toward cannabis in America. “It seems like it’s a boy’s club in the cannabis comedy sphere and we wanted to shatter the grass ceiling by joining forces with more women who are funny and witty and ambitious and maybe also consumers,” the trio said.
Joslin, Watkins, and Mia-Flores grew up in Texas, which has some of the most restrictive legal weed policies in the nation. As kids, they learned to “Just say no” from DARE, the multi-million dollar anti-drug program that multiple studies found was completely ineffective.
They met waiting tables at a Chinese restaurant while studying at Texas State University San Marcos. They were in various stages in their stoner development at the time — while Joslin and Watkins didn’t partake until college, Mia-Flores tried cannabis for the first time in high school — but it became an important part of their collaborative process. “We have utilized weed throughout every step of our journey,” said Joslin. “It was an instant familiarity upon meeting each other and it’s been a blast ever since.”
They founded a production company together and came up with the idea for High Herstory while writing another historical fiction series about sex workers. “We had been writing together all day and were taking a smoke break and venting and asking ourselves the question, ‘How do we get people to care about hearing these stories?’” the trio recalled. “It struck us. Just like this. Women consuming cannabis and telling stories about other amazing women whose histories were so suppressed, stolen or colonized out of the history books that many of them only exist orally.”
Season one is rife with stories from history that are achingly relevant in the modern age. Remember when everyone was up in arms about the Postal Service being defunded? Episode one reminds us of its import with the exploits of legendary mailwoman Stagecoach Mary. Those watching the effort to unionize Amazon can draw inspiration from the story of labor rights activist Lucy Parsons. The tale of Hua Mulan echoes the struggles of any woman who has been told what she isn’t capable of. The brilliant leadership of Dr. Sarah Josephine Baker is the kicker amidst a world collectively traumatized by an international pandemic, and as the first director of New York City’s Bureau of Child Hygiene, she made public health more equitable for women, children, immigrants, and the differently-abled.
The stories are told and reenacted by actresses from every corner of the stream-i-verse, including Roberta Colindrez (Amazon’s I Love Dick, Showtime’s Vida, Amazon’s A League of Their Own, HBO’s The Deuce), Shirley Cruz (Netflix’s Orange is the New Black), Luna Tieu (CBS’s Elementary), Celia Au (Netflix’s Wu Assassins), Pooya Mohseni (Law & Order: SVU), and Cece Suavo (ABC’s One Life to Live).
High Herstory is entertaining, but it also represents solutions to the systemic problems facing the media industry. “Mainstream media really shies away from showing female identifying cannabis users, and we really wanted to see ourselves and the cool women we know represented in that culture,” the trio explained. For Joslin, Watkins, and Mia-Flores, it goes deeper than destigmatizing cannabis users. “Women love seeing portrayals of bad-ass female characters from a female gaze, because so often from a Hollywood perspective, that hasn’t existed. Underrepresentation isn’t just a clickbait term. It deeply impacts the livelihoods of many of us. There aren’t enough quality roles, which translate to well paying jobs, with good representation.”
Working in the cannabis industry has required the trio to make personal and professional sacrifices, “from not being supported by family, to people dismissing very real hard work because of an association to a plant, to people even questioning our reputation.”
They hope this fun-yet-poignant series will help culture writ large see how normal weed can be. “Some people decompress with a little bit of wine at the end of a long day, and others may choose to have a bit of cannabis,” said Joslin. “We really want to shatter the stigma to show people that they have options and there is no shame in it.’
They’ve also made creative decisions designed to make their company more equitable, such as casting male characters with female actors. “There’s something so cathartic about mockingly playing white men antagonists,” said Joslin.
They’ve also partnered with the Youth Empowerment Project in New Orleans, which helps formerly incarcerated Americans get jobs in creative industries. “Louisiana has one of the worst incarceration rates in the country because of cannabis arrests, so this is a way for the cannabis industry to provide opportunities in a state where the war on drugs feels very much alive,” she added.
Ultimately, they’ve adopted the philosophy that happiness is the best revenge. “The very act of portraying diverse women consuming cannabis is a statement to dismantle oppression,” said Joslin. “Rolling a camera on someone who is consuming a substance that for 90 years has been stigmatized, and is still very much federally illegal, is an act of defiance. Every time a woman smokes on High Herstory, a man from history who helped demonize cannabis [ahem, Harry Ainslinger] rolls over in his grave. We hope that more portrayals of cannabis use will go beyond the ‘stoner bro’ narrative. Seth Rogan, we love you, but what about a female Pineapple Express?”
There are six weed products that Joslin, Watkins, and Mia-Flores cannot live without, making them perfect to pair with the High Herstory premiere on 4/20.
“Tinctures from Xula Herbs, but especially Uff! moon + womb blend.“ With 500 milligrams of CBD and 1,000 milligrams of CBG and other sedating ingredients like passionflower, this tincture is best before bed to soothe any cramps, aches or pains.
“Foria‘s intimacy line is a must have.” Infused with 200 milligrams of CBD and organic MCT coconut oil, Foria’s line of lubricants may put you at ease and calm your senses before getting down with your partner. Note: Foria lubricants contain coconut oil, which is not recommended for condoms, as oil-based lubes break down latex.
“A pack of Lady Jays.” If you’re all THC’d out, consider lighting up a CBG preroll from Lady Jays. Made with hemp flower from Oregon’s sustainable hemp farm Marshall Farming, each preroll offers a smooth hit after a long day.
“Pink Glitterbomb Chill Bong from Chill – I love how it keeps every hit so icy and you can’t break it.” This limited edition bong will be a gorgeous addition to your smoke collection. It stands at nine inches tall, is vacuum insulated, and you won’t ever have to worry about breaking it’s aluminum downstem.
Started in 2017, Session Goods offers unique pieces that are both functional and visually endearing. “Any Session Goods piece! Such thoughtful designs with versatility of color and bowl size — plus they make it so easy to clean with custom silicone plugs.”
“Pax 3 Vaporizer.” Enough said.
Image courtesy of High Herstory. Graphic by David Lozada/Weedmaps.
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Source: wm