XZIBIT: It’s the Lasagna Ganja Podcast. I’m X to the Z, XZIBIT.

Tammy: And I’m your girl Tammy, a.k.a. The Cannabis Cutie.

XZIBIT: And we are here with another episode. How are you?

Tammy: I’m doing so good! I’m feeling high right now.

XZIBIT: Good, good. The gift that keeps on giving.

So this episode is called “WTF Does That Mean?”

There are terms and acronyms that people don’t know but that we’ll be throwing around pretty regularly.

We want to familiarize you guys with these terms and answer some Frequently Asked Questions by people who might not know as much about cannabis as we do.

Tammy: It’s going to be a reference episode. You can come back to it when you don’t know a term so that you can watch the podcast and understand what we’re talking about.

XZIBIT: Let’s just start with the basics. What are the methods of cannabis use?

Tammy: The most common consumption methods are inhalation methods.

Now inhalation methods are not new in medicine. In fact, people with asthma use an inhalation method.

These methods are medicinal. One common one is smoking.

One thing I like about these methods is that you can stop smoking when you’ve had enough.

XZIBIT: Do you think there is a difference between smoking out of a bong and smoking out of paper?

Tammy: Yeah, absolutely.

XZIBIT: What’s the difference to you?

Tammy: One tastes like burnt paper to me and the other one tastes delicious as long as it's coming from clean water in a clean glass.

XZIBIT: I come from the crack era. Everything is about crack for me. So anything that requires a torch is drug use.

So I’m not doing that. I’m not smoking out of a pipe.

Tammy: We’ve come so far, though.

XZIBIT: If you need more than five things to light what you're doing, that’s drugs.

Tammy: Ok. I’ll counter you with a Puffco.

XZIBIT: Yes, Puffcos are good. But still, I'm just not good with the torch.

Tammy: It’s your trauma.

XZIBIT: Yeah, we’ve established I have trauma! Damn crack era.

Tammy: Well I hope one day you can look at it differently, but it’s very common for Gen X to not like glass. It makes them feel like a crackhead.

But historically, that’s not the imagery.

XZIBIT: Yeah…I’ve seen a lot.

So what are some other methods that people might not be familiar with?

Tammy: You have edibles. With smoking, you can stop when you’re high. That’s one of the benefits.

With edibles, if you consume too much, you might be done, but it’s not done working in you. That can lead to a bad experience.

Most commonly, edibles are in gummy form or a brownie. There are savory edibles, like chips and crackers.

XZIBIT: I just made butter the other night.

Tammy: Yeah! You can even buy ice cream now.

Cannabis also comes in beverages. And now it can come in powdered form so you can make your own beverages.

But with edibles, it’s important to know your number. If you’re going to try an edible, I highly suggest 2.5mg.

I know someone who just ate a 10mg edible for their first time and they had a horrible experience. They should’ve started at 2.5mg.

If you feel nothing, that’s ok! Try again tomorrow with 5mg.

XZIBIT: One of the ways cannabis can be outside of flower form is concentrate. What’s that?

Tammy: How I pick my concentrate, which I only smoke out of a Puffco, is I am going to go for your live rosins over your resins.

XZIBIT: What’s the difference between a rosin and a resin?

Tammy: It’s different extraction methods. Your resins are going to be extracted with a butane hash oil.

I try not to mess with anything resin because it’s going to have gone through a distillation process, and I don’t want to deal with that because it makes me feel sick.

And it makes me think about this new wave of Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. It’s a syndrome where once a person consumes cannabis, they start vomiting cyclically for 24 to 72 hours and the only thing that gives relief is a hot shower.

This is a new thing. Look at Jamaica—it’s not happening there.

And I honestly believe that some of these chemicals that are spilling over into the product could be causing it.

We really don’t have long term information about what these chemicals are doing in our bodies.

But with rosin, it’s different. It’s just heat and pressure. It’s cannabis that is flash frozen after it’s harvested. It’s agitated in an ice bath sometimes, but the harvested weed is your product.

XZIBIT: I have to play devil’s advocate. The yield that you get from rosin is night and day from other forms of harvesting.

Rosin concentrate is a very pure product, but you have to use a lot of cannabis to get a little bit of concentrate.

Tammy: Which is why rosin can be a bit pricey. I think it’s worth it.

And if you really like concentrate, you can buy your own at-home rosin press.

XZIBIT: For the person balancing a budget, they might want something a bit more economical.

Tammy: There are some good rosin companies out there, but I’m still a flower girl at the end of the day.

XZIBIT: What other methods of cannabis consumption are there?

Tammy: Topicals. So your skin is an organ that has receptors that communicate with the plant–-it’s all a part of the Endocannabinoid System we’ve talked about in a previous episode.

So you can use topicals for pain relief, like aches and pains and sore muscles. It’s a great anti-inflammatory. You can also get transdermal patches.

XZIBIT: There’s a really great topical out there from Buddings called Fire and Ice. It actually works. I used to buy it for my grandmother before she passed.

Tammy: A sublingual is good, too. This is a tincture, which is an oil-based product that comes with a dropper that you can hold under your tongue for a minute or two, or as long as you can.

A tincture will bypass your liver. Edibles can take forever to kick in because it has to go through your liver, but tinctures are faster because they bypass that.

XZIBIT: I fuck with edibles a lot.

Tammy: What’s your number?

XZIBIT: I can do 100mg easily. I can do 200mg or so on. I have a high tolerance, but I also like that high.

I have a very intense environment, so when I finally get to relax, the edible gets me to a place where I can rest.

Tammy: That’s a big number. I don’t like to go past 50mg. I tend to hang around 20mg.

What’s another consumption method?

XZIBIT: Please don’t talk about suppositories!

Tammy: You know, now that you mention it, I think it’s time. Those can be used anally.

Our older loved ones do seem to like suppositories. It’s a much gentler THC effect. And they are great for women with cramps!

XZIBIT: So let’s get into some frequently asked questions. So hit us off with one of them.

Tammy: So people are always confused with the difference between marijuana, cannabis, and hemp. Do you know the difference?

XZIBIT: Marijuana and cannabis are the same. Hemp is different—it doesn’t have the same THC molecules or properties as a cannabis plant.

Tammy: Hemp is a legal term—it’s just a cannabis plant with less than 0.3% THC. Above that line, it’s a cannabis plant.

Now they are thinking of moving that threshold to half a percent. But it’s just a legal definition.

And it’s why canine dogs can’t tell the difference between a hemp plant and a cannabis plant. THC does not have a scent.

XZIBIT: THC doesn’t have a scent. So when people smell weed, they are smelling terpenes. What is a terpene?

Tammy: So terpenes are aromatic compounds found throughout nature. They are in fruits, flowers, and more. They are in soaps and candles and all kinds of things.

Terpenes are going to give you a different kind of smell. So to the trained nose, sometimes you will have a flower that smells like oranges. And when I say flower, I mean the nugs and the buds.

And that’s because the nug or bud has terpenes that are going to smell like oranges. Other times it will smell earthy or peppery.

Pay attention to that smell and how you react to that weed. For some reason, citrusy smelling weed makes me sleepy, nauseous, faint, or hot.

XZIBIT: I love it all. Bring it in! Citrusy, earthy, gassy, whatever.

Tammy: Yeah, I like the gas smelling weed.

XZIBIT: I’m used to rolling things, like with Backwoods. I used to break it down, but now I just throw the whole bud in there.

Tammy: So you do a split–half tobacco, half weed?

XZIBIT: No. They do that in Europe a lot. When I went to Europe, they were like, “Do you want to smoke a joint?” And they started mixing weed and tobacco. I was like, “What the fuck?”

But I prefer to smoke it in a cigar, like a natural tobacco leaf.

So frequently asked questions. Hit me with another one.

Tammy: Can you fly with cannabis?

So flying on an airplane is federal jurisdiction and it is illegal on the federal level so the answer would be no.

What’s the difference between CBD and THC?

XZIBIT: CBD is like water. What are you doing? Don’t even do it! Just drink some water. It’s not like THC. THC is the real deal.

Tammy: CBD is not intoxicating while THC is intoxicating. But you’ll get all the benefits with CBD. It promotes a better mood, helps with sleep, and it helps with energy.

It’s a really great cannabinoid to throw into the mix when you’re considering THC. It’s helped a lot of people change their minds about cannabis. It’s even safe for pets and children.

Another question is what is scheduling and why is cannabis illegal?

XZIBIT: Like everything else, they haven’t figured out how to tax it yet.

Tammy: Yeah. They haven’t figured out how to benefit from it, so it’s still illegal.

Schedule 1 is the worst rating. It’s things like heroin or LSD. Even though cannabis cannot kill you, they still have it ranked at Schedule 1 as if it had no medical use and a high risk of abuse.

All pharmaceuticals that can kill you will be Schedule 2 and below and that’s because they want a firewall between recreational drugs and their drugs.

XZIBIT: Can you get addicted to marijuana?

Tammy: Addicted like cigarettes? No.

But you can have an habitually addictive relationship with the plant, just like you can be addicted to food.

So there’s a psychological addiction that can occur, which is why it is so important for you to set your intentionality. Why am I smoking? Is it because I need to relax? Be in a social setting? Be creative?

Setting your intention when you smoke is the way you make sure your relationship with the plant is a positive one and not just mindless consumption.

XZIBIT: I like to smoke it because it’s there…

Tammy: Well just as long as your vibes are high when you spark up, you’re ok.

Because there is nothing worse than feeling really bad, getting high, and then feeling worse.

XZIBIT: Is marijuana a gateway drug to harder drugs?

Tammy: Research shows that the gateway drug is alcohol.

And in fact, there are a lot of people who can attest to cannabis being an exit drug.

XZIBIT: Let’s be clear here, spirits lower your inhibition. You do dumb shit on alcohol. I have. I think it’s on a DVD somewhere.

Tammy: Now does cannabis make you lazy?

I do think a lazy person who smokes weed does become lazier.

XZIBIT: It’s like money—it just enhances who you are.

Tammy: But of all the millionaires, how many of them smoke weed? All of them!

I feel like drug users are some of the most successful people on the planet.

XZIBIT: So another question—why does smoking give you the munchies?

Tammy: That’s a by-product. We have this thing in our body called the Endocannabinoid System. It’s the system that governs all the other systems.

And its whole purpose is to keep things in balance. Cannabis is part of the puzzle that helps it do that.

Hunger is ruled by this system. The easiest way to understand it is that there are some cannabinoids that are just going to induce hunger. They just play on those chemicals and make you hungry.

And then there are some cannabinoids that actually suppress hunger.

But THC makes you think you’re hungry even when you’re not.

This is what Google says, ”by binding to the receptors in the olfactory bulb in the brain, THC seems to enhance sensitivity to smells, making aromas from food more potent,” which would then make you more hungry.

XZIBIT: But the craving. You don’t usually have the food in front of you, but you still crave it.

Tammy: CB1 receptors can be found in the basal ganglia where it can enhance eating pleasure. Or the lymbic forebrain where it can enhance food palatability. I’m not a neuroscientist, though.

So there’s a lot of different parts in the brain where it can cause hunger.

But there are cannabinoids, like TCHV, that do the opposite. They suppress the appetite.

A common question I know is, “Can I overdose?”

No, it isn’t really possible. They had this monkey study where a monkey overdosed, but they really just suffocated him and said it was the weed that killed him.

How people overdose on pharmaceuticals is interesting. Our brain stem is what controls our automatic behaviors like blinking, breathing, and so on.

And when the brain stem is paralyzed from the pharmaceuticals, those automatic behaviors just stop.

So when an overdosed person throws up, for example, they don’t automatically choke and they suffocate. Or they just stop breathing altogether.

With cannabis, the molecule cannot get into the brain stem. There are no receptors there.

XZIBIT: Alright. It’s the Lasagna Ganja Podcast, I’m X to the Z, XZIBIT.

Tammy: And I’m Tammy, aka The Cannabis Cutie.

XZIBIT: Another banging episode. I’ll see you guys next time!