Marijuana is a highly useful medicine. While research is emerging that marijuana may slow down and avoid risks of cancer, a fact acknowledged by the American Association for Cancer Research, may help prevent Alzheimer’s, and may even be capable of curing some cancers, at least when THC is injected or locally applied – marijuana has some very practical everyday medical uses.

It can be used for cramp pains – everything from PMS, to IBS to Crohns disease. As an anti-spasm medicine, it is also useful for seizures and MS. Doctors in California  have found marijuana effective for migraines, where other treatments don’t work. Research even indicates marijuana can be used as a treatment for ADHD. There really can be no doubt, it’s amazing and unvalued medicine that is still delivering surprises.

For information about the very latest medical marijuana research, check MAPS here

The main downside with smoking pot, for medicine or otherwise, is that smoking things is harmful to your health/lungs. The otherwise safe chemicals in the plant get partly converted into harmful toxins.

Of course one should also make sure one is getting enough serotonin, and omega’s if one is regularly using medical cannabis, to ensure levels do not get depleted, as with regular use of any drug. 5-htp and fish oil is ideal. This should also help you maintain positive medical effects over time. Drink lots of water to avoid cottonmouth, as it can affect dental health to be too dry in the mouth.

Vaping

A Normal/maps study in California shows that vaporisation greatly reduces the levels of such toxins (virtually eliminating them). Here’s that study here

Using a vaporiser is not difficult to do, although they are a little pricey to buy. One can always rig something up oneself using a 75w light bulb if the cost is an issue.

You’ll just want very finely ground herb matter, and set the thing going so it can heat up before you start. This is important, the texture, use a grinder, either coffee or herb. Tune the temperature up reasonably high at first, even the point of combustion is cleaner than inhalation via a flame, but for proper vaporisation you’ll want to fiddle with the temperature setting – too high and your burning, too low and your not getting THC. The ideal temp for weed is 365 C or 185 F, thereabouts. Be patient, it’s not as quick as smoking – if you do it right, it should be better value for money than smoking, and still deliver the herbs nice taste.

Often the vaped herb matter has some residual activity, so perhaps can be used for cooking later.

Heres a list of temps for other plants.

The Oral Route

Similarly cooking is a clean way around any smoking toxins, and is very easy for anyone to do. You simply need something that absorbs fat-soluble things.

In this case the easiest bet is butter, but also milk, oil, vodka or anything similar will do. You merely heat the cannabis for a while, in the butter, oil, or milk – you will see that active white THC and fat precipitates (come out of the mixture) on the surface. It doesn’t take long, but you can see it happening. Then you just strain out the cannabis, and use the butter or oil for cooking as indicated in the recipe – or you can just straight drink, some warmed milk, perhaps with some honey and spices – in milk is a popular method for oral consumption in India, for a cannabis drink called “Bhang” (see below)

I see no point in pretending there are special "pot recipes".  Anything that uses oil, or butter, can be used, just follow advice as above. I'd probably go for a microwave chocolate cake because they are easy. Here however is a Bhang recipe:

from Flavors Of India, by Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

2 cups water
1 ounce marijuana (fresh leaves and flowers of a female plant preferred)
4 cups warm milk
2 tablespoons blanched and chopped almonds
1/8 teaspoon garam masala [a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and cardamon]
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 to 1 teaspoon rosewater
1 cup sugar

Bring the water to a rapid boil and pour into a clean teapot. Remove any seeds or twigs from the marijuana, add it to the teapot and cover. Let this brew for about 7 minutes. Now strain the water and marijuana through a piece of muslin cloth, collect the water and save. Take the leaves and flowers and squeeze between your hands to extract any liquid that remains. Add this to the water. Place the leaves and flowers in a mortar and add 2 teaspoons warm milk. Slowly but firmly grind the milk and leaves together. Gather up the marijuana and squeeze out as much milk as you can. Repeat this process until you have used about 1/2 cup of milk (about 4 to 5 times). Collect all the milk that has been extracted and place in a bowl. By this time the marijuana will have turned into a pulpy mass. Add the chopped almonds and some more warm milk. Grind this in the mortar until a fine paste is formed. Squeeze this paste and collect the extract as before. Repeat a few more times until all that is left are some fibers and nut meal. Discard the residue. Combine all the liquids that have been collected, including the water the marijuana was brewed in. Add to this the garam masala, dried ginger and rosewater. Add the sugar and remaining milk. Chill, serve, and enjoy

PLEASE NOTE: Now here its worth noting that it’s harder to gauge dosage with oral consumption. Too large a dose can be pretty damn unpleasant, so be very cautious when trying out oral consumption methods!

Getting a good nights rest is essential to good mental and physical health. It’s also something that you sometimes miss out on if you use recreational drugs, or if you just have insomniac leanings. I myself struggle to sleep sometimes if I am stressed out. And there’s a lot of products and advice out there, so I thought I’d distil a no-nonsense guide to getting proper sleep, and supplementing for it.

Day & Night

There’s a lot to consider, environmentally for sleep. So, lets look at all of that before diet or supplements. The first main thing is your body clock AKA your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is a schedule of biological changes that occur in a cycle, trigger predominately by sunlight.

So, you will sleep better if your have a regular bed time and wake up time. This is because just before you normally go to bed, you get a release of melatonin, which makes you tired, and when you wake up you get a release of acetyl choline and serotonin, partly triggered by sunlight (Sunlight on the eyes, in the morning, can help you wake up properly). For this reason, it’s better not to sleep in if you sleep poorly, because it will throw this cycle out. Naps can also interfere, but a short mid afternoon nap, say for thirty minutes is better than sleeping in if you’re tired, and such power naps are shown to have no effect on the biological clock.

Read More HERE.

Now that legal smokes are legal, obviously good public education becomes important. There are some important things to note about using these products, some of which is relative to marijuana, some of which isn’t related. It's it's own thing as well as similar. Not a lot has been done via research on the synthetic cannibinoids, but initial studies seem to indicate that their is no effect on the organs, nor toxic metabolites, so it seems fairly safe to assume any and all health effects will rather be related the cannibinoid receptor action itself (i.e. the high), or the method of consumption (smoking) – though it doesn’t hurt being cautious in general.

This thread is meant to be a repository of health and safety information, questions and answers, and any relevant modern research in the area. Feel free to chip in, or ask a question here.

Read all about safety and usage information here.

Nicogel NZ have started selling a 'new' product (which is actually widely used around the world already) here in New Zealand.

Nicogel is a "tobacco gel", applied to skin as a substitute for cigarette use. Nicogel is a tobacco product, and is not a smoking cessation product. Nicogel gives you the satisfaction from which many users crave, they curb the addiction and are perfect for long haul flights, the movies, the office or workplace, in fact anywhere that you can not smoke. Nicogel has all the components of tobacco but lacks many carcinogens that are formed as cigarettes burn.

Nicogel has now been on the market for 5 years and is available in many countries around the global. It represents a real alternative to tobacco without any of the damaging compounds typically found in tobacco smoke. Because it relies on absorption through the skin (which has been shown to be less than 1 minute by MRI scans), its safe amount of nicotine (typically 50 microgrammes per serve) is sufficient to deliver cigarette satisfaction as it avoids first pass metabolism.

Nicogel has been dermatalogically tested and shown to be suitable for use with sensitive skin. In addition, substantial testing has taken place to demonstrate, by HPLC, that Nicogel is nitrosamine-free, which is in keeping with its manufacture from only uncured tobacco.

Nicogel continues to remain a controversial product as it was the first, and to date the only, tobacco product to offer the smoker cigarette satisfaction without the smoke and its negative impact on health. Thus far any negative reviews of Nicogel have been driven by the tobacco industry or its lobbyists rather than bonafide consumers.

You must note, Nicogel does not claim to be a product that will help a smoker quit. It is a smokeless tobacco based 'cosmetic' product.

Click Here to buy Nicogel in New Zealand