Marihemp: Usage: Your Highness (Part 1 of 4)

Your Highness

Some Notes on Enjoying Marijuana

(Part 1 of 4) by Gary Stimeling

Sho’, you daddy pro’bly one of the biggest ole hop-heads in Texas — why I bet he smoke it an’ eat it an’ jest anyway he can git it into his old haid! Hee-hee!

— field hand C.K. to young Harold in Terry Southern’s “Red-Dirt Marijuana”

Most cannabis users have a favorite way of partaking, with individual preferences in variety, preparation, dose, paraphernalia, and so on. There may be as many procedures as there are people in the world who enjoy the herb. If so, there are somewhere between 200 million and 600 million different techniques. I won’t try to cover all of them here, just some of the major ones.

Methods

Eat It

Without question, this was the original aboriginal route of ingestion. The resin-laced seed-bearing branches are conveniently at mouth height for bipedal hominids, who could easily bend the tops of taller plants down for munching, too. After feeding, they would have gathered some to carry back to their shelter along with other foods.

Eventually Homo erectus (That’s us, in the million years before we became sapiens) learned to control fire. The first known human campsite with a cookfire, 1.4 million years ago at Chesowanja, Kenya, contains gnawed animal bones, including those of australopithecines, our evolutionary grandparents. Fire enabled us to disperse from Africa throughout Eurasia to the edge of the northern glaciers. The earliest hearths discovered outside of Africa, at Gesher Benot in Israel’s Hula valley 790,000 years ago, were used and reused for tens of thousands of years, showing that by this time humans had learned to make fire from scratch. We must have experimented with roasting many things, such as cannabis tops. In hemp-growing regions from Morocco to Turkestan, the practice survives today, as follows:

Gather mature, fresh, resinous flowering female tops, either seeded or seedless, cutting them off with enough of the stalk to serve as a long handle. The seeds are tasty and nutritious, but the hulls are tough, and the seeds can be beaten and pinched out if you want only the resin. Lightly toast the tops over an open fire until they are golden brown, being careful not to scorch them. The heat will convert some of the cannabidiolic acid of the fresh plant into extra delta-9-THC, increasing the psychoactivity. You can eat them as is, for a truly primeval experience. Or you can do as later peoples have done: Swish them around in a dish of melted butter or ghee — not to the point of saturating them or dissolving the resin, just enough to add flavor. Then sprinkle them with salt or drizzle a bit of honey over them. You can even dip them in honey and hang them up until it dries to a glaze, which will prevent the THC from oxidizing and keep them potent for several weeks. Chew up a few toasted buds after a light camp supper with friends, spend the next few hours gazing into the flames while the stars promenade overhead, and you’ll have an idea how religion began.

Dessert continued to evolve, along with the enjoyment of cannabis. The earliest direct evidence we have for use of the drug resin comes from clay inventory tablets showing that by 3000 B.C. the Sumerians were importing hashish from Meluhha, the Indus River valley civilization, whose chief cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, were the largest on earth at the time. Sumerians called the drug azulla, which may mean something like “spinner” or “whirler.” They also called it ganzigunna, “soul-swirling thief,” probably a pun on the ancient Indian word ganja.

The Sumerians came to Mesopotamia (Between the Rivers) from parts unknown, by way of the marshes of the Tigris-Euphrates delta. One theory is that they were refugees from near the Black Sea. About 5600 B.C., the Dardanelles-Bosporus land bridge that held back the Mediterranean collapsed, producing a massive flood that enlarged the Black Sea from a fresh-water lake to a salt sea. Underwater exploration proceeds sporadically in a hunt for a lakeside society hypothesized from artifacts found by chance, a culture whose destruction may have given rise to the legend of Ziusudra, the flood-survivor whose story holds a prominent place in Sumerian literature. Thousands of years later, he became Noah in the Hebrew retelling.

At the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates system there had developed a region of marshes overgrown with thick mats of reeds and rich in date palms and other food sources. The area was well known in ancient tradition as the Garden of Eden. In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein drained and destroyed it to crush rebellion among the Marsh Arabs who lived there. Most of them died or were dispersed as refugees. Between 5500–4500 B.C., however, these marshes had formed a natural dike that dammed up behind it a sea of fresh water, deified by the Sumerians as the womb-goddess Apsu. Silting of the rivers behind this marsh dike formed a low plain of super-fertile land about the size of New Jersey, which rose from the sea in less than a thousand years, very fast in geological time.

The first land to rise from Apsu was called Eridu, the Mount of Creation, in analogy to the anatomical Mount of Venus. On this new mother earth, about 5100 B.C., the Sumerians built their first city, with their first temple, dedicated to Apsu, at its center. There, their myths say, they ate the fruit of the Tree of Life, a title given to cannabis in many cultures of the Middle East. Perhaps, as hinted in the Biblical version of the Garden story about 700 B.C., they had had to leave Eden to partake of it, because cannabis doesn’t grow in marshland.

The ancient tales imply that it was under the guidance of this holy plant that “kingship came down from heaven.” That is, the Sumerians were inspired to create a system of political organization and division of labor that enabled them to do their prodigious works. They built dozens of cities with step-pyramid temples (ziggurats) at their centers, along with networks of irrigation canals for the surrounding farms. The temples collected and disbursed food and raw materials. Gods of both genders were worshipped, and social relations in the early centuries seem to have been quite equalitarian. To oversee the distribution of wealth, the priestesses and priests chose a king, originally a deputy rather than supreme ruler. The Greeks, who later adopted the same system, called him a demiurge, or chief of “public works.”

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Apparently it worked in Sumer for a couple thousand years. And for millennia thereafter, until the advent of Christianity, by far the most popular deity throughout the Middle East was Sumerian Inanna and her religious equivalents, the love goddess to whom was credited all the arts of civilization. In other cultures under other names — Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Asherah, Isis, Aphrodite — she kept some semblance of the old ideals alive.

By about 3000 B.C., however, kings in several regions had recruited permanent bands of soldier-police and had gained control of the government. In Sumer, armies from rival city-states began to make constant war with each other. This was the same period when writing was invented, and Sumerian clay tablets are filled with a longing for peace, and bewilderment as to why people had become addicted to fighting. The era of destructive empire-building in which we still live had begun.

In hindsight, the king thing is like one of those brilliant cosmic insights that you scribble down during the height of the high at midnight, then in the morning wonder what the hell you meant by, “The dog star is the Big Puppy.”

But we still have dessert.

Google “marijuana recipes” and you’ll get more than 55,000 hits. Deciding which recipe to try can be daunting. And most people in the Land of the Ex-Free will only try one occasionally, because eating uses up a lot of weed. In a way, it’s actually more efficient than smoking, because most of the THC is absorbed, whereas only about 25 percent of it survives burning in a pipe or joint. However, there’s no question that you can stretch a supply further by smoking it, a little bit at a time. Moreover, because smoked cannabis takes full effect in 1 to 5 minutes, it’s much easier to assess the dose, adding to it if necessary, and the high is more predictable. When eaten, the drug takes 30 to 90 minutes to come on. If you’ve taken too much or too little, that’s pretty much it until next time. And due to the wide variations in THC levels and individual metabolism, you can end up dropping a whole ounce literally down the toilet. At prohibition prices, that’s prohibitive. Here are some points to keep in mind when evaluating recipes, so as to gain your preferred altitude without wasting your hard-won herb:

$ Cannabis resin is not soluble in water, but dissolves readily in alcohol, oil, or fat. A recipe without one of those components will not work. Next to smoking, THC is absorbed fastest from an alcohol solution: 20–40 minutes.

$ A small amount of sugar speeds absorption, but a large amount hinders it.

$ A large volume of food slows THC absorption and spreads it out over a longer period of time, weakening the effect. Using the same amount of active ingredient, a teaspoonful of hash jam will work better than a wedge of double chocolate hash layer cake. And the same amount of hash jam will work better on an empty stomach or with a light snack than it will after a full meal.

$ High cooking temperatures destroy THC. Low to medium heat increases potency by converting some precursor compounds to active THC.

$ Though sweet-smelling, the resin tastes slightly bitter. Most people feel it needs sweetener and/or spices, though some like the flavor as is. Different strains also vary in flavor. Test by chewing part of a bud.

$ Optimum dose varies tremendously, depending on the potency of the material and the metabolism of the user. These are guidelines, from moderate to very strong doses for most people: 3 to 30 grams (about 1/10 to 1 ounce) of marijuana, ¼ to 2 grams of hashish, or 1/16 (63 milligrams) to ½ gram of hash oil. If using shake, trimmings, or other low-quality weed, up to an ounce may be needed. Write down the amounts of all ingredients you end up using, so that you can accurately measure and remember portion size for a given dose in the finished product. Unless you’re an experienced hash eater, start small. Some people will get a nice buzz from just half of the low end of these dosage ranges.

Many of the most effective recipes start with bud butter or its more healthful cousin, clarified cannabutter, the sacred ghee of India. If you live near an Indian or Pakistani neighborhood, you can buy plain ghee economically, but it’s easy to make your own.

For about 1¼ pounds of ghee, place 2 pounds of butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. After it has all melted, a froth will start rising to the surface. Let this process continue until the butter is coming to a slow boil, then remove it from the heat and carefully skim off the froth with a large cooking spoon. Put the butter back on the stove, let it again begin to boil, and again remove from the heat and skim off the froth. Do this two to four times, or until no more foam rises to the top. Remove it from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. A thin skin will form on top; remove this also. Now pour off the clear yellow butterscotch-smelling liquid (the ghee) through a tea strainer into a glass jar, being careful not to pour out any of the heavy white solids in the bottom of the pan. These and the froth contain the saturated fat. Discard them.

To sanctify 1 pound of ghee so as to yield 32 strong or 64 moderate doses of 1 level tablespoon each, melt the ghee in a saucepan and add one of the following:

3–6 ounces of marijuana, finely sieved to remove as much non-resinous plant material as possible, toasted in a dry pan over low heat until it’s a light tan color. (It will be considerably reduced in weight and bulk by sieving.)

32 grams (1 and 1/8 ounce) of crumbled hashish

8 grams (¼ ounce) of hash oil

Hash or hash oil will dissolve almost immediately. If using marijuana, the product won’t be as strong, because there’s a limit to how much plant material the ghee can absorb. You’ll need to stir a few minutes until the ghee turns green. You can make a clear (non-gritty) ghee by filtering the result through muslin or cheesecloth. Squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. Save the residue. By heating it in milk, you can make a nice cup or two of bhang. Cannabis ghee can be stored for months in the refrigerator. Once it is well chilled, you can add some cold water to the jar to keep the THC near the top from oxidizing.

Majoun is the Moroccan jam in which Dr. Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours introduced cannabis to France in 1840. This recipe for it appears in many books and Web pages:

¼ ounce cleaned, ground marijuana

1 cup chopped dates

½ cup chopped raisins

½ cup ground walnuts

½ cup ground almonds

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground anise seed

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

½ cup honey

½ cup water (more if needed)

2 tablespoons melted butter or ghee

In a dry skillet, toast the marijuana over very low heat until it begins to release an aroma. Combine it with the dried fruit, walnuts, spices, honey and water, and heat through to soften the ingredients. Remove to a heavy bowl and mash until the ingredients are well blended. Add the butter last and stir it in thoroughly. Spoon into a jar and store in the refrigerator. Serve on crackers, or eat by the spoonful or fingerful. Note: Unless using superweed or eating more than a cracker-sized amount, this recipe is rather weak. It can be strengthened by using cannabis ghee, or by substituting hashish for the marijuana.

When smoked in small quantities, cannabis is a mild drug. When eaten, however, a goodly dose can become a shaman-strength psychedelic. Usually, this just means a couple of hours immobilized by overwhelmingly beautiful interior visions. Sometimes, though, even an experienced user can become frightened. Have I gone too far this time? Will I ever come down? How many people are arguing inside my head? Is that bass drum really my heart? What if I forget to keep breathing? Or float above the atmosphere? Have I swallowed my tongue? These are a few of the questions that can nag at the voyager as her body dissolves and her mind divides into tree branches. At times like these, repeat the Sixties mantra: “It’s the drug.” Even better, have an unstoned friend there to remind you that it will wear off and that no one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana. In 1974, David Hoye collected a definitive three-volume anthology of early-20th-century essays on cannabis. He called the first volume Hasheesh: The Herb Dangerous, after a facetious title by Aleister Crowley, and dedicated it to one Kenneth Miles Overstreet, who ate five ounces (142 grams) of the strongest Nepali hashish at one time. One gram of this would be a heavy dose for most people. I’ve not found an account of Overstreet’s trip, but he lived to tell the tale and suffered no lasting ill effects.

Here’s some more information in our FAQ on Eating Cannabis. The Cannabis Culture Cooking Gallery is a good page of tested recipes, but it’s formatted with an annoying graphic that overlies part of the text at some resolutions. You may want to copy the recipe(s) you want and save them as text for easier reading. This Project 420 Cooking page has a nice variety of recipes made with conservative dosages. In the 1995 Loompanics catalog, August Salemi published a way of concentrating resin from even low-grade cannabis into capsules for ingestion. It’s reprinted many places on the Web. Online Pot’s Smokeless page gives an excerpt from the original and an update by Martin Martinez.

Duty to Disclose. Among some African tribes, it’s customary to force criminals to smoke dagga (cannabis) until they pass out. Not only is this unpleasant; it also forces the person to meditate intensely on the injury caused by his crime.

Food and drink preparations of cannabis (and other psychedelics) can be given to people without their knowledge, that is, without telling them what’s in the ordinary-looking cookie or milkshake. This is not kosher! Giving someone a drug without her informed consent is mind-rape. Yes, there are people who probably deserve such treatment, who desperately need a dose of enlightenment. Naturally, you might be tempted to make an exception if you somehow had the chance to dose a Kissinger, an Ashcroft, a Bush. But would you really want an uptight tyrant who doesn’t know what’s happening in his head when sober to go on a surprise flight next to the red phone? And do you want to sink to the same ethical level as some CIA scientist? Everyone on the wrong side of the victimless-crime laws knows how it feels to lose the most basic of all rights, sovereignty over one’s own body. Don’t violate it from the flip side.