Meet Your MJ (Part 3): Consumption Methods
In previous articles about cannabis basics, we’ve started to address the different plant properties and how they impact your experience with marijuana, but now let’s dabble with different consumption methods (like, dabbing!) and how you can better manage your experience.
Smoking is one of the most common forms of consumption. Consumers can buy pre-rolls, which are “ready for use” cannabis cigarettes, aka “joints”, that are made by rolling the ground flower tightly in rolling paper for smoking. Of course, they can also buy flower and roll their own at home. Some people opt to smoke using a waterpipe, which is a water filtration device used for inhaling cannabis smoke commonly referred to as a “bong.”
Smoking isn’t for everyone, especially for people with breathing issues like asthma or COPD. In these instances, concentrates, which are extracts made by rendering cannabis oil from the plant, are great options. These deliver all the cannabis effects without its leaves and vegetation. Concentrates can be consumed via dab /dabbing, which is a dose of concentrated cannabis oil. Dabbing can also refer to the consumption of the oil by vaporizing it on a heated surface, which is commonly known as a nail or banger. A distillate is a concentrate or pure cannabis oil; an extraction of the most valuable compounds in the cannabis plant (generally THC or CBD). These can be consumed orally, sublingually or inhaled.
Vapes are prefilled vaporizer cartridges or pods and are simple ways to consume cannabis oils. They’ve received negative headlines due to the use of nicotine vapes by school-age children and young adults and to the common additions of flavors to mask their scents and taste—additions often unregulated and untested, unlike vapes offered by government-regulated cannabis providers such as Green Meadows. Tinctures are a cannabis-infused liquid made by soaking decarboxylated (activated) cannabis in a solvent to be ingested orally.
Edibles are another common way to ingest cannabis concentrates and refer to any food (or chewable) that’s been infused with highly concentrated cannabis extract. Alternatively, topicals are products like creams and lotions that are infused with cannabis and applied directly to the skin. They are often used to ease sore muscles, reduce inflammation and to manage pain.
It is increasingly common to find just CBD products on the market, but even in those products it’s important to have at least trace amounts of THC. Trace amounts of THC are not enough to create any psychoactive effect or “high,” but are enough to create the entourage effect. This is when products harness the full spectrum of what cannabis offers—preserving all its naturally occurring terpenes and cannabinoids—to provide the full cannabis experience. Consumers looking for specific effects from cannabis consumption can ask any of our Green Meadows Guest Service Associates (GSA) about the different terpenes and cannabinoids in our products, and how they interact to form the consumer experience.
We hope this information will help you start or further your cannabis journey. If you ever hear a term used in our dispensary that you haven’t encountered before, please feel free to ask any of our GSAs and they will be happy to help you learn about the term, and any other questions you may have. Hope to see you soon!
