Medical cannabis guidebook: the definitive guide to using and growing medicinal marijuana

242 Pages·2014·75.784 MB·English

by  Ditchfield, Jeff;Thomas, Mel

The
Medical
Cannabis Guidebook
The Definitive Guide to Using and
Growing Medicinal Marijuana
by Jeff Ditchfield and Mel Thomas

The
Medical
Cannabis Guidebook
The Definitive Guide to Using and
Growing Medicinal Marijuana
by Jeff Ditchfield and Mel Thomas
Green Candy Press
Copyright © 2014 Jeff Ditchfield and Mel Thomas
ISBN 978-1-937866-02-0
Images © Jeff Ditchfield, Mel Thomas, Grow Magazine, Mandala Seeds, Centennial Seeds,
Stoned Rosie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written per-
mission from the authors or publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in any review
where appropriate credit is given. Permission is similarly granted for brief quotations in articles with
appropriate credit. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted in any form other than those approved by the authors or publisher. This book is written to
enlighten and inform for educational purposes only and does not encourage any illegal activities in
any form whatsoever. It is illegal to grow and possess cannabis in most countries and may result in
arrest and a criminal conviction.
If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it; he is obligated to do so.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Contents
introduCtion
Why is Cannabis Illegal? . . . . . . vii
So Why is There Almost Global
Prohibition of this Plant? . . . . . . . viii
Quotes from Anslinger’s
“Gore Files” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Sativex Spray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Ingestion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Capsules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Cannabis Tinctures (Alcohol). . . . 39
Cannabis Tincture (Glycerin) . . . . 41
Suppositories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Cannabis Cream for Topical
Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Intravenous (IV). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Chapter four
Chapter one
Cannabis Cures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The Cannabis Plant . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Conditions That Cannabis Can Assist
Cannabis Sativa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Cannabis Indica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Cannabis Ruderalis . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Cannabis as a Crop . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter two
How Cannabis Works . . . . . . . . 13
Cannabis as Medicine . . . . . . . . . 15
Side Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Chapter three
Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter five
Medical Cannabis Today . . . . . . . 26 Making Cannabis Oil . . . . . . . . . 83
Treating Internal Cancers with Which Solvent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Cannabis Oil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Acetone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Chemotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Ethanol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Dosage (Cancer). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Isopropyl (ISO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
General Administration of Step-by-Step Oil Extractions. . . . 86
Cannabis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Which Extraction Method to Use?. . 87
Smoking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Crock Pot Extraction Method. . . . 87
Vaporizers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 QWISO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Butane Honey Oil (BHO). . . . . . . . 93 Humidity and Temperature. . . . . 154
Making Concentrated Cannabinoid Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Oil Without Solvents. . . . . . . . . . . 99 Standard Lighting Schedule. . . . 156
Dosage Calculator for Water Requirements. . . . . . . . . . 158
Infused Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Germinating Seeds. . . . . . . . . . . 160
How to Improve the Quality and Identifying Cannabis Gender . . . 161
Purity of Your Oils. . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Basic Cloning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Ice-Water Separation aka Isolator Vegetative Growth . . . . . . . . . . . 166
(Bubble Hash). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Flowering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Harvesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Curing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Chapter nine
Frequently Asked
Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
appendix i
Cancer-Fighting Foods . . . . . . 179
Chapter six
appendix ii
Hemp Nutrition and Health . . . 105
The Healing Seed. . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Marijuana Legal Issues . . . . . . 187
Hemp Nut (Hulled Hemp Miranda Rights in the U.S. . . . . 189
Seed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Canada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Hemp Seed in Traditional European Union. . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Medicines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Further Benefits of Hemp
Seed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Recommended Dosage. . . . . . . 115
Juicing Raw Cannabis . . . . . . . . 122
Chapter seven
The Cannabis Kitchen . . . . . . . 131
Decarboxylating Cannabis. . . . . 133
appendix iii
Canna-Flour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Canna-Butter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Standardized Medication. . . . . 193
Potency and Dosage Calculator for Gas Chromatography. . . . . . . . . 194
Canna-Butter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Calculating Dosage . . . . . . . . . . 195
Canna-Infused Oil . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Easy Canna-Edible Recipes. . . . 141 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter eight
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . 209
Medicinal Cannabis Growing. . . 151 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Nutrients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

introduCtion
Why is
Cannabis
Illegal?
Referred to variously as marijuana, ganja, weed and herb amongst many other
slang terms, cannabis is one of the safest medicines available. As well as giv-
ing us the dried buds that can be smoked, the plant produces nutritious seeds
from which healthy edible oils can be pressed, the plant fibers are durable
and versatile with many commercial uses, the crop is environmentally bene-
ficial and many parts of the plant were in use for thousands of years before
prohibition. Unlike many pharmaceutical medications, there has never been
a single recorded fatality from cannabis use. No one has ever died as a direct
result of ingesting cannabis, nor have there been any instances of brain re-
ceptor damage through its use; unlike alcohol and other drugs cannabis does
not wear out the brain receptors, it merely stimulates them. One estimate of
THC’s lethal dose for humans indicates that 1500 pounds (680 kilograms) of
cannabis would have to be smoked within 15 minutes (approximately) for the
smoker to die. If you wanted to kill someone using 1500 pounds of cannabis
you would be better advised to drop it on them.
LD50, also called median lethal dose, is the standard measure of the toxicity
of a material through ingestion, skin contact or injection. LD50 is measured in
micrograms (or milligrams) of the material per kilogram of the test-animal’s body
weight. The lower the amount, the more toxic the material. The estimated LD50
(lethal threshold) for cannabis, established in 1988 by the DEA’s appropriate
genus C.sativa has two main species, C. indica and C.ruderalis.
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the Medical Cannabis guidebook
fact-finder, is 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman’s terms this means that in order
to induce death a cannabis smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000
times as much cannabis as is contained in one 0.9 gram joint.1
Studies indicate that the effective dose of THC is at least 1000 times lower
than the estimated lethal dose (therapeutic ratio of 1000:1). Heroin has a ther-
apeutic ratio of 6:1, alcohol and Valium both have a ratio of 10:1. Cocaine has
a ratio of 15:1. Aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of 20:1; 20 times the recom-
mended dose (40 tablets) can cause death and almost certainly induce ex-
tensive internal bleeding. Drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma
and multiple sclerosis (MS) are all known to be highly toxic; the ratio of some
drugs used in antineoplastic (cancer inhibiting) therapies have therapeutic ra-
tios below 1.5:1.2
A small percentage of people may experience a negative or allergic reac-
tion to cannabis use and a few patients suffer especially high heart rates
and/or anxiety when being treated with cannabis oil, although this is a com-
paratively low number and the effects are merely unpleasant and cease when
cannabis use is discontinued. Many bronchial asthma sufferers benefit from
both herbal cannabis and cannabis oil extracts but for some it can serve as
an additional irritant. However, for the overwhelming majority of people,
cannabis has demonstrated literally hundreds of therapeutic uses.
so why is there almost global
prohibition of this plant?
Cannabis prohibition emanates from a commercial conspiracy that was
started in the 1920s. The word marijuanaitself was first brought into the Eng-
lish language by these early corporate offenders who needed to change the
public’s perception of the cannabis plant from a useful fiber and medicine to
a dangerous, addictive and destructive substance in order to destroy the
hemp industry and replace cannabis medicines and hemp fiber products with
their own toxic pharmaceutical drugs and petrochemical products. They
achieved this by manipulating the media and printing fictitious stories con-
necting marijuana use and crime. The manipulation continues to this day, as
former CBS News president Richard Salant explained when discussing the
media’s role in manipulating the masses: “Our job is to give people not what
they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”3
Cannabis prohibition is indisputably the result of a corrupt conspiracy
viii