MMJ: Experiencing culture (and quality) shock

Is it hard to mess up making tincture? I don’t want to waste, and it seems easy. - N. Phused

It is very hard to mess up a tincture. They practically make themselves. You just need a quart of really strong grain alcohol (Everclear is generally the accepted go-to, although 100-proof vodka will do in a pinch) and about an ounce of decarboxylated weed. You gotta decarb the weed to turn the THCA in the flowers into THC. Decarboxylating cannabis is easy. You just need to grind it up and slow-cook it in the oven for a little while. Dump the flowers and the alcohol into a clean glass jar. Make sure the lid is tight so the alcohol doesn’t evaporate, and leave it in a cool dark spot. Shake up the jar once a day or so, and in a week or two you will have a nice cannabis-infused tincture. Easy peasy.

Folks use tinctures for all sorts of things. You can put a few drops under you tongue to get a quick buzz, or put a few drops in your coffee or other beverage. You could make a nice salad dressing.

Have fun.

Why does bong water smell like rotting potatoes? - Steen Key-Flor

You know, I can’t say that I have ever tried to smell bong water. In fact, I try to avoid bong water as much as possible. The water acts as a filter, and filters are supposed to remove dirt, and since your bong water is full of dirt, stinkiness is what happens. Change your bong water early and often, and if you spill some on the carpet (gross) you can use baking soda or a commercial carpet deodorizing powders to remove the smell.

By the way: Bongs aren’t really that efficient at removing gunk from your weed, but they do cool the smoke so you can take bigger hits, so there’s that.

Do you agree that the quality of both the flower and the culture have gone down since legalization? And a follow-up: Do you think medical rights have have sort of slipped to the wayside? - Buzz Killed

Quickly: The culture is fine, there’s just more newbies. At least in Cali, the flowers are still good. Washington and Colorado? Not so much. But Nevada has never had good weed and now they do. I bet the weed in Boston is better than it used to be. And yes, we need to do more to ensure that serious medical cannabis users don’t get trampled in the capitalist stampede.