Bend over, it's time to get high. The low down on suppositories

[Smokin Moose]

A most outrageous profession.

 

While at the Expo, Dan comes up with the most hilarious product idea I’ve ever heard. “My company is Cannabanus,” he says in his best Dutch accent, “and my product is the new cannabis suppositories. You put the cannabis into the plug, the plug goes into your butt. Then you are getting high very quickly and efficiently. There are many blood vessels in the anus and they are absorbing the THC at an extremely fast rate. It’s called the Assinator.”

 

I stumbled on this method for making them.

 

How to make Suppositories

To make marijuana caps, buy capsules at a homeopathic pharmacy or through the internet. The vendor will also have a small manual capper that makes 100 capsules at a time. The device holds one piece of the cap in place so they can be filled easily. There are several sizes. The biggest is a double O. Some people find these hard to swallow. A smaller size capsule is easier to swallow. It also makes it easier to take the right amount, not too much and not too little.

 

The cannabis is dried and ground to a very fine consistency in a coffee grinder. After the cannabis is ground, let it sit for a few minutes so that the THC bearing glands settle, rather than float away.

 

Pour the ground cannabis into a small bowl. Add enough olive oil and mix it in so that the cannabis powder sticks together. Use this mixture to fill the capsules, then put the tops on. Keep refrigerated. For long-term storage, place the capsules in a container and keep frozen.

 

Any grade of cannabis can be used. Renowned author Tom Flowers, deceased, first made caps from medium-sized leaves trimmed during manicuring. Later he switched over to smaller trim collected from the last stages of preparing bud. Both the quality and the quantity affect the intensity of the experience.

 

Another method that you might use to get high without smoking is using a tincture administered sublingually, that is, under the tongue. Cannabinoids that have been extracted and dissolved in alcohol are quickly absorbed by the mucus membranes.

 

If you really want to have a blast, fill your capsule with bum ringing blackout bud butter.

 

Here is the recipe

 

Black Out Bud Butter

An even better bud bum buster butter.

 

Improvement number one comes from using European sweet butter. Regular butter is about 80% butterfat while European butters range from 84-86%. This may seem trivial but remember it is the butterfat that exacts the cannabinoids so a 7-8 % increase in butterfat will result in a more efficient extraction and stronger butter. European style butter comes from a number of manufacturers including Plugra from upstate New York, Strauss Organic, and recently Challenge European Style. Yes, the best still comes from France but it is exorbitantly priced.

 

Improvement number two comes from using a Braun high speed coffee grinder to convert all cannabis plant material from whatever source to a fine powder. The use of powder means the butter will taste more like cannabis as some of the chlorophyll and a few terpenes get into the butter. It also means a vastly increased surface area where the butterfat meets the cannabinoids. Using powder or “flour” significantly increases the potency of the final butter.

 

Improvement number three comes from using the best starting materials available. In this case Train Wreck, California Orange, and Pooh Bear trim were ground up and supplemented by powdered California Orange flowers. Using bud as opposed to trim will increase the potency of the butter.

 

The three improvements noted above resulted in cannabutter that is markedly different from the normal (and quite wonderful) Better Bud Butter. Black Out Bud Butter (BOBB) is approximately 2oo-300% stronger. The name BOBB comes from the fact that this butter is midnight green and will cause blackouts if too much is consumed.

 

Ingredients:

 

2 ½ pounds (six cups) of European Style high butterfat unsalted butter. I combined 8 oz of Plugra with 1 pound of Strauss Organic and 1 pound of Challenge European Style. Everyone has there own favorites but mine is Strauss. Strauss is smoother and less greasy than the others.

 

4 oz powdered Train Wreck Trim

 

2 oz powdered Pooh Bear Trim (a cross of Train Wreck and Salmon Creek Big Bud)

 

2 oz powdered California Orange trim

 

1/3 oz powdered California Orange flowers

 

Method:

 

The butters were melted in a covered crock pot set on high. The powdered cannabis was gradually stirred in with a wood spoon. The mixture was frequently stirred and cooked covered on high for one hour followed by three hours set on low. Stirring was accomplished every 15 minutes.

 

After four hours the hot mixture was squeezed through cheese cloth into a bowl then the product was filtered once more through cheese cloth. All available butter was squeezed out producing approximately 3 ½ cups. Theoretically, the cloth balls remaining could be re-extracted with more butter but the product would not be nearly as strong. Approximately 75-85% of the available cannabinoids are extracted on the first pass.

 

Note on Preparation:

 

No gloves were used in squeezing the rather hot cloth balls into the collection vessel. If you go barehanded beware of burns. Usually the ball can be twisted and held at the top then you can press the ball with the wood spoon against the side of the collection vessel. Once the ball has cooled sufficiently you can “wring” out the last of the cannabutter. Yes, this is messy but will leave your hands oh so soft.

 

Note on Amount of powdered cannabis to use: I use as much as will go into solution with the butter. This varies depending upon the cannabis and source.

 

Note on Potency:

 

I know this cannabutter is potent simply from the extreme effects produced from handling it.

 

 

 

This covers the suppositories nicely, both oral and anal.

 

 

No, Cheech and Chong aren't on the payroll. Neither is the Weed Man. They don't have free samples, or the munchies. And their office Christmas party wasn't any wilder than yours was.

 

But as a small pharmaceutical firm working on a medicinal product derived from the same plant that's, um, high on the radar for recreational purposes, some ribbing is to be expected.

 

Luckily they take it all in stride at Toronto-based Cannasat Therapeutics Inc., one of a handful of companies in the world that is researching and developing medicines derived from cannabis plants ( yes, that would be marijuana ).

 

Their aim is something a lot more serious: to help people suffering with chronic and neuropathic pain, depression, anxiety and movement disorders using all the known benefits of cannabis - including being a pain reliever, a relaxant, an anti-nauseant and an appetite stimulant - minus the social stigma of smoking pot.

 

On top of that, their first product in testing, CAT-310, takes away the so-called "buzz" of marijuana that makes some terminally and chronically ill patients, particularly the elderly, uncomfortable and anxious. This medicine is aimed directly at the $4 billion neuropathic pain market that is mainly serviced by various opiates, anti-convulsants and anti-depressants.

 

Cannasat's pursuit is all perfectly legal and has the backing of Health Canada, including a narcotics licence, "and you have to be a pure-bred pharmaceutical company to get one," notes chief executive David Hill.

 

His mission since Cannasat was launched in 2004 is to educate investors about the benefits of what he refers to more scientifically as "cannabinoids," the naturally occuring molecules unique to the cannabis plant. The best known is THC ( tetrahydrocannabinol ).

 

The idea is to mimic smoked cannabis through the invention of a new drug delivery technology that can be absorbed on the tongue, like a thin wafer. It doesn't get digested by the stomach and processed by the liver before reaching the brain, so it's similar to inhaling cannabis.

 

There are other products on the market using THC, including capsules and an oral spray, but anything that lands in the stomach and is processed by the liver increases the high, he explains.

 

"What we're trying to do is we've created a sublingual tablet so it goes into the mouth, into the bloodstream and then into the brain. What's compelling is when you take oral THC, it's five times more psycho-active. When it goes through your stomach and metabolizes, it's getting you high.

 

"So it's losing its efficacy and it's making you more stoned. So we're trying to take clinically proven molecules and reducing the high," Hill says.

 

One of the pluses is that THC is known to be an effective treatment for neuropathic pain and nausea.

 

"Most people who are sick don't want to get high. And what doctors are reluctant to do is prescribe medications that get you high," such as opiates, which can also be toxic, make you nauseas and constipated.

 

"Cannabinoids are safe. They're virtually non-toxic. We all remember from high school that if we drank too much we got sick. But if you smoke too much pot the worst thing that would happen to you is you fell asleep. And when you woke up the next day you might have been a tad groggy, but really there's no hangover.

 

"We know from recreational data that when some people take ( smoke ) too much THC it can cause paranoia, it can cause anxiety. Some people love it to death. They think it's just wonderful. But for some people it causes anxiety," says Hill.

 

Opiates such as Oxycontin and codeine can help with pain relief but they've been proven to be highly addictive. THC is much less so, he says.

 

"The biggest problem with oral dosage forms of THC today, the spray and the capsule, is that THC is a very thick, oily substance.

 

"Our solution is we have a nano-encapsulation technology. It takes that oily substance and turns it into a powder, so that powder will now dissolve in the saliva," and you don't have to swallow it, he explains.

 

"We know this works. If we can create a more elegant delivery system, I think we have a very marketable pharmaceutical product," Hill says.

 

One person who is excited about the medicine's potential is Sara Lee Irwin, Cannasat's director of public relations. When she was 32 years old she was diagnosed with cancer in her pelvis and hip. Today at 50, she walks with a cane and still suffers from chronic pain.

 

She's taken every powerful painkiller out there from Percodan to Oxycontin but found she couldn't function normally in her daily life because of the high, the constipation and the lack of appetite. She's taken THC in oral capsules but she's never found it as effective as smoking herbal cannabis.

 

Because of her condition, Irwin is one of the 2,000 people in Canada legally allowed to purchase and use medical marijuana, which she smokes three or four times daily to ease her suffering.

 

"I've switched over completely. It moves the pain off-centre and I have a ravenous appetite," she notes.

 

When it comes to her company's mission: "I feel really good about what we're doing, and I have a great interest in this," Irwin adds.

 

Recently Cannasat reached a milestone they hope will get them closer to their goal of bringing a safe and effective product to market.

 

Earlier this month Cannasat successfully completed Phase I clinical trials, the first key study in humans that now provides them with important safety and medical data to launch them on to further product development.

 

"It's an important first step for us. It keeps us on track to move CAT-310 to Phase II testing by the end of 2008," he says.

 

It's at that point that the big pharmaceutical companies take notice and could sign on as a partner to market and distribute the product. They're already in preliminary talks with some, he says. They estimate revenue potential of $500 million-plus.

 

"We're not doing this to be a little, wee company. We see huge potential here," Hill says.

 

Cannasat went public last year on the TSX Venture Exchange and continues to trade at or around its 52-week low of 17 cents a share. Its market captialization is about $14 million.

 

Companies getting into Phase II of clinical trials, as they will be next fall, are trading north of $100 million in market cap, he says.

 

"We have great potential to be a big company with institutional money and move the research along further," Hill notes, adding their next products will be aimed at treating mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, and with localized pain.

 

But what about the public perception about pot?

 

"Now that we've established ourselves as a pharmaceutical company, I don't see that stigma. It certainly hasn't held us back in Canada. We've had a lot of support from Health Canada," offers Hill.

 

"I think the only stigma we have is that the average person, when they hear about it, their first reaction is cannabis is somehow a back alley drug. And I'm trying to show that ( opiates ) are a back alley drug too.

 

"I'm not some closet pot smoker or anything. I got into this because the company approached me with a business opportunity and I wanted to do something that I could be really passionate about.

 

"I realized there's an enormous business opportunity here that could really help people."

 

[sidebar]

 

DAVID HILL Q&A

 

Q. What were your total sales and profits in the last year?

 

A. We are an R&D company, and thus have no revenues or profits to date other than government grants and interest income. Our company has significant revenue potential and profits upon approval of our drug product candidates.

 

Q. How much seed capital did you have when you launched and where did you get it?

 

A. We have raised approximately $9 million since inception from friends, family and sophisticated, high net worth individuals in Canada and the United States.

 

Q. What's been your biggest success/failure so far?

 

A. Our biggest success to date is completing our first Phase I clinical trial for CAT- 310. We have had challenges along the way, but so far have not had any major setbacks.

 

Q. What are the biggest challenges facing your business?

 

A. From a scientific perspective we have less risk, as cannabinoids are clinically proven and THC is an approved substance for pharmaceutical purposes in both Canada and the US. Raising capital is a risk for any early stage venture, but we've had a good track record raising money, and have continued support from shareholders and other interested parties.

 

Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)

Copyright: 2007 Toronto Star

Contact: lettertoed@thestar.ca

Website: TheStar.com

Edited February 28, 2009 by Smokin Moose

[Harlsmanson]

BAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I'm not surprised that this is not a popular thread

[Smokin Moose]

I had a dear friend pass recently who had terminal brain cancer. He was unable to swallow so I helped medicate him with a suppository. I had to insert them for him. Cannabis alleviates the distress of the dying process, so do not discount their efficacy.

I can tell you it can be hilarious putting a suppository in. My mate used too get the giggles when I was putting them in, and POP, out came the slippery little sucker .

I know this is an unusual way of medicating, but in a clinical situation they are invaluable.

I can honestly tell you that if YOU were dying and could not smoke or swallow, YOU would plead to have one inserted for you.

I say again, the dying process is frighteningly horrible and scary, and suppositories have their rightful place in medicating, as they alleviate the distress.

Nothing wrong with humour on this issue. I have to tell you that my mate used to play pranks on me all the time. Early on in his illness I got him back. I put some hot chilli in a suppository and took him down by the lake near the hospice to watch the swans. After 15 minutes he starts wriggling around and says "Damn you Moose, what did you put in that fucker". We had the best laugh in years. It was the last time I ever heard him laugh. (Nigel RIP mate)

 

I think it should be added that the recipe for Black Out Bud Butter came from Dr Jay ( rest well).

http://www.letfreedomgrow.com/recipe...bud_butter.htm

Edited March 2, 2009 by Smokin Moose

[Radic]

well.............THC

is an aphrodisiac

 

the Empress and i have lotza fun with cannabis ointment

we have 7 youth to prove it

in India theres a unorthodox treatment for piles

involving blowing Hashish smoke in tru the out doors

i hav never tried that 1

cannabis ointment rules for we

 

irey guidance