All About Marijuana Concentrates

 If you’ve ever been curious about concentrates, you’re not alone. Though small, these bad boys are potent. Concentrates are pretty much the cannabis plant, with just the terpenes and cannabinoids. It’s basically everything people want in the plant. It’s something that people with higher tolerances go towards since less is more with it. 

Concentrates that have different consistencies and methods of extraction that offer various components. Crumble, Shatter, sauce, live resin, and budder are all different kinds, but they utilize various methods of extraction, and there are different ways to do this. Concentrates get made with solvents involved, or without solvents. Here are some of the most common methods of cannabis extraction for concentrates. 

BHO 

This stands for butane has oil, since butane issued to create this. Many concentrates get made with this, and there are different extraction methods including closed loop, open blasting, and is something that helps load up your plant and then gets a butane blast. Open blasting is basically where plant material gets loaded, then butane blasts this. It’s dangerous, but it offers a very high potency. 

Usually, closed-loop systems are used, since this makes sure that it doesn’t get dangerous or hurt others. This kind of extraction also may be used to strip the other compounds, leaving just terpenes and cannabinoids. Typically, people use this too since less leftovers. 

DME 

Dimethyl ether extraction is another popular one, and it’s favored due to the fast time for evaporation. It changes your atoms, so it is the same molecular weight, but is different. It’s like using liquid ethanol, which makes it manageable, but it’s also a bit more polar, which means that you’re getting higher cannabinoids and terpenes than a typical BHO extraction. 

Supercritical CO2 

This is another popular one, since it uses CO2, which is another naturally happening solvent. It’s something that’s natural, and it’s something that has a decades-old method for extraction, commonly used in perfumes and also the making of essential oils. 

This is called this because it serrates each different part from one and the other, using a solvent, the solvent is something that’s exposed to critical pressure and temperatures, and the structures end up fluctuating from different states. It breaks down structures, helping to separate and fraction them. the quality of this is dependent on where it gets derived, and many concentrates also indicate the material starting, and these are typically seen in live resin, trim run and nug run

Trim rum is where the concentrates are done as a trim from the harvested plant, specifically the kief and sugar leaves.  They’re not big, but the small ones. They’re used more than fan leaves cause of the trichomes, and it is less concentrated and less potent. It’s good for distillate products. 

Nug run is concentrates made from nugs that are grown to be extracted. Some like to use the buds that are smaller or mids.  This may also involve whole colas and the plant itself. This is usually considered better in quality than the trim versions, and it’s made for those with specific profiles. 

Live Resin 

Finally, these is plant concentrates made from those that are flash-frozen, and this preserves the terpenes. Then, it’s cured and dried with a major effect on these terpenes, and it is something that’s good if you don’t want a solvent, but also are willing to have a concentrate with much lower levels. 

Again, this is all up to you, and there are tons of variants of concentrates for you to choose from, and those that are great to use too.

Plant Hormones for Cannabis

Hormones are something that we as humans use to help with our metabolism, the way we behave, and our development physically, but it’s actually a major part of plants too, and it’s a big part of their life cycle, helping with the development and growth of different parts of it. These chemicals that are in it are called phytohormones, and usually, it not just helps with metabolism, and morphology, but also helps with stress responses and reduces damage physically from different conditions of the weather, pathogens, and pests too. 

Plant hormones are actually very similar to our hormones, but it does work in slightly different ways. However, they do affect growth in other ways and it does interact with some of the other phytohormones that change the metabolic means of this, rather than just one plant hormone that’s isolated, and it also will change the hormone levels, and some of them can cause a variety of reactions. With that said, let’s go over some of the most popular plant hormones used. 

Auxins 

This is really good for elongating or diving cells, forming leaves, forming roots, apical dominance to help with growing vertically, developing fruit, plant growth, and also helps with photoreaction to gravity and light. This works to help with growth control, and it actually helps the way the stems are able to move and bend towards the light sources, based on the secretion of this hormone in the plant. 

Cytokinin 

This is also an important one since it helps with the element of cells, differentiation, and also the division of cells too. It also pushes for the development of axillary buds, along with adventitious roots, which help with the enlargement and formation of leaves. It also boosts the metabolic activity of seeds, breaking it out of dormancy. 

It helps with the leaves, keeping them greener for a bit longer, stimulating the morphogenesis of the tissues that are there, helping to create buds and initiate the shots, and it also helps with the nutritional signaling of this too, helping with seed transport too. 

Gibberellins 

This is another hormone that helps with elongating the cells by stimulating it, pushing for germination, inducting the flowers, improves the trichome sand buds, helping to delay senescence in a plant, helps with the development of roots, and is good for showing the sex expression, especially in cannabis plants. It’s basically a huge growth stimulator that plays a major part in vascular plants. It also pushes seed dormancy out, and imitates flowers, helps with the development of trichomes, elongates the stem, and improves the growing of roots. It also helps to mitigate environmental stress in plants. 

Abscisic acid 

This is another acid and important hormone for growth too. However, this one is for inhibiting different aspects of this. It stops the shoot growth, improves the seed dormancy, stops transpiration by closing the stoma, helps with the environmental response, stops the ripening of fruit, improves the color development, also helps to abscission the flowers and the fruit that are there, and it also helps with pushing for rooting. It basically is used to counteract the other hormones that were listed before. 

Ethylene 

Finally we have this one, which stimulates the ripening of fruit, helps with the germination of seeds, the senescence of leaves, helps with abscission of leaves, helps the plant survive flooding to too much oxygen or too little oxygen environments, helps with the internode and petiole length, helps determine the gender of the plant, and is used the development of female flowers. It’s basically very volatile, but it works with the other hormones. 

How to Improve trichome Production in Cannabis

Cannabis has a resin that comes with trichomes, which gives you some amazing cannabinoids and terpenes that give it the flavor that you’re going for. With more and more resin production happening with some strains, some growers want to definitely look at the best way to improve this growth. We have the answer for that here. 

Get Grow Lights 

When you’re looking to improve the trichomes and the resin in cannabis plants that are auto-flowering or feminized or clones, the first place to look is the grow lights. You want to get the most bang for your buck out of this. Sodium-vapor lamps, or HPS ones are the best ways to get light that cultivates the cannabis. This is due to the major light spectrum, the output of this, and also the new results from the luminaries of this. 

There are also broad-spectrum kits that you can use too. You want to definitely find items that do bloom under lights that are new, and also consider using LED panels, since this can offer more light for a bud for each square meter, boost terpene production, and offer better terpene and trichome growth from this as well. It can make up to a 28% difference in THC levels, so do keep that in mind. 

Look at Nutrition 

A big part of improving the trichome production is to look at the nutrition of a cannabis plant. A cannabis plant will not thrive if it gets the wrong nutrients, and it can definitely change the way the plant responds to different life stages and cycles, and it plays a focal part in the boosting of reins. It’s also important to make sure it gets the right nutrients when flowering. You need the following for good plant growth: 

• Macronutrients, specifically potassium and phosphorus 

• Micronutrients of various kinds 

• Amino acids and vitamins 

If you’re looking to make sure that your plant has the right growth, you want to make sure that they’re being fed the right items, to help boozing the resin production that’s out there as well. 

Check irrigation 

If you have a plant that’s dealing with hydric stress, it’ll cause more problems with the terpene production. It may increase the CBD and THC, but it also may cause more acids to form.  Some people realize that if they are giving the plant a controlled drought when flowering, it impacts the trichome production, increasing the production of it, especially not for the items secreted, but also what’s stored inside. 

Look at humidity and temperature 

If you have the right grow room temperature and humidity, it will markedly boost the glandular trichome production that comes with this. The plant will not develop if the temperature is too low. If it’s too high, you will not get enough resin from this. 

You want to make sure that the plant is growing at the ideal temperatures, and over time, say it flowers, you can lower it slightly. Humidity is the other thing to look at too. If it’s too high, it causes fungi, if it’s too low, it will not be good for plants. You should go for a 50% humidity, and that’s something recommended. You can usually lower this down to 30% too over time, especially if you want more trichomes to be the focus. 

If you decide to use this, you should consider having a dehumidifier, or an air conditioner to also help with this. Trichomes can be controlled by the person, and in this, we went over just what people can do to control this in their plants. 

Can You Snort Weed?

While possible, most of us don't snort weed. It’s not as effective, and it’s much safer to have cannabis through nasal sprays. But we’ll talk a little bit about snorting weed, and why people are doing this. 

Can You Snort It? 

Theoretically yes, you can through the nasal passage. When you spray this up the nose, usually the drugs can go through the mucosal lining, and then get absorbed directly into the bloodstream in order to create different effects. 

While it is technically possible, it’s not the recommended way to consume this. With the limited items available, there has been some criticism on the way that the nose absorbs this too, even when they are dissolved through a spray that goes into the nose too. 

Types of Stuff People Snort 

There are certain things that people can snort. 

As for flowers, you usually don’t think that you can, and usually, it’s better to just smoke or use oil extractions. 

You shouldn’t because: 

• You can’t’ grind the flower down enough to make this comfy.

• They’re not going to pass through the mucosal membranes if not small enough.

• It needs to be heated up before you feel any intoxicating results. 

Some also consider cannabis kief, which are dust like particles that are tiny after you grind the weed. This is made from the trichomes when you grind it, so it’s definitely potent, and has more cannabinoids. 

This again is not recommended because: 

• It needs to be decarbed before you can use it to have any sort of effect. 

• It’s small, but also flammable, and it’s risky to decarb this because it can catch fire, which makes this dangerous 

• Snorting also is something that makes it feel irritated 

Then there are isolates, which is basically the cannabinoid isolated, separated from the plant. These isolates are mostly pure, very potent, and they usually come with crystals that are beautiful, and can be snorted and crushed. 

However, THC can’t form this, so you can’t snort this directly on your own. 

Again, you should not do this because: 

• THC doesn’t have a crystal structure due to that only existing in an oil. 

• It can sometimes be hard to get  high off of this. 

• It requires heat, and when you heat this, the crystals melt, and then, it becomes an oil. 

You can snort CBD crystals, but they will not make you high. Usually, it won’t’ help you actually get the health benefits, but it’s definitely not comfy, nor is it discrete. 

The Solution: Nasal Sprays 

If you must take cannabis through the nose, the best way to do so is through nasal spray, which means that the drugs are put within a carrier made of liquid, and then, you just shoot it, and it goes up the nose. 

There are some cannabis-based nasal sprays. There is one being made to treat epilepsy through having the isolates properly dissolved in a saline solution. 

Nasal sprays are the best way to do this, but the biggest thing to remember is that the type of spray you get does matter. 

Some try to make this at home, but it won’t work.

However, it’s much more bioavailable than other means, and it can help with some of the other effects that people want to mitigate. The one thing that people noticed, is that they do offer almost minimal side effects to the body, so compared to regular THC, it may be the answer that you’re looking for. 

Right now, there is still much to learn about nasally taking THC products.

Marijuana and Vyvanse

This is a drug that doesn’t seem to have any harmful effects when you take this with marijuana. It is worth to note though that Vyvanse is a stimulant, which is used for treating ADHD, and cannabis does have some effects when used with ADHD medications. The psychotropic usage of amphetamines can definitely get enhanced with the usage of marijuana. 

What Vyvanse is 

This is a name for dexamphetamine dimesylate, which is a stimulant tha’ts prescribed for those who are young with ADHD symptoms. This is used as well for those who have binge-eating disorders, especially in adults, and is usually taken in a tablet or orally. How it works is simple. it basically is a prodrug that’s inactive and it works once it’s converted by your body into dextroamphetamine, which is a stimulant for your CNS. 

This is also a TARR1 agonist, along with a vesicular monoamine transporter 2 inhibitor that’ll enter your monoamine neurons, and this allows them to release, along with preventing your reuptake of the monoamine neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, along with others. This improves the focus, cognition, and your performance physically. Basically what this does is it promotes your “feel good” hormones, while also preventing them from being totally broken down, and it can also help get the feel good parts of that all throughout the body. 

The Benefits and Drawbacks of this 

If you take vynase, there are some side effects to it. 

This includes: 

• appetite issues 

• Diarrhea 

• Anxiety 

• Irritability 

• Issues with sleeping. 

• Nausea 

Some of the less common ones include: 

• Addiction 

• Mania 

• Psychosis 

• Palpitations of the heart, raising your blood pressure, and can put you at risk for cardiac arrest 

A lot of people use medical cannabis to help with some of the side effects of this. 

The appropriate use of this along with some of the terpenes, CBD, ACBG, and limonene, will help reduce your need for this type of stimulant, which can be a lot more psychoactive, and also a lot more stimulating than other medications. One thing of note that’s a bit different from other types of medications is that it will not interfere with how this is metabolized. 

Cannabis offers both sedating, along with stimulating kinds of properties, depending on the cultivar’s profile and chemicals, and basically it can reduce or enhance the effects depending on the type that is used. So while unlike others, this is one that may or may not enhance or interfere with the rest of the effects of this. 

When you take this, understand that it can interfere with some of the other psychoactive stimulants that are out there. When you’re taking cannabis, you should make sure that you do put these together, you aren’t going to create a worse effect. 

One of the risks of some strains of cannabis is that it is kind of stimulating in some cases, and since this is a stimulant, it can potentially put you at risk for heart trouble, and it can put you at risk for cardiac arrest and the like. 

Cannabis does work with some other stimulants though too, and some of these substance scan be a problem. If you’re going to take these it’s best that you do it under the supervision of a marijuana doctor, as they can offer the best advice in order to look at the condition that you have and ensuring that you’re getting the correct treatment. A lot of people do struggle with this, and this can be a good item to use, just be mindful of the symptoms of such when you consume this. 

Can Cannabis Help with Stress and Anxiety?

With thousands upon thousands of people dealing with various kinds of anxiety, and over 40 million different adults suffering from this, it’s definitely an ongoing almost epidemic for people. Children are suffering from this too. This is due to the brain registering different things as threats, whether real, physical, emotional, and whatnot. It creates a response within your sympathetic nervous system, which is what causes the fight or flight states in you, and it is used as a means of defense for people. 

Our brains used this for years to run away from danger, but the thing is, we’re not being chased by saber-toothed tigers anymore, but major changes in our work, relationships, even family and financial states play a role in stress and how it affects all of us. 

Symptoms 

There are different symptoms, but they usually are categorized by fear, worry, and you may feel different mental and physical responses. It does vary upon each person, and some people have a higher heart rate when they feel this, and others start to grind their teeth or breathe in a more shallow manner. 

There are other symptoms that go with this too, including the following:

• Gastrointestinal issues 

• Dizziness 

• Headaches 

• Appetite changes 

• Fatigue 

• Shakes 

• Urinating a lot 

• Pain in the chest 

• Insomnia or sleeping way too often 

In most cases, it makes you feel like you’re constantly on edge, and it’s not good for you. How cannabis helps Cannabis has been found to help with relaxation and stress, and it’s something that a lot of users say it helps them relax. In the journal of effective disorders that was published, it also found that it can actually help with pain, anxiety, stress, and depression. 

In this, they used some data form Strainprint, which was a medical marijuana app that journals the feelings. The users would track how they felt after different kinds of strains and the different levels of this. They then made sure everything was anonymous, identifying the efferent effects that medical cannabis products have on this. Personal information is uploaded, but everything’s still kept nice and private. 

It was found that with anxiety, it did a lot of good for people. About 93% of users were able to reduce their anxiety, and the symptoms were able to be fully exacerbated in some of the sessions. Stress was also another one that did markedly change. It was found that in users, it was reduced all the way down to about 93% as well, and it was something that was pretty quick to change. For depression, about 89% of people who had stress were able to exacerbate it, and there were noticeable symptom changes as well. 

Cannabis is something that you should definitely consider rot help with this, but it’s good to understand that if you do have this, you should also look at the underlying problems that come here. 

Research also showed that it helped reduce it, and only two puffs were needed in these studies too—not a ton. A little bit goes a long way with this, since two puffs offered better results, but if you did take two puffs, it did reduce it. More than two didn’t get rid of the symptoms any more than two did. If you do have stress though, you should try to take a bit of a higher dose to help. Some of the studies said that medical cannabis users who had stressed needed about two or more puffs to get a reduction in this.

Strains for Ethers-Danlos syndrome

Ehlers Danlos syndrome is basically a disorder of the connective tissue that impacts the blood, skin, and bones, and muscles. It can even impact the internal organs. Cannabis can help with this, and there are some strains that are good for mitigating the pain and other effects from this as well. For those who don’t know, Ehlers Danlos syndrome is basically one that’s diagnosed based on the family history. If you have a parent who has EDS, it’s more likely for you to get it. It also comes with certain symptoms such as the following: 

• Skin that’s fragile and does bruise easily. 

• Dislocation of the joints because of hypermobility 

• Hyperextensibility of the skin, so it can stretch easily 

• Increased risk for osteoporosis and hernias. 

Some of this is based on the collagen that’s produced, or the lack of it. A lack of collagen isn’t just for those who have delicate skin, but it can impact your bones and joints.

Those with EDS tend to have fragile levels of both, but Phyto cannabinoids can help with strengthening this, and it can prevent osteoporosis, which is a condition that impacts women quite a lot. This also is good for those who want to get off opioids, as that’s one of the most common things prescribed to those that are looking to get treatment for EDS. 

The best strains 

If you’re looking to use cannabis to help with EDS, this is definitely something that can help, especially if you deal with chronic pain. White widow is one of them. it’s got almost 23% THC in it, and it’s known for being a bit intoxicating, and relieves pain. it’s good for those who want a hybrid that’s balanced, but also is pretty dynamic. 

Sour diesel is another one that does come with a lot of THC in it, and it’s got an even higher concentration of this. This is great for users who are experienced, but for beginners it can be impactful, so be mindful of that before you begin. Hindu Kush is another one. It’s calming, and it relieves pain. it does contain about 20% THC in this, so the effects of this are quite strong and psychoactive. 

Cannatonic is another good one, as this is low in THC, but rich in CBD, so if you need something that relieves pain and inflammatory conditions, this is one of the best, and it’s considered one of the most popular for this. Jack Herer is another popular one for those who have EDS, as this can offer the powerful energy boost that people need. It’s very rich in THC, and it does offer a lot of great combinations that can be a winning combo for those who want something that’ll help them get through the day without being focused on the pain constantly. 

Pennywise is another good one. It’s very effective, and it comes with the 1:1 ratio of the THC to CBD in most cases, and it doesn’t have too much to be too potent. Finally, you’ve got northern lights, which is popular, and it’s very indica heavy, helping to relax, induce relief, and also help you feel less pain. 

These are all super popular strains to use in order to tret the pain that’s associated with EDS, and it’s something that a lot of users like to use. The best way to find a strain that ultimately doe s the work for you is one that comes with a combo of both indica, along with sativa, and when you experiment, you can find the one that’s best for the symptoms at hand, and there are a lot of great benefits that come with this too.