Unexpected side effect (drug use)

[svrn]

One unexpected thing that happened to me after taking on this diet is that my cannabis smoking decreased significantly. I never thought that smoking cannabis was bad for your health and never had any desire to reduce my intake, it is something that just naturally happened. However, now that I am into this diet my daily cannabis use is a half to a third of what it used to be. Has anybody experienced anything similar?  I wonder if this diet helps people with hard drugs as well.

[ys]

Smoking anything is bad for your health if practiced regularly.  Fumes from any plants are toxic, some more some less.

[CitrusHigh]

My cannabis use has fluctuated wildly, from several times per day for a month or two straight, two once per month or less for several months.

Not sure if this is modulated by my diet at all because this has been characteristic of my cannabis use since the beginning. For me it more depends on what I've got going on in life at the time. If I'm really focused on work and family (i have a big family!) then I tend to use far less but if I've got a lot of free time out at the farm then I use a lot more. You should pay attention to your usage and let us know if it continues like that in the long term or if it fluctuates like mine does.

[svrn]

It"s not so black and white. Smoking cannabis has been proven to reduce risk of cancer as well as alzheimers. It has also been shown to promote brain cell growth. It has not been proven to have ANY negative physical effects associated with other smoked plant matter. I'd also be willing to bet that it helps with the chem-trails which I'm sure are related to the rise in diseases such as alzheimers which have been linked to aluminum. And we all know that one of the main components in all aerial spraying is aluminum.

Might explain why the medicinal cannabis clubs in cali are being messed with in the same way that the rawesome food club has been. The feds  can't have people just running around selling the cure to cancer whether it be raw foods or powerful herbs now can they?

Anyways, I'd like to see some evidence that fumes from any plant are automatically toxic.

[svrn]

Citrushigh, I feel like before I started this diet I would always wake up feeling like crap, and the first thing I'd reach for would be the herb. Now that I feel healthier, I think I have much less of a medical need for it. I think thats what caused the reduced intake. Before I didn't fluctuate in my use too much. It would basically be all day long no matter what I had going on.

[ys]

Smoking cannabis has been proven to reduce risk of cancer as well as Alzheimer. It has also been shown to promote brain cell growth.

It also contains tar, carbon monoxide, nitrous and sulfur-based toxins, and others.  For someone who is suffering from cancer or Alzheimer it may provide some relief.  But for a healthy person this is a first class poison.

The feds  can't have people just running around selling the cure to cancer whether it be raw foods or powerful herbs now can they?

It is not a cure.  It simply masks and dulls symptoms just like any other drug.  Suppose there are some useful chemicals, why don't scientists identify it and isolate it so it can be delivered much safer than smoking it like they do it with other medicinal plants?  Ahh, that probably will not make you high, I get it now.

[Neone]

Well what if you're using a vaporizer (which you can pick up for $30 these days so there is no excuse) and not inhaling any "smoke"  ?

[CitrusHigh]

I'm afraid I have concur with ys on this one. I use cannabis, but when I smoke it, I do so knowing that I'm polluting my body, and my body is very boisterous about it. My mouth is dry, I feel fatigued afterwards, often there is a cough, my breathing feels labored, and a host of other issues.

Also ANY time you are inhaling super heated gas and particulates of any kind, it is safe to assume you are doing harm to your body.

Just think about it TOTD, that is not to say that it doesn't have some beneficial affects, but telling a sick person to smoke something to get better is about the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

That doesn't make cannabis bad, I wouldn't use it if I thought it was, it just means that there are pros and cons. Now if it were cold extracted in to a raw fat, that would, IMHO, be a perfectly healthy thing to do.

It's ok for smoking to be harmful, that doesn't mean you can't do it, it just means you have to acknowledge that you're ok with the effects.

[cherimoya_kid]

Well what if you're using a vaporizer (which you can pick up for $30 these days so there is no excuse) and not inhaling any "smoke"  ?

I see no problem with that, other than the fact that you are high, and therefore should not drive or operate dangerous/heavy machinery afterwards.  Of course, pot can create "demotivational syndrome" in people, so that's something to watch out for, if you're using it heavily and regularly.

[svrn]

I love how everyone is coming out as such a know it all on the subject. First of all I will address the whole vaporizer issue. I personally believe smoking to be much safer than vaporizers. When you are smoking you know you are inhaling only the plant matter and maybe some papers. When you start getting into all sorts of gadgetry there are parts being heated up you know nothing about. I know that the hotbox for example has been shown to give off benzene fumes. Either way, you never know what is being heated up in that device in giving of toxic fumes.

I also love how YS is calling this a first class poison for a healthy poison. I'd consider proven things such as soy, high fructose corn syrup, or the mercury in vaccines to be first class toxins. But to call cannabis, something which has never been proven in a lab to do anything other than improve one's health (ie. cancer and alzheimers) a first rate toxin is being a huge drama queen as well as pulling things out of your ass.

And on the cancer front it doesnt just provide some relief. It has been proven that when made into highly potent hemp oil and ingested over a long period of time, it completely cures cancer. I suggest you watch the movie run from the cure for more info on that,

Humans have a very long history with this plant going back farther than we know. I mean, we have cannabinoid receptors already there in our brains from the day we are born, just waiting to be activated.

I personally havent seen any proof of cannabis being bad for you so I won't just go with "smoke is bad" and assume I know everything about a complex subject such as this. There are many more factors in this question than just the method of ingestion.

Is it not the only thing in the world that it is physically impossible for a human to ingest enough of to die? Its the only thing I know of. Even too much water will kill you.

[CitrusHigh]

Psilocybe mushrooms also cannot be consumed in sufficient quantities to kill you.

As a cannabis grower, breeder and chemist I think you are being dishonest with yourself Troll, but you are entitled to your opinion.

It must be very crucial for your world view that you are so dedicated to the combustion of this plant not being harmful. That is an extremely naive viewpoint with no respect for truth.

It is likely that properly extracted cannabis is not only not unhealthy, but even quite healthy, like you said, we have cannabinoid receptors built in, but there is no two ways about it, smoking is HIGHLY detrimental. You don't need a double blind study to tell you what your body is telling you which is "Hey, why are you breathing in all of this soot and hot gas, you're burning me and clogging my alveoli with tar!??!!?" Does scraping resin mean anything to you?

It is your kind of narrow thinking, this sort that is so common in most people, that makes lab studies seem credible, but life doesn't happen in a vacuum like it does in a lab, which is why those studies are often so much rubbish. I'm not trying to insult you at all troll, I'm trying to get you to let go of what you're holding dear to and empty your cup a bit, follow the truth where it leads, not where you want it to go.

I agree with you likewise however about vaporizing, still superhot gases assaulting your lungs plus possible metal particles depending on what kind of materials are used in the vaporizer. Aluminum would be the worst of what is used in the market, glass would be the best.

Again, not trying to insult you, you can have your opinion, I just think you are reaching.

[Dorothy]

I've seen a video on making hemp oil and they made a big point of how dangerous it is to make at home. But I can buy "hemp oil" in the store. Would someone in the know please explain the difference in these oils?
 
Oils can get nasty when heated too so this makes me wonder about the processing of the oil and how that effects the medicinal aspects of help oil.

Cold-pressed hemp oil sounds like a cool food and plant helper. Personally, the idea of putting smoke in my lungs of any kind makes me want to cough just thinking about it. But then we get to the same old argument about toxins and how relative they can be compared with the benefits of getting something in the intake that is really great for you and knowing that your body will have to detox but overall maybe it still being a better thing than what is already happening. I often feel this way about nuts. There is something in nuts that I really need that overpowers any consideration of having to detox "anti-nutrients".

In terms of cancer, jeepers, there are HUNDREDS of wonderful natural ways to go about helping your body to rid itself of that. There are definitely ways to approach cancer without smoking. But, if you have cancer and have no other option, the smoke and tar etc. would become a necessarily evil in an overall context of positive action. Much better imho to do other cures without the smoke factor.... or figure out a better way to do cannabis.

This leads back to the oil and what the different kinds of seeds and if there is any way to buy medicinal hemp oil that is a good enough oil to want to ingest. Rancid, heated oils also would not for me even if they had some good effects warrant ingesting, much like the benefits of hemp do not warrant the inhalation of smoke.

Is there a truly healthy way to take cannabis?

[svrn]

I believe that you are the narrow minded one. You are the one who cannot get past your opinion of "smoke is bad, end of story".

The proof I have seen as to its detrimental effects are the smoke is bad theory. You need to remember that there are many more variables in this than just the fact of smoke. I have tons of studies proving only positive effects gained from smoking as well as showing that none of the negative effects associated with regular smoke inhalation are present with cannabis smoke inhalation. All you have on your side is the "smoke is always bad" argument. I dont care if you are a grower or not, you dont point to any proof. How about all the people in India living past 100 even though they are vegetarian who are heavy, all day long smokers? This is quite common over there. When all you can say is smoke is bad and offer nothing else who si the one with narrow thinking when I am the one who accepts that there infinite variables in this subject that nobody knows about?

I've seen a video on making hemp oil and they made a big point of how dangerous it is to make at home. But I can buy "hemp oil" in the store. Would someone in the know please explain the difference in these oils?

But, if you have cancer and have no other option, the smoke and tar etc. would become a necessarily evil in an overall context of positive action.

The hemp oil you get in the store is made from legal hemp which has almost no thc. The medicinal hemp oil requires using plants with very high thc content.

Also smoking has never been shown to cure cancer, only reduce the risk of getting it and/or preventing it. Only the hemp oil has been shown to completely cure cancer. As far as other cures go, this one has been shown to be one the most effective cancer cures out there. Cannabis extractions are among the oldest forms of medicine knows to mankind as well as one of the most effective.

Id say smoking is the healthiest way to ingest. Pharmaceutical companies have been trying for decades to prove something unhealthy in smoking cannabis and have always fallen flat on their faces so I say smoke up. Our lungs are likely much more capable of dealing with some heat than our stomachs are of digesting overcooked fats necessary to extract cannabis into food.

PS: Things a lot worse than just food poisoning are likely to occur from taking way too many mushrooms such as suicide or running through the streets naked screaming you are god and attacking people.

[CitrusHigh]

The hemp oil you find in the store is from very low THC strains developed for fiber and food but not for psychoactivity, you couldn't smoke enough to bring on the hallucinogenic effects.

The oil you are probably referring to that can  be dangerous to make is Butane Oil, sometimes called Butane honey/hash oil, and it is extracted with butane which is highly explosive/flammable and has killed a few people over the years. It is completely unnatural and you can bet that there is left over chemical and residues from the butane gas left in the material that is intended for use. I would not recommend it.

The truly safest way to use cannabis would be to consume raw, fresh inflorescence (bud/flower material) however that would not be very palatable without at least some processing and spicing.  An equally safe method would be to dry the buds and shake off (kif) the trichomes (resin glands, crystals) and concentrate those together. Those could then be swallowed or used as a suppository (though strictly speaking it is not natural to introduce things in to the rectum from that direction obviously). The next safest would be to concentrate those resin glands as described before and then put them in to a stone pressed oil like olive oil, after a lengthy amount of time the active compounds will migrate in to the fat where they can be consumed.

Another possibly healthful way, though somewhat less healthful than the above would be to make a tincture by soaking buds and/or leaves in the purest alcohol you can find, preferably pure ethanol. After a given period of time, with several variants, including temperature, saturation, purity, etc  again, the active compounds will migrate in to the alcohol which can then be filtered and consumed as is (still with the full health implications of consuming alcohol) or it can be allowed to evaporate at room temp until you just have the residue left, which is going to be mostly chlorophyll and the active compounds.

There are a host of other methods but many come in unhealthy carriers.....

Bhang
Cannabutter (which can be consumed as is or baked further in to other edibles (brownies, cookies, truffles, etc anything you can use butter in) This is merely a cooked variation of the olive oil method above.

Basically you can either consume the material directly or extract it in to a fat or alcohol.

A salve is another option, but I wouldn't know the process for that, other than possibly using a fat as a carrier.

[TylerDurden]

Smoke/heat generally creates heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that's why those 2 kinds are present in cigarette-smoke, cooked-foods and smoked foods.

[Haai]

I have tons of studies proving only positive effects gained from smoking as well as showing that none of the negative effects associated with regular smoke inhalation are present with cannabis smoke inhalation.

Could you give us a few references for those interested? Thanks

[svrn]

heres a few I found in about 5 minutes to get you started.

http://www.naturalnews.com/029780_marijuana_cancer.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4286435.stm

[Dorothy]

The truly safest way to use cannabis would be to consume raw, fresh inflorescence (bud/flower material) however that would not be very palatable without at least some processing and spicing.  An equally safe method would be to dry the buds and shake off (kif) the trichomes (resin glands, crystals) and concentrate those together. Those could then be swallowed or used as a suppository (though strictly speaking it is not natural to introduce things in to the rectum from that direction obviously). The next safest would be to concentrate those resin glands as described before and then put them in to a stone pressed oil like olive oil, after a lengthy amount of time the active compounds will migrate in to the fat where they can be consumed.

Another possibly healthful way, though somewhat less healthful than the above would be to make a tincture by soaking buds and/or leaves in the purest alcohol you can find, preferably pure ethanol. After a given period of time, with several variants, including temperature, saturation, purity, etc  again, the active compounds will migrate in to the alcohol which can then be filtered and consumed as is (still with the full health implications of consuming alcohol) or it can be allowed to evaporate at room temp until you just have the residue left, which is going to be mostly chlorophyll and the active compounds.

There are a host of other methods but many come in unhealthy carriers.....

Bhang
Cannabutter (which can be consumed as is or baked further in to other edibles (brownies, cookies, truffles, etc anything you can use butter in) This is merely a cooked variation of the olive oil method above.

Basically you can either consume the material directly or extract it in to a fat or alcohol.

A salve is another option, but I wouldn't know the process for that, other than possibly using a fat as a carrier.

Thanks Citrus for the explanation.
Some herbs need the extraction in order to have the medicinal affect. Troll, do you know if just eating the inflorescence has ever been tried as a cure for cancer? How about the simple oil or alcohol extractions? Alcohol is often the best way to extract compounds from herbs and what you say about having the alcohol evaporate Citrus is how I use my tinctures. In terms of availability and usefulness as a cancer cure if the extractions were as good as the oil that would sure be worth knowing. I think though that maybe one of the healing factors in the oil is the omega 3 content. Same reason that the Budwig cure has such a high success rate. Makes one wonder if the hemp oil combined with raw quark wouldn't be a supercharged cure?

[svrn]

Troll, do you know if just eating the inflorescence has ever been tried as a cure for cancer?

The active part of the plant in curing cancer is the THC. The thc cannot be released without heat so therefore eating it raw will likely do nothing. Heat is required to activate the medicinal properties of the plant. I havent seen any research on tinctures and their effects on cancer. The hemp oil has been proven time and time again to cure cancer however. You can see videos on youtube of people with clearly visible skin cancer applying the oil topically and showing their day by day reduction until the cancer is completely gone.

[CitrusHigh]

The thc cannot be released without heat so therefore eating it raw will likely do nothing.

This is a common misconception, but completely invalid. Cannabis can be eaten whole for it's active properties. Run a quick search out there on the web and you will come across enough anecdotal evidence of people who practice this regularly. It's not common, and may not be as efficient/effective, but it is certainly healthier than combustion.

[svrn]

Like I said, eating it raw will LIKELY do nothing. I've eaten an entire 8th of high grade before on a pretty much empty stomach because the cops were coming. I felt an ever so slight high later that was barely noticable but I could tell it had an effect. If I had eaten that 8th all at once I'd be so high I was miserable as well as probably vomiting all over myself, but I would never do that since the time I ate 2 gs was horrible enough. Apart from being a tiny bit high I also had a pretty bad stomach ache most of the time. I can tell you for sure that it didn't feel healthy in my digestive system at all. I now know through my research into paleo diet and such that we are not herbivores at all and shouldn't be putting things like that into our body. Dried herbs are especially bad due to their lack of moisture and should be completely avoided.

I'd recommend smoking to anyone as the healthiest method since I have yet to see any evidence that points to smoked cannabis being harmful.

I also forgot to mention that weed has properties such as bronchiodilation which help people with asthma. I know people with asthma who swear by it. If smoke is so bad no matter what then shouldn't it be especially harmful to asthmatics?

Of course it should since it is 100% impossible that smoke can deliver compounds that will actually improve lung function rather than destroy it(sarcasm).

Id like to get an explanation on the asthmatic issue.

[Dorothy]

Troll, do you mean to say that oil obtained from slow grinding without heat should not be used to heal cancer? Has such a method without heat ever been tried as a cancer cure? Healing cancer is a different desired outcome than getting high.

[svrn]

Such a method as that has never been tried to my knowledge.

The cancer and the getting high are directly related. The entire point of the oil extraction rick simpson discussed in run from the cure is that it is basically 100% concentrated thc which is what gets you high. If you look at the study on the rats with the brain tumors i posted on in the naturalnews article you will see that the thc is what does the healing. You can see in the movie that a lot of rick simpsons patients get too high from the oil need to ease into taking a high enough dose to treat the cancer. Apart from that you will see that getting high is also exactly what they needed since it allowed them to get adequate sleep and rest as well letting them eat enough to heal.

I suppose if there was a way to heat the cannabis to release all the thc into and oil which was not being heated it would have the same effect without the negatives of ingesting cooked fat. I cant see how you would heat one without heating the other though. If someone has cancer though id say just take the hit with the little bit of cooked oil and pair that with lots of raw meat and fat and you should do great.

[Haai]

I'd recommend smoking to anyone as the healthiest method since I have yet to see any evidence that points to smoked cannabis being harmful.

Although there are studies that show positive effects from marijuana there are also plenty that show negative effects. On one of those links you provided earlier in the thread there's a bunch of 'related articles', pretty much all suggesting that mariujuana is harmful.

Btw, what do you eat when you got the munchies? I tend to eat waaaay too much when I smoke weed, to the extent I can barely walk or sleep sometimes.

[CitrusHigh]

I'm wondering if perhaps some people don't have the enzymes or digestive gear to  absorb cannabis. Because there are enough reports of eating cannabis without cooking or heating to be certain it is possible, but others will argue just as surely against it based on their own personal experiences. It's not terribly unlikely that just like some people can't tolerate dairy, or honey, or what have you, similarly they can't assimilate eaten cannabis, or possibly they metabolize it too slow to have much effect.

I think troll, that if you look honestly at the asthma issue, you will find most people don't have a problem with asthma and smoking pot.....as long as they have an inhaler handy!

Here's a link on a discussion...of course a lab can say whatever it wants, but the real world is where it counts, and this simple discussion on a forum demonstrates that smoking pot can be pretty detrimental to asthmatics, even the ones who say they don't have a problem, only think that because they view having an inhaler as normal, which it is very much not!

http://www.steadyhealth.com/smoking_weed_and_having_asthma_is_bad__t96757.html

Dorothy, the problem with slow grinding is that cannabis resins are not oils as we think of them, they are extremely sticky glue like substances, literally resins, more akin to pine tree sap than oil. They can be made in to liquidy oils with harsh chemical processes like butane extraction, but that renders them, IMHO absolutely unfit for human consumption.

Hashish/kif/bubblehash is about the best you can do healthwise, and that is active orally in sufficient quantities. 

I suppose you could splice two methods by extracting in to pure alcohol, then evaporating the alcohol off (ethanol, NOT isopropyl which is far less effective in consumer concentrations), then put the residue in to a carrier oil like stone pressed olive oil.

Still, as long as you're not smoking it, even if baked in to food, it is relatively harmless. When I consider the amount of cooked food I consume, the amount I can tolerate without getting sick or exhibiting noticeable symptoms, I do believe I could eat cooked cannabis on a regular enough basis to suit the needs of the medicinal aspects without too many negative health effects. Like troll says, there are people who live to 100 who smoke every day, or my grandpa who lived to 95, eating bacon and a bunch of other SAD crap every day. The only thing I would mention is that these people definitely have a lower quality of health at this age than they would if they were living more healthfully, they may be alive, but in many cases they are barely functional and not self sufficient.