Burnanator420
For the uninitiated, “420” is hippy happy hour or 4:20pm. I scanned over the link you placed in your post and will read it all thoroughly. For you, I suggest changing your handle because twenty years from now, when you are trying to get that killer job, you were once known by such a name. The ONE remaining scary fact about marijuana is to delay using it prior to age 16, give or take a year. The reason for this is in adolescence people are learning how to cope with adult situations and dulling rather than dealing is the start of a lifetime crutch.
I will probably burn in hell for this but I have been resisting posting anything publicly about cannabis. I have been experimenting (and I am talking about scientific research on myself) with medical marijuana for over three years. The first two years were spent testing various strains of medical marijuana (MM) to determine exactly what was in the new products. This was being done in a lab, not by personal evaluation. I will get to that.
I think the “Really?” response was prompted mostly by the word SMOKE. Get with the program, take your tax return and buy a decent vaporizer. Vapir NO2 is around $200 and as a digital temperature controlled vaporizer goes, it is a good choice. If you can’t get properly medicated with a small vaporizer you can buy vaporizers that cost as much as a kitchen stove. On second thought, take a pound of weed place it in the oven at 360 and have a party. Seriously, edible MM products generally constipate me. Some MM recipes use MM roughage along with other stimulating ingredients for bowel motility. I don’t eat it and if any CFer leans toward constipation, there are better solutions. Vaporizing MM at 360 degrees F. will volatilize all the cannabanoids and burn nothing. Breathing in marijuana smoke required “venting” in room temperature air and likewise something must cool the vapor before inhaling. Drawing it into a “bag” is a good way but personal vaporizers like Vapir are drawn on like a smoking pipe. Marijuana paraphernalia that burns the stuff, popularly have a vent hole, called a carburetor. The Vapir looks cool in the advertisements but they fail to show the short length of clear plastic tubing with a cigar mouthpiece stuffed on the end. Instead of sealing the mouthpiece to the tubing, a carburetor effect, cools the vapor. This however takes some fooling around with and although I have modified mine, sorry you’re on your own. I am not endorsing any vaporizer over another but two things are critical if a CFer has any hope of benefitting from cannabanoids. Only the vaporized cannabanoids should be inhaled. Those vapors must be cool enough not to burn your tissue.
In short with pot, Sativa dominant cannabis is loaded mostly with THC, the psychoactive drug in marijuana is the usual bad choice. Indica isn’t loaded with much of anything good but Sativa – Indica hybrids bring out complimentary cannabanoids known as CBD’s. This always yields something like 90 – 10 ratio of THC to CBD’s so ten percent CBD’s is very desirable even at the cost of higher total cannabanoids. THC is most of MM’s effect and it is a mixed bag. It mitigates tingling or stinging with neuropathy, replaces some lost dopamine uptake receptors and helps with nausea. It also can bring on short spates of paranoia that rushes through every so often. It does not deal with pain like morphine or similar narcotic analgesic. THC is a powerful dissociative which is to say you may hurt but are not focused on the pain or anything else, if you take enough. Hybrids that lean highest in CBD’s are best generally and justifiable as a medicine. CBD’s aren’t better than THC although as a group, they make MM a balanced medicine that has far less mental agitation like paranoid moments. The brain needs cannabanoids. Researchers have determined our brains have developed receptors to deal with chronic fight or flight response in modern civilizations.
Cannabanoid receptors in the brain are specialized for THC and another fifty or so CBD’s. Pain and immune-responses are forms of fight or flight stimulus like being wounded, you have to fight or run to stay alive. All of this is based on fairly slim research. As such, so far the research with MM has withheld scrutiny.
I have broken down the vapor components in several MM’s and isolated THC, CBD’s, chlorophyll, some organic oxides in the low parts per million (PPM) that are not carcinogenic. I also have some compounds that I have no idea if they are helpful or deadly. In fact I have tested a concentrate of MM vapor for carcinogenic action. I am comfortable with a huge reservation. My tests are preliminary at best and completely wrong at worst. Vapor hasn’t been proven to be carcinogenic marijuana smoke has been proven to be carcinogenic at a very high but sustainable level of use.
My motivation for testing cannabis initially had to do with my Parkinson’s disease. The disease and the drugs used to treat it added insult to injury when it came to my CF based constipation. Amazingly, and not, I have been able to go completely without my Parkinson’s medications. I have been off for almost a year. Before that I was nearly maxed out on the first drug of choice for managing Parkinson’s. This has made an improvement in my life that only somebody suddenly cured of Parkinson’s can understand!!!
My CF is by definition mild. I will turn 63 this year and though I have had dozens of hospitalizations for pneumonia, usually along with meningitis, the last three years have been without pneumonia or meningitis. I do have CF GI syndrome that involves the pancreas and every GI ailment in the book along with it. As a result I also have endured narcotics for many years along with their GI effects toward constipation. Being free of Parkinson’s symptoms and the side effects of the drugs has finally begun to normalize my GI tract.
With the understanding that relatively speaking, my lungs are not compromised I can say I have experienced pulmonary improvement. I fear to tread into the CFers that wonder about vaporizing MM. First if there is any way to get MM quality material, do that. Street pot needs a close look and a good sniff. Marijuana that has mildew and herbicides that can be detected by smell and is out. A magnifier to examine the product for signs of an amber sap, the cannabanoids, or crawly things like mites can help. Better yet if it isn’t available as MM, find something else to improve your health. All the ideas of MM being an expectorant so far is valid. I have not seen anything harmful in my way of MM use.
As a matter of dosage, it depends on the individual. I use less than two ounces per year. That amounts to about a gram per month. A good stoner would go through this much before going over to friends to really get stoned. Honestly, with objective thinking and caution, MM could do wonders for CF. Taken properly, it quiets my lungs, where they used to spasm for hours with each screeching, screaming breath.
LL
My symptoms started to decrease when I started treating myself for Cystic instead of asthma.