April 7th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: Marijuana Effects
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Below is the official National Institute On Drug Abuse’s definition of marijuana. There are many flaws and many true facts in their definition, and I’d be interested in seeing what you guys have to say about it. One thing I noticed right off the bat was that some of their points such as “those who smoke marijuana are less likely to graduate from high school” could be attributed to the War On Drugs instead of the drug itself. For example… if marijuana were legal, kids would not be getting kicked out of school for experimenting with it.
Marijuana is the most commonly abused illicit drug in the United States. A dry, shredded green/brown mix of flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves of the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, it usually is smoked as a cigarette (joint, nail), or in a pipe (bong). It also is smoked in blunts, which are cigars that have been emptied of tobacco and refilled with marijuana, often in combination with another drug. It might also be mixed in food or brewed as a tea. As a more concentrated, resinous form it is called hashish and, as a sticky black liquid, hash oil. Marijuana smoke has a pungent and distinctive, usually sweet-and-sour odor. There are countless street terms for marijuana including pot, herb, weed, grass, widow, ganja, and hash, as well as terms derived from trademarked varieties of cannabis, such as Bubble Gum, Northern Lights, Fruity Juice, Afghani #1, and a number of Skunk varieties.
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February 14th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: How-To
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Part 1: Finding the right grow spot
Before you can sow your seeds you must find a suitable location to grow your plants. Don’t be showing your new plant of to the neighbors. No not grow near roads, park trails, railroad tracks, power lines and any man made structures. A lot of this is common sense, but pricker bushes, muddy areas, uncleared woods, water, and steep hills are all people deterrents. Try growing between a grouping of pine tried so that when the leaves die in winter, your plants are hidden. Make sure no hunters roam your grow area. The last thing you need is some hunter finding your new grow project!
The more sunlight your marijuana plants get the better. In an ideal situation, you plants would get 10+ hours of sunlight a day, and this would cause the quickest possible growth. However such hidden spots are hard to come by, so try to get your plants at least 5 hours a day. Wrapping tin foil around the plant may also help reflect light back on it. Be sure to scope out a grow site that will be able to provide light.
Soil is crucial to any grow operation, and this is where a lot of beginner growers mess up. First off, the soil must drain well. Use perlite, sand, or some one aerator to improve the water flow through the soil. PH is crucial to a plants ability to absorb nutrients and function. Marijuana prefers a pH of 6.3-6.7 for ideal growth. Lime will increase the pH and sodium bicarbonate will lower it. Be sure to add the correct proportions to each!
A source of water is necessary at the grow site. There are a few methods for solving this issue (if there is not enough natural rain). First off, you can hide buckets at the grow site to collect water. If water is close, you can divert a small stream to your plant. For the more crafty, you can run a hose from a high elevation water source and bury the hose underground. Only bring equipment to the grow site at night, but never water at night, as you increase the chance of mold. Come back and water the plants quickly the next day if necessary.
The level of the water table at the grow site is also important. If the water table is too high and the soil is too wet the roots will not receive enough oxygen and die. If the water table is too low then the soil will dry out quickly and you will have to water often. If the ground is too wet then the plants must be grown in pots. The larger the better. The pot should have a one inch layer of gravel for good drainage. The rest of the pot should be filled with potting soil.
Part 2: Choosing the right seed
Selecting the right seed for your grow site is the next important step. You want a seed that is well adapted to the area that you plan to grow in. There are many seedbanks you can choose from, Sensi Seeds happens to be my favorite. You can view the average time each strain takes to harvest right on the website, and compare that with your local growing season. If you have enough time to grow the plant before the first frost of the fall, you will be golden. Many people also look at the yield per plant of each strain, and the average potency of the buds. Like I said earlier though, the more sunlight, the more potent the plant.
Part 3: Sprouting Your Seeds
With your dank seeds in hand, you are not almost ready to start growing! Make sure an appropriate site is selected and prepared and then sprout the seeds.
To sprout seeds in a paper towel, wrap each seed individually in a paper towel, folding the paper towel over itself several times. The paper towel should be wet thoroughly and placed on a flat dark surface, preferably warm. Once the sprout is about 1/3 inch long you can place the sprout in a jiffy pot. Make sure you use a similar mixture to what you will be using in the larger pot later. Use a pencil or pen to push the soil down about an inch. Place the sprout in the soil and cover with loose dirt. Keep the soil wet, and if you can use a weak concentrated phosphorus mixture. Within a week or two you should start to see some plant growth.
Part 4: Vegetative Growth
The plants should now fully be experiencing vegetative growth. Several levels of nodes should be apparent by now. Never let the water dry out at this stage, it is essential to the growth. At this point no fertilizer should be used. Keep an eye on plants if there have been a lot of storms recently (especially at night) as the plants will start to mold. Carefully remove any plants that due begin to mold as mold will easily spread to the other plants. 3-4 weeks into vegetative growth you can start fertilizing with a 20-20-20 outdoor fertilizer.
The growing plants should be looking stronger and healthier every week! At this point it is up to you if you want to use insecticide to insure no bugs get at your plants. You will have to reapply any insecticide after it rains. The plants can be fertilized every other week at this point, and with adequate sunlight, should be growing 1 ft+ a week! It is worth it to check the pH periodically as well, if it is falling below that 6.3 mark discussed earlier, apply some sodium bicarbonate or ashes with the water.
As you get closer to the flowering stage, the roots of the plant will become less and less effective at absorbing nutrients into the marijuana plant. Many people use foliar feeding at this stage (spraying the leaves directly with fertilizer. Be very careful with this method as you will severely damage the leaves if you over fertilize. A light spraying once a week of a fertilizer half the strength will be plenty. Feed the plant in the early morning when the stomata (leaf pores) are open and ready to absorb nutrients. A day after make sure to wash the leaves with water to take off any excess leftover fertilizer.
Part 6: Pruning Depending on how tall your plant is getting, you may want to consider pruning it to control growth. If you clip the growth bud at the top, the plants will stop growing in the vertical direction, and growth hormones will be transferred to the stems growing horizontally. The inverse is true as well, if you want the plant to grow tall and skinny you can clip the buds on the side. Most prefer to clip the top growth bud however, as a wider plant increases sun exposure for flowering, and a shorter plant is harder to spot. Be sure to always cut less than 4 inches off when pruning.
Part 7: Flowering – The Fun Part
Before you start to flower the plant you are going to want to make sure you have no males in the bunch. A female plant will have started to sprout pistils at this point, which look almost like little hairs sticking out of a branch. These will eventually become dank buds. The male plants will start to develop pods where pollen will develop. Males need to be removed immediately or they will pollinate the females and thc resin production will be stunted (and seed production will start)! Carefully remove all male plants to avoid pollination.
Once the male plants are gone, it is time to wait for flowering. Flowering occurs when the plant senses a ratio of 12 hours light / 12 hours dark. Once flowering has begun, the marijuana buds will start to form and produce resin (unless they are pollinated by a male). Do not disturb the plants at night as even the smallest amount of light can offset the growth hormone that controls flowering and revert the plant back to vegetative growth. Use a red light if anything, as it is less disruptive to the plant. Also cease using all insecticides and fertilizers, only add a small amount of phosphorus if you want to promote bud growth.
Part 9: Picking, Curing Marijuna, And Gettin High!
It is almost time for your reward. When the white pistils that told you the plant was a female start to turn brown, it is bordering on being late to harvest. You can use a magnifying glass to detect early when the pistils will go brown. A brown pistil is rapidly losing thc, while a clear one has not reached full potential. Cut off the marijuana branches and put them in a container or bag for later curing. Be gentle handling the plants.
Take the buds out and remove any big leaves. The buds should be placed in containers and given about 2-4 weeks to sit. If any bud begins to mold remove it from the others and put it in the microwave to kill the mold. The containers should be kept in a dark place. Once the buds are mostly dry you can take out the rest of the leaves and stems that have little THC potency and hang the buds up in a dry warm (preferably dark) place to dry. Once the buds are dry and brittle enjoy all your hard work and take a smoke break! If you liked this article please drop us a comment or link back to us!
February 11th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: How-To, Random
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One of the most popular things around that I’ve seen lately are a kind of smoking device called dugouts. Dugouts are ideal for the college student or anyone who wants to smoke discreetly on the run. They run from $10-$30 and come in a variety of colors and materials. Most dugouts are wood on the outside, and contain a metal one-hitter pipe. You can even get dugouts now where the pipe is painted as a cigarette. The basic dugout design consists of a block of wood with two holes drilled through it, one filled with ground marijuana and the other with a small spring that holds the pipe. There is a sliding top piece and you can press the pipe down into the chamber and slide it closed, sealing all smell. When you want to smoke, just slide the top off and press your bowl into the marijuana chamber for an instant smoke. You can easily walk down the street at night and fool anybody into thinking you are smoking a cigarette, and even during the day its hard for the unsuspecting eye to tell the difference. Check out dugouts here!
February 7th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: Medical Marijuana, News
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Source: Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles, CA — Vending machines have long been used to hawk everything from Skittles and sandwiches to juice and java, but now one is being used to offer a new product: medical marijuana. Not just anyone can pop some coins in and get some bud. The machine, developed by Los Angeles medical-marijuana dispensary owner Vincent Mehdizadeh, gives up to an ounce of pot per week only to preapproved patients.
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
February 5th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: How-To
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The making of hash is an ancient art, and it is hard to find a stoner that would not like to learn more about making hash. Hash is essentially a pressed together lump of trichomes (pure THC). You’d be surprised how many people can get baked off of a little lump of this stuff! I’ll go in order from worst to best method. The screen method is the least efficient, then the alcohol method and finally the purest method of blending.
The Screen Method:
Buy a nice grinder with a fine screen (I prefer a Space Case grinder). Grind the marijuana in the grinder and let it sit in a cold place overnight. Shake it up and then open up to bottom trey to reveal the collected crystals.
This method can also be done by grinding up with marijuana in any grinder and collecting the trichomes by sifting through any fine screen with a collection trey underneath. The resulting crystals from both techniques can either be smoked as-is or pressed into hash with a pollen press.
The Alcohol (Tincture) Method:
THC dissolves in alcohol and other non-polar substances and does not dissolve in water. Using this principle, we can separate the trichomes from the leaf by dissolving the THC in alcohol.
Start by grinding the marijuana to as fine a powder as can be. Put it in a sealable bottle with plenty of alcohol to fill up with bottle. Cap the bottle and shake it vigorously, to ensure all the THC is dissolved. Let it sit for a couple hours shaking it every 30 minutes or so, and eventually letting the mixture settle.
Now you need to pour the alcohol off into a separate container (it should be green now) and you may want to use a filter to make sure none of the leafy parts are transferred. Slowly heat the alcohol solution on a hot pad or double boiler so that it doesn’t get too hot. You can even just put it in a dish and let it sit for a couple days and evaporate. You will be left with pure THC trichomes that you can either press into hash, or add a tiny bit of alcohol back to it for an oil.
(FYI) I once used this procedure to make a small batch of oil. I then emptied an eyedropper bottle and sucked the solution up. Two drops of this eyedropper on a tobacco cigarette and you would get so high you wouldn’t believe!
The Blender/Ice Method:
This method has become increasingly popular and there are several machines available here that will now do this whole process for you and in a much more efficient manner. For us old-fashioned stoners, here is the run down.
First fill a blender with water. Throw in stems, leaves, shitty bud, anything that could potentially contain THC can go in. Next throw in a couple ice cubes. Blend everything together for about 5 minutes. The ice cubes will make the trichomes very brittle and this whole blending process should have stirred them up quite nicely.
Pour the mixture through a golden coffee filter or some other type of screen into a mason jar. Soon you will notice a collection of white trichomes at the bottom of the greenish mixture. Let it sit about 30 minutes, and then pour off the top ½ of the liquid. Again let the mixture sit another 20-30 minutes and repeat until you can’t pout off any more water without risking the trichomes.
Pour the remaining mixture through a paper coffee filter, the water will pass through and the pure crystals will remain. Congratulations you know have the purest trichome crystals you can get! Press and enjoy.
February 5th, 2008 by Peter Bonginelli
filed under: Marijuana Effects, Medical Marijuana, News
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It was published today by the American Association for Cancer Research in their journal “Cancer Research” that a University Of Wisconsin study showed Cannabinoids inhibited cancer cell proliferation. This helped slow down everything from brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, and skin cancer among others.
Politicians have yet again turned a blind eye to medical marijuana, even with the upcoming elections. And according to Paul Armentano at NORML.org this is not the first time, “For over 30 years, US politicians and bureaucrats have systematically turned a blind eye to scientific research indicating that marijuana may play a role in cancer prevention — a finding that was first documented in 1974. That year, a research team at the Medical College of Virginia (acting at the behest of the federal government) discovered that cannabis inhibited malignant tumor cell growth in culture and in mice.”
Later studies in Europe even showed that brain cancer cells would induce apoptosis (cell death) without harming surrounding cells, effectively destroying the tumor.
The propaganda continues to hold that cannabis causes cancer and is bad for you health, while mountains of evidence are piling up against the status quo. Until the people demand change, the government will not provide it. Recently the Marijuana Policy Project offered all the GOP frontrunners $20,000 to back up their statements against medical marijuana with scientific evidence. So far no takers.
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