RSO 'Rick Simpson Oil' - an affordable, versatile cannabis preparation for vaping, smoking or eating

Hi-Guys RSO - 1g tubes $15-$18, at Seattle Tonics

Extracts of cannabis in their many guises have proliferated since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington State. Edible cannabis preparations are widely available, albeit relatively expensive compared to other formats of cannabis like good-ole smoking grade flower. Marijuana extracts have proliferated and increased in potency and consistency across the board - like the 1g cartridges of super-pure distillate claiming potency north of 97% (not RSO).

RSO is a preparation popularized by the medical marijuana community, but is also enduringly popular with ganja farmers and other bulk users as a way to to utilize cannabis scraps and leftovers. RSO is a versatile cannabis format, more suitable for medical use than formats limited to consumption via smoking. RSO can be put into capsules, used as an edible, smoked, vaporized or mixed with emollients and made into a topical formulation for use on skin.

To make RSO, cannabis is pulverized and extracted into a solvent - isopropyl alcohol, hexane or others. Ethanol - even in its purest drinking form as Everclear, is 95% alcohol - contains 5% water requiring subsequent removal.The principle of GIGO, garbage-in-garbage-out, applies to RSO extractions - starting with inferior material won't yield a superior finished product.

Several processes can be found online, including the original from Rick's website. Different techniques vary in equipment, solvent and time/ temperature paradigms. The liquid is strained out of the spent material, and gently evaporated to leave the concentrated marijuana extract - Rick Simpson Oil. RSO is a thick, tarry, blackish goo mostly because it still contains chlorophyll, which is also alcohol soluble. Chlorophyll gives plants their green color, it adds (generally undesirable) aroma and flavor compounds and does not increase potency in terms of cannabinoid content.

Not to be eating this!

There are medical marijuana preparations made via 'whole plant' extractions, including leaves, stems and plant components not generally included in extracts. Some medical proponents believe complex and possibly unelucidated compounds contribute to the effect of RSO. But the 'Wellness' industry is brimming with products that over-promise and under-deliver and some of the claims made about medical marijuana are simply too fantastic to be true. As a patient with a chronic, autoimmune condition I am privy to novel forms of quackery hitting the street. Often these products are sold by multi-level marketers who operate with a pseudo-religious zeal.

The blackish-hue of RSO and its thick, unwieldy nature (just TRY to get it off your bathroom vanity) diminish the potential reach of this marijuana extract. However, Stoners are over-indexed in the waste-not-want-not school of thought, so a scrap using paradigm has appeal. Smokers may enjoy adding RSO to extract laden joints and other specialty products. RSO is widely available at attractive price-points in some markets and almost unheard of in others. Go figure.

RSO is an extract which can be used in a variety of ways - smoking, vaping or as an edible. However, most states have enacted strict laws restricting product and package size for medibles. In WA, the serving size of a marijuana edible is 10mg of active ingredient, with no total container having more than 100mg active ingredient per package.

The High Guys RSO pictured above comes packaged as 1g (1000mg) in a needleless syringe sealed in a plastic/mylar bag. This is an excellent, affordable RSO option produced by the fine people at Cowlitz County Cannabis, under their Hi Guys brand, focused on providing great value products for the working man. Their 1g containers of RSO are available at a marvelous price point $15-$18/g and are currently available at Seattle Tonics and other Washington retailers.

10mg/candy or 100mg per bag

With the Hi-Guys RSO label showing total cannabinoids at 72%, we know the container contains 720mg Cannabinoids or seventy two servings of edible cannabis (at 10mg/serving). So don't eat it! This product is not labeled nor intended for edible use. Most boxes of medibles run $15-$30 for a box of 10 candies, a total of 100mg in the box. One tube of this is the equivalent of seven boxes of 10mg candies in their usual packaging configuration, or seven bottles of the very strongest beverages available (no container with more than 100mg).

When it comes to dosing with marijuana edibles, it is a delicate art with several moving parts. The same dose on different days will impact an in individual in varied ways. With smoked cannabis, the 'high' hits a plateau beyond which the stoner will not climb. With eaten cannabis, a protracted lag-time often leads to errant re-dosing and subsequent over-dosing. The subjective experience of overdoing cannabis edibles/beverages differs from the experience of smoking too much; the edible experience can bend toward the psychedelic, akin to eating psilocybin mushrooms or the substituted phenethylamines like 2-CB.

Seven bags of these equals one RSO tube

Fortunately, cannabis is non-toxic and has an extremely wide therapeutic index. In practical terms, that means the amount people use to get high is very different from the dose required to kill them. Some drugs, notably the opiates, have narrow therapeutic index, causing unfortunate consumers to accidentally kill themselves. That isn't going to happen to a stoner who eats what the Liquor Control Board considers to be 72 servings of marijuana all at once. But they better buckle up, because it is going to be an extended, weird-ass ride.

A budget oriented consumer desperate for cheaper cannabis edibles could split a RSO tube into ten servings, each with about 70mg cannabinoids. This would provide about 7x bang-for-the buck in terms of price per mg (for $15 you could make about seventy RSO servings, each with ~10 mg cannabinoids). Or you can spend $15 and get 10 servings of a legit product which is exactly what you should do! RSO packaged in this format is not intended for use as an edible and Stoner Living is not encouraging product misuse.

'Dosage makes the poison' goes the old adage, and though you probably won't kill yourself, why risk making a single day suck?

So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

(C) 2019 Stoner Living Blog

Glenn DanZig-Zag Rolling Paper Man by Hubba Hubba - Stoner Living

Here at Stoner Living, our hearts warmed like a fresh serving of corned beef hash when we saw this piece of tattoo flash from Hubba Hubba, hide-etcher extraordinaire at the Seattle Tattoo Emporium. The STE artists roared with laughter (after the warbling wails of 'Mother' died down) so a whole sheet is rumored to be in the works, with a possible DanZigfield and Roy centerpiece with hungry white tiger. Hubba says he isn't a huge Danzig fan, but here at Stoner Living we fondly remember blowing out our speakers in high school with a bootleg cassette of EvilLive.

Zig-zag rolling papers transport me to Richmond, Virginia, where I went to buy rolling papers at Costco many years ago. Two college kids came into the amble tobacco section, grabbed their cartons of Marlboro Lights and laughed at the Zig Zags saying, "who buys a carton of these?"

Well, kiddos, now you know.

DanZig-Zag Man by Hubba Hubba 

Hubba tattoos full time at The Seattle Tattoo Emporium, located between Pike & Pine on Boren, near the Seattle Convention Center. It is right around the corner from the Starbucks Reserve joint, so a trip to Starbucks Reserve deserves a stop at the Emporium - just to check out their tattoo museum and buy a t-shirt, even if you don't get ink.

If you got tattooed at some point since 1990 in Seattle, there is a chance you already know Hubba. With far more than the 10,000 hours required to make somebody an expert at something (according to author Malcolm Gladwell), Hubba is proficient at his craft of old-school, American tattooing. You can see more of his non-flesh art at his website HERE and you can follow him on Instagram at @weirdoartofhubbahubba.

(C) 2019 Stoner Living

Vape Pen Update - 2019 - Stoner Living Revisits the Category 5 Years into Legalization

In 2014, Stoner Living enthusiastically wrote about Vape Pens in an article that still draws readers almost five years later. So we're back with an update an update because much has changed.

Vape pens with cartridges have blossomed into a huge and exponentially growing category in the legal cannabis market. Stoner Living believes that cartridges will go on to dominate the cannabis market in the way that rolled, filter tipped cigarettes dominated the tobacco cigarette market during the 'golden days' of tobacco. Further refinements and enhancements in the systems for vaporizing cannabis are the single biggest commercial opportunity in the nascent legal cannabis industry.

Vape pen set up w/3 temp settings & USB charger, ~ $15

Simple, re-chargeable vape pen set-ups are widely available for about $15 as of early 2019. Most come with a USB charger and have three temperature settings. Some have a pre-heat feature which can be turned on or off. Cartridges filled with cannabis extracts are sold separately, starting at about $20 and varying widely in price, potency size and flavor.

And flavor - there's a lot going on in the world of flavors. On a positive note, the naturally occurring aroma active compounds -terpenes- coming out and having their moment to shine. Some renegade flavorants are joining the scene straight from the flavor chemist's bag-o-tricks, like the wacky Peppermint Stick pictured below. And some product occupy muddled middle ground. Look for Stoner Living's big flavor article, coming soon.

Single Use Vapes - at junkyard w/gas in the tank

Disposable vape pens are available at some outlets but are suffering from a bad reputation they cultivated out of the gate. Many retail outlets in Washington State choose not to carry single use pens. Disposable/one-time vape pens are of limited value in the experience of Stoner Living. Because re-chargable vape pen set ups are so cheap, and cartridges are available from $20-30, most customers opt for the cartridge and separate vape unit. Single-use vape units generally start at around $40 and contain .5g or less (some have .420g, some .34g). 

The single use pens often run out of electric charge before they run out of cannabis oil, leaving the disappointed user with visual evidence of tantalizing hash oil in the cartridge, and an annoying pen vape that just flashes when you try to take a puff. Attempting to recharge a non-rechargeable vaporizer unit could lead to it exploding in your face during subsequent use. No possibility of recharging these safely make the only option to somehow scavenge the oil from the dead vape pen.

Rel Vape - Adorable dispos-a-vape from Oregon, $42 for 420mg, purchased 2017

Graduation speeches sometimes include the cliché about 'making it to the junkyard with no gas left in your tank'. This is why disposable vapes are a bit soul crushing in addition to being environmentally abhorrent. Single use vapes without enough 'battery juice' to go through the 'cannabis juice' are a technological turd and a total bummer. Product developers would be wise not to have a visible tank for the cannabis extract until they are able to improve battery life. But maybe it is good these single-use products suck, so we can pre-emptively minimize the damage from the waste stream that could result from widespread adoption.

Regulator 1g Cartridge, available in WA

Cartridges are available in varying sizes, but are generally 500mg and 1000mg(1 g). Prices vary widely, but overall, competition and product availability has dropped the price of extracts including cartridges, particularly for value shoppers. The past 5 years allowed tremendous product development in terms of process optimization in the world of cannabis extracts, particularly with the introduction of a few decent sized CO2 extractors in the Washington State scene. A wide variety of different types of extracts sold in disposable cartridges have flooded the marketplace, and are available starting at $25/g of premium cannabis distillate with cannabinoid concentrations north of 80%.

Stoners who enjoy nicotine may own a JUUL already, and lucky for them, there are nifty little pods that work great with the JUUL system. Keep your eyes peeled for our Stoner Living review of the new (cannabis) pods from Optimum Cloud Pods, with .5g for $20 and 1g for just $35 at Dockside cannabis (pricing via opt-in  text message on January 31st, 2019, current prices and availability will vary).

Thank you for reading Stoner Living and follow us so you don't miss our upcoming articles on weed pods for JUUL and our big flavor article.

(C)2019 Stoner Living Blog.