I know, I know, you don’t give a damn how they do it in
California. At least until you start talking marijuana. The Golden
State’s lax regulatory policies, premier growing conditions, and
embracing culture are creating a safe haven for the drug. In October, I
went to a music festival in San Francisco and have never seen such
flourishing pot sales. There were roving hippies selling joints, but
what caught my attention were numerous transient storefronts strewn
about Golden Gate Park with vendors displaying caramels, brownies, Rice
Krispies treats and gourmet truffles all making use of marijuana. So in
keeping with the theme of this issue, let’s talk about eating
marijuana.
Studies galore show marijuana eaten for medicinal benefit can aid a
range of patients, including those suffering nausea from chemotherapy
and chronic pain. For many, prescription marijuana is a viable natural
alternative to pharmaceutical painkillers, to which many people have
adverse reactions and which can cause liver damage. However, each
person I spoke with about eating marijuana admitted their use of the
drug was purely recreational.
When I asked Joe (not his real name), if he preferred smoking or
eating marijuana he said, “One isn’t better than the other;
they’re different. For starters, eating marijuana means you
don’t have to taste the smoke, which is important for people with
sensitive lungs or asthma. And its effects are different.
Marijuana’s effects when eaten come on slowly, last longer and
produce a much stronger body high.”
If you’re planning to simply buy some marijuana and eat it
straight from the bag, you might as well wash it down with
O’Douls because both accomplish little to nothing. Extracting
marijuana’s active ingredient, THC, requires combining marijuana
with lipids (fats and oils) and then exposing it to heat. Everyone I
spoke with recommended making marijuana butter, or
“cannabutter,” a more interesting substitute for butter on
everything from your morning toast to sautéed onions in
lasagna.
Recently an acquaintance named Paul (not his real name) graduated
from Oakland California’s Oaksterdam University. Founded in 2007,
its mission is providing students “the highest quality training
for the cannabis industry.” This recipe for cannabutter comes
from one of Paul’s textbooks:
1. After removing any stems and seeds, grind two ounces of marijuana
bud in a food processor.
2. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil and add one cup of
unsalted butter.
3. After butter has melted, add ground marijuana and reduce
heat.
4. Stirring occasionally, simmer this mixture for an hour.
5. Strain this liquid through cheesecloth, and squeeze all the
buttery liquid from the remaining plant matter.
6. Place this in the refrigerator for a few hours.
7. The butter will solidify atop the water and can easily be scraped
off, the water discarded, and the butter stored in the refrigerator for
months.
Of course, proceed at your own risk. Wherever you cook cannabutter
is going to smell incriminating as hell unless you mask it with
flavor-imparting spices like cinnamon or cloves or burn an entire box
of Nag Champa. Also, marijuana’s effects when eaten are
considerably stronger than when smoked, so most sources recommend
eating with restraint, maybe two teaspoons, until discovering your
tolerance level. Further, because the effects generated by eating
marijuana set in much slower than after smoking it, most people I
interviewed had a time when they thought the stuff wasn’t working
and ate more to compensate. The general consensus is, give it time, the
stuff will work.
A final piece of advice for those planning to make cannabutter and
store it in a common area: mark the container. A great time for you
might turn into a nightmare for your hapless roommate when he smears
butter all over his Eggos.