It may be Enzo asking the question but I am convinced the same questions are of interest to a larger audience, but are too shy or cool to ask. Pot is just one of many subjects the younger readers would love an informed, non judging answer to this and all the stuff we used to protect them from. Enzo isn't the only one to post on a Pot question but there is an amusing predictability in many of his post titles.
The need for enzymes is in the digestion of the food in the brownie or other edible Medical Marijuana (MM). As for needing enzymes to absorb the canabanoids, that's a very good question. Anybody who's handled pot gets sticky stuff on their fingers and it won't dissolve with water alone. That is the resin containing MM's drugs, the THC and CBDs are excreted biochemical weapons that envelope the plant and flowers. My point is twofold, canabanoids are not soluble in water, and the vast majority of the drug containing plant resin is on the outer surfaces of the plant and plant pieces.
MM edibles all contain butter or some organic solvent, usually butter or margarine because they completely dissolve the canabanoids when warmed to a liquid. Cooled down to room temperature the canabanoids are neatly asleep and awaiting your warm body and digestion to release the drugs.
In fact, many drugs need an intermediate substance to aid its absorption. Alkaloids make up a fair amount of vitamins, foods and medicines. MM is available in a transdermal lotion and patches. Stomach, acid makes water soluble and oil soluble substances absorbable. Patches dissolve THC, CBDs and CBN in a light hydrocarbon solvent like MSM or a chlorinated hydrocarbon. Both the solvent and the medicine absorbed directly in the bloodstream without any digestion.
Enzymes are not needed to absorb the medicine in MM, but they will enhance the breakdown of any lipids or fats the canabanoids are in. Chewing exposes more surface area in a bite of brownie and the stomach adds acid and more mechanical milling as the stomach scrapes and squeeze that brownie to a fine mush before passing into the duodenum. Back in the stomach, the acid bridges the barrier between water and oil. And their respective solutes or the stuff dissolved in each solvent. So, most of the canabanoids are absorbed into the stomach wall or the duodenum depending upon how fast your system works. No enzymes required. Then again, some of the drug won't be released if the oils aren't properly digested.
Think of the time from eating a MM brownie, til the time you can feel the effect. That might be as soon as thirty minutes. Where is this in your digestive cycle, mostly in the stomach. Once the effect is noticeable, it may increase for an hour when the maximum effect is reached. Edible MM typically lasts 4-6 hours at full potency. It takes food about four hours from swallowing to the end of the small intestine. This probably coincides with normal digestion. Amazingly it takes up to 25 days for THC to be extracted from our fat cells, where a lot is stored.
Hope this answers your question.
LL
