How to Grow Medicinal Marijuana

How to make dry hash with a martini shaker ! This is a method that is done many different ways, but I developed a method using a martini shaker.

Step 1: Gather supplies

1. Large metal martini shaker with secure lid and top.
2. 110 mesh screen square. Big enough to cover the big opening of the shaker, plus plenty of slack
3. 1-2 lbs of dry ice, broken into smaller nuggets
4. small glass jar / baby food jar
5. clean plastic flat bottomed bin * important
6. latex free & powder free gloves
7. butcher paper or tarp
8. Marijuana trimmings, close cut, small buds (no stems)

Step 2: Lay out tarp on the floor. This can occasionally get messy, especially starting out.

Step 3. Fill martini shaker canister 3/4 full with trimmings/close cut and about 5-6 small nuggets of dry ice.

Step 4. In between then canister and the top of the canister, lay the square of 110 mesh over the big opening and seal the canister with the top. *make sure the small martini lid is secure, too.

Step 5. While wearing the non latex gloves, shake the martini shaker just up and down, up and down until the outside of the canister is frosty. Its important to do shake carefully or all the trim can fall out if too much pressure is put on the lid and the canister

Step 6. When the outside is frosted, turn the canister upside down *while holding the lid on* and shake upside down for 1 minute.

- What’s happening here is the dry ice instantly freezes the bud and trim. As the trim is banged around inside the metal canister, the trichomes are breaking off and settling to the bottom. When you tip it upside down and shake, only the trichomes fall through the 110 mesh and are collected in the lid of the martini shaker.

Step 7. After you’ve shaken it upside down, turn it right-side up again and GENTLY remove the lid and keep the lid turned upside down when its removed. You’ll see the dry hashy broken off trichome powder all on the inside of the lid and on the mesh screen.

Step 8. Here’s where your bin comes in. Hold the lid *still upside down* over the bid and scrape along the lid with your gloved finger, collecting the powder down at the bottom. Then tap it into the glass jar you choose to collect the hash in. You’re doing this inside the bin so any residual hash will be collected and not on the floor. Keep the bin as clean and pure as you can so you can scrape off the hash that falls at the end. (meaning no trim pieces in it, so don’t shake the shaker over the bin)

Step 9. You can remove the small lid at the top of the martini shaker and collect the hash from there too. Make sure you dust off the mesh screen before you use it again.

Step 10. Then replace the mesh & lids on the canister and repeat steps 6-9. If its a batch that’s already been shaken right side up (step 5), it doesn’t have to be repeated because the trichomes have already been broken off. You can re-do Steps 6-9 for the same batch about 3-4 times and still get a good amount of hash from it. When there’s only a little hash collected after the 3-4th time, dump the old trim and repeat steps 3-9 until all the trim and bud you have is used up.

Used Trim to discard

After you have all your hash, you can press it using a rolling pin and an old credit card to roll it into balls if you would like or use it as a powder for cooking.

Cannabis Deficiency?
By Chris Kilham

In August 1990, researchers reported in the journal Naturethe discovery of receptors in the brain that specifically accommodate the cannabinoids in pot. Cannabinoids bind to particular neurological sites in the brain, as though the brain was specifically designed to utilize this plant. Did nature toss cannabinoid receptors into the brain by random chance? Are cannabinoid receptors part of an intelligent design for deriving maximum benefit from cannabis? Is cannabis a divine elixir of sacred communion for which we are ideally suited? Actually, a more sober answer seems likely. When there are receptors in the brain for a particular type of compound, that compound is made in the brain. This is true of many important agents that work to transmit brain messages of all types. So a hunt began to find such a compound.
In that vein, in 1992 researchers in Israel isolated the cannabinoid anandamide in the human brain. Unlike THC, anandamide is manufactured in the brain, and is therefore an endogenous cannabinoid. This agent, anandamide, is the compound that attaches to the built-in cannabinoid receptors in our brains. The name anandamide is based on the Sanskrit word ananda, which means bliss. Anandamide is a bliss molcule, enhancing greater well being and emotional satisfaction.
Ever since the pioneering work of Dr. William O’Shaughnessy on cannabis and pain compiled in the 1840′s a growing body of science has shown that cannabis offers relief for various types of pain. In the brain, the endogenous agent anandamide also plays a role in mitigating inflammation and pain. So both cannabinoids from inside and outside the body play a role in pain reduction. More recent studies show pain relief among sufferers of multiple sclerosis when cannabis is consumed.

Anandamide also plays a role in proper appetite, feelings of pleasure and well-being, and memory. Interestingly, cannabis also affects these same functions. Cannabis has been used successfully to treat migraine, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and glaucoma. So here is the seventy-four thousand dollar question. Does cannabis simply relieve these diseases to varying degrees, or is cannabis actually a medical replacement in cases of deficient anandamide?

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At least one author, medical doctor Ethan Russo, believes in the possibility of endocanabinoid deficiency, and suggests that such a deficiency might actually be a significant cause of the types of health problems listed above. His paper “Clinical Cannabinoid Deficiency,” published in Neuroendocrinology Lettersin 2004, delved deeply into the various ways that cannabinoids function in the body, and how a deficiency in cannabinoids can lead to a broad range of diseases. Since the publication of that paper, a number of studies have further confirmed the effectiveness of cannabis for many health disorders.
The idea of clinical cannabinoid deficiency opens the door to cannabis consumption as an effective medical approach to relief of various types of pain, restoration of appetite in cases in which appetite is compromised, improved visual health in cases of glaucoma, and improved sense of well being among patients suffering from a broad variety of mood disorders. As state and local laws mutate and change in favor of greater tolerance, perhaps cannabis will find it’s proper place in the home medicine chest.

Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter who researches natural remedies all over the world, from the Amazon to Siberia. He teaches ethnobotany at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is Explorer In Residence. Chris advises herbal, cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies and is a regular guest on radio and TV programs worldwide. His field research is largely sponsored by Naturex of Avignon, France. Read more at www.MedicineHunter.com.

The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.

They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy.

THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer.

Then, for three weeks, researchers injected standard doses of THC into mice that had been implanted with human lung cancer cells, and found that tumors were reduced in size and weight by about 50 percent in treated animals compared to a control group. There was also about a 60 percent reduction in cancer lesions on the lungs in these mice as well as a significant reduction in protein markers associated with cancer progression, Preet says.
Although the researchers do not know why THC inhibits tumor growth, they say the substance could be activating molecules that arrest the cell cycle. They speculate that THC may also interfere with angiogenesis and vascularization, which promotes cancer growth.

From Current & Science Daily