Cannabis oil - Do it yourself

Cannabis oil or extracts made with cannabis are medicinal products more popular everyday, in-between people for medicinal plants, and non-agressive natural therapies. These cannabis oils are produced with marijuana buds, from which cannabinoids and terpenes, active ingredients of cannabis with high medicinal properties, are extracted in concentrated form.

Bad new is in Spain, the sale of products with cannabinoids, and those derived from cannabis, are under a legal grey area. As always, the fact that marijuana is an ilegal substance makes tough to know more about scientific properties, and therapeutic uses, in our organisms. The good is that steps to produce you own cannabis oil are widely spread, and easy to follow, so it is not difficult to produce them at home, so we can enjoy the benefits of preparing our own cannabis oil.

Advantages of preparing your own cannabis oil

Quality control: Producing your own cannabis oil allows you to know (first hand) the quality of cannabis used to proceed. You can use you own plants, or go to a dispensary (or confident dealer). What is important is to ensure, always, that is organic cannabis. these extracts are highly concentrated, and any chemical compound, pesticide or additive, could be harmful for our organism.

Specific marijuana strains: Now you can find many cannabis strains with high CBD content. This is specially important when producing your own cannabis oil, as cannabidiol is the cannabinoid with more antitumoural, analgesic and antiinflammatory, properties. Anyway, the best advantage when doing your own oil is to find the strain that better fits your medical needings. Start identifying the simptoms you need to solve, and then inform yourself about different strain for medical use, percentages of cannabinoids, flavonoids and terpenes.

Oral or topical use: These cannabis extracts given by oral or topical use, can be a good alternative to common joint, because avoid collateral harms due to smoking. In addition, they ease the control of the dose, and topical use doesn't produce psycoactive effects.
Ingredients: we can find many products similar to cannabis oil in market. Some of those products usually contain added ingredients, non-naturally present in a raw cannabis extract, like sugar (contained in many cases). Producing your own oil you'll avoid any extra ingredient.

Preparing cannabis oil

grinder marijuana

The first step for any kind of extract is prepare the herbs. Use dry buds and grind them properly. Remember that the green material chosen will determine the quality of the final product. Inform yourself properly, and choose a medical marijuana strain according to your dolences, and don't forget it is a must to use organic cannabis to avoid any chemical traces that may be dangerous.

Cannabinoids are fat soluble, this means that can be dissolved in fat, so that alcohols, dairy products, oils and fats in general will be basic for our purpose. Noticing this, some methods exist to produce cannabis oil at home:

Oil based cannabis extracts

For this elaboration it is important to use a high quality vegetable oil, as it is olive oil or cocnut oil. We choose to use an extra virgin olive oil, which also has uncountable skin and organism benefits. There are two different interesting methods for oil based cannabis extracts:

Fast method in hot: Put your cannabis in a bowl and submerge it in oil. Calculate you'll need about 10g of weed per each 100ml of oil.

marijuana oil

Cook it in bain-marie for 90 minutes. Within a thermometer, control the oil's temperature to don't exceed 100ºC. After this time put the mix in a container ready for fire and heat it up (slowly) for 30 minutes to 120ºC. The temperature control will ensure a proper process of decarboxylation*.

marijuana oil

Once this mix is cold, filter it. You can use a cokking.mesh or a coffee filter. Pack it in dark glass containers, and store it in a fresh and dry place.

cannabis oil

Slow method and cold: Put your cannabis buds in a glass container and leave it macerate for 2 months. Lace the container in a dark place (light degradates THC), where it can be affected by temperature changes (a good idea is to place it in a paperboard box and leave it outside). Along this period shake it every 3 days.

Cannabis tinctures

After two months filter the content and store it in a fresh, dry place with non direct light.

*Decarboxylation: Is a chemical reaction in which a carboxylium group is removed from a compound in CO2-form. In cannabis, this reaction is got with heat, and is the one that allow us convert the acidic form of THC and CBD (THC-A and CBD-A) into its active form, so the one that asures its medical properties.

oil marijuana cold

The oil produced in cold conserves better. Nevertheless, as no heat is applied, decarboxylation won't occur. Thsi way, this process does not asure that all cannabinoids will remain in its active-form. In consecuence, the effect of cold-produced oil will be softer.

Dose: the most recommended way is to begin with a very low dose, and gradually increase as your tolerance does. These type of oils are not as concentrated as solvents are. The dose may vary from 6 to 45 drops per day (in 3 tokes per day), depending on each person, strain, and quantity of its active compounds.

Cannabis tinctures

Tinctures or alcohol extracts, are an extraction method in which active ingredients are extracted macerating weed in alcohol. These extracts are more powerful than ones done with oil, because alcohol extracts main active ingredients easily. For our cannabis tincture we will use wine alcohol 96º, even though alimentary alcohol could also be used, or even some vodka or these type of alcohols. Whats important is to be sure the alcohol used is alimentary (sanitary alcohol sold in pharmacies is not approved for consumption).

How to proceed: Put your cannabis buds in a glass container and fill it with alcohol. Same way it happens in previous case, you'll need about 10 grams of cannabis per each 100ml of alcohol. Leave it macerating for 30-40 days, shaking it once in a while, without direct light. After this period, filter it.

oil marijuana alcohol

At this point you have the option of letting it evaporate to get a more concentrated oil (take the lit out and let it evaporate, in example, a 50% of its volume); or pack it directly. An advantage of tinctures is that you can let them evaporate and do a more likely concentration. To conserve it put it in dark glass containers and store it in a fresh and dry place. Alcohol extracts have a longer shelf-life compare with oil ones, so you can store them for years.

alcohol cannabis

In this case, as we didn't heat it up, is not possible to asure that all cannabinoids will be in their active form.

Dose: Equal than previous one, the most recommended way of dosing is to start with small amounts and increase it depending on two main factors: tolerance and efficiency (in example: two drops every morning and two drops at nightime). Every person and plant is different. Tincture is usually consumed dilluted in water, but it can also be consumed dropping in your mouth (maybe for some people this is too strong).

Pure cannabis oil

This type of oil won some popularity due to Rick Simpson and his documental "Run from the Cure", where he asured he recovered from skin cancer within this oil. Rick's formula uses petroleum eter as solvent to extract active ingredients from cannabis. We prefer using alcohol, because, even though during its elaboration nafta evaporates completelly, if this leaves some solvents in oil, these could be toxic when consumed regularly in high concentrations.

Warning: As preparing Rick Simpson Oil you need to heat up the mix, and eter is flammable, there are risks of explosion. Please follow the following advices:

Disinfect the working-area. Cannabis oil is consumed, so we need a clean and safe product.
Airflow: Open windows, and let the air move through. Try not to breath gas directly. It is not a bad idea to do it outdoors.
Never let the solvent be close to fire. Use an electric cooker (gas flame can also spark the vapours.
Concentrate: This process takes its time. Remember it and do it only if you have enough time, without distracting.

Said this, don't be scared. Doing your own cannabis oil is quite easy, and if you proceed properly there is nothing to be scared of.

Elabortaion:

Step 1: Put your cannabis in a container, add alcohol until covering it (notice you'll get 2-4 grams of oil per each 30 grams of weed used) and move it (within a plastic spoon) for 3 minutes. After this most of the cannabinoids will move into alcohol; filter it (we recommend you to do it twice) to remove all green matter. You can repeat the process (putting the same weed in alcohol again for 3 minutes) to extract more active ingredients.

Pure cannabis oil

Step 2: Following we will apply heat to alcohol, be careful. For this step you'll need a cooking pot, or a double pot, to evaporate the alcohol. We chose to use the double pot. If you don't have one, you can heat it up with double-boiler. Fill with water the bottom of the double-pot, and with alcohol, already filtered, the top part, and make it boil. Once you see the alcohol starts to bubble, put still in liquid form, shut down the fire inmediatelym so you'll avoid getting rid of medical properties.
The residual heat of water will make the rest, and alcohol will evaporate slowly. If alcohol stops bubbling but still in liquid form put them on fire again.

Pure marihuana oil

Step 3: Oir oil will be ready as soon as the bubbles are gone, and the liquid becomes something more consistent and dense. Take a small sample of resulting oil with a knife and burn it with a lighter. If the oil does not make a flame it means the alcohol is gone: you'll have it.
Make advantage of temperature and put the oil (still hot) in plastic needles. To conserve them store them in a fresh and dry place, without direct light (like inside a box in the fridge). Conserving them properly will let you keep it for 6-12 months easily.

oil cannabis pure

Trick: If there are wastes of your oil in the boiling pot impossible to catch, add some coconut oil, or olive oil while is still hot, You'll get a less concentrated cannabis oil, perfect for softer doses for topical use.

Dosing: This cannabis oil is highly concentrated. The dose from which you can start using it matches a drop (a half rice grain size) per day. After time you can increase the dose up to a full rice grain. Same way it happens with tinctures and oil-based extracts, pure oils can be consumed oral or topical way. When used it topical it is recommended to dillute them in olive oil, almonds oil or coconut oil.

Possible use of cannabis oil

Warning: Even though there are many evidences that active ingredients of cannabis could help you solve many dolences, it is not scientificly proved that cannabis cures any illness. This is due to legal situation of cannabis blocks clinic studies within it. talking about cancer, pre-clinic essays, have proven that in certain circumstances cannabinoids could inhibit carcinogenic cells developement. Due to these interesting results, nowadays this question is being studied in many countries arround the world. Nevertheless, still isn't any cientific evidence proving that cannabis could be a trusting treatment against cancer in humans.

Take care with afirmations that asure that cannabis oil can cure everything.
At SantYerbasi we are not doctors. We only are cannabis enthusiasts, this magic plant full of misteries and possibilities that is been around for thousands of years surprising humanbeing.
We group the information and write it here for whoever interested, for their own information. Oils mentioned here are considered alternative medicine, we don't recommend anybody to these type of treatments. you should be aware when using cannabis oil, with quantities and conditions you use it. These don't substitute an appropiate medical treatment. be in contact with a professional before starting with any treatment, specially when we are talking about medication.

Said this, these are some of the dolences for what cannabis oil could help:
Anxiety, asma, cancer, headachesm chronic pain, points pain, Chron desease, epilepsy and convulsion, multiple esclerosis, stress, lack of appetite, glaucoma, insomnia, migrane, nausea derived from chemotherapy, parkinson, Dravel sindrome, TEPT (Post traumatic stress transtorn).

By topical use it could also help to: arthritis, skin cancer, burns, scars, muscle pain, joints pain, due to its antiinflammatory and calming effects.