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Main article: medical marijuana
Medically, cannabis is most often used as an appetite stimulant and pain reliever for certain terminal illnesses such as cancer and AIDS. Also, it is used to relieve certain neurological illnesses such as epilepsy and bipolar disorder. The medical use of cannabis is controversial; it is rarely prescribed by physicians due to its legal status. Additionally, synthetic THC sold under the brand name of Marinol is often prescribed as a cannabis substitute. See the section on History for information on historic and other medical use.
Cannabis is prepared for human consumption to several forms:
Heat must be applied to all cannabis or cannabis products if intoxication or medical use is intended, as it was discovered in 1970 that cannabis makes THC acid, a precursor turned into THC through heat, the "perfect" temperature being 100 degrees Celsius for 90 minutes (Cannabis Health Journal, p.15). It is most commonly smoked, usually in a pipe or the form of a rolled cigarette, called a joint or spliff. Hashish is also boiled or steamed during preparation.
Other methods of smoking include the use of water pipes, or " bongs", and buckets, also known as "bucket rips" (an ungainly device which functions similarly to a bong), which cool the smoke and, in the case of bongs used with water, remove some unwanted impurities but also possibly the active ingredients. The word bong is a variant of bhang, a an African Pygmy word for cannabis. "Gravity bongs" are bongs in which a large container, such as a plastic milk carton, is partly filled with water, the cap having a hole cut out of it in which rests a bowl. One holds the container low in the water and raises it while lighting the bowl, then removes the bowl or entire cap and inhales while pushing the container back down in the water, using "gravity" to force smoke in the lungs. "Knife hits" are when metal knives are heated often by being stuck in the burner of a stove top and then pressed together with bud or hash between them. The smoke being cooled through a device, commonly a plastic soda bottle with the bottom cut off, poked with holes, and pushed stuck back into the soda bottle, filled with ice, upside down, one inhaling through the pre-existing opening.
Using any of the above devices smoke is generally inhaled in a "hit" or "toke", and, possibly with pipes and bongs, by opening an aerating hole called a "carb" or "shotgun". Bongs may have removable bowls, with the hole in which the bowl rests then acting as an open carb when the bowl is removed.
Cannabis may also be orally ingested by blending it with alcohol or fats, which must be done as it is not water soluble and requires the application of heat. The immediate effects are significantly reduced if it is so blended, but the intoxication may last for a longer duration and be heightened. The effects of ingested cannabis are usually not recognized for at least thirty minutes (frequently longer), making it harder for users to regulate their dosage. The "high" is also different from smoking, being more of a physical or "body high". Butter preparations are included in foods, commonly cookies and brownies (see space cake and Leary biscuit). A drink popular in India, called bhang, includes milk and flavoring herbs (e.g: cloves or cinnamon). Times given for cooking cannabis in butter or margarine (possibly with water) range from simmering for 15 minutes (butter/margarine) to 12 hours (butter/margarine with water, ibid, p.17). See also hashish and hashish oil.
The seeds of the hemp plant are also eaten and roasted, as well as being used to make hemp seed oil. A few restaurants that specialize in food with hemp seeds have opened, and appeal mostly to a countercultural clientele. Hemp seeds contain little THC.
Another method of consumption is vaporization. Vaporization allows the cannabis resins (THC and other cannabinoids) to be extracted into a vapor by heating without burning the plant material. This is advantageous because most of the toxic chemicals found in cannabis and tobacco smoke are byproducts of the combustion process. When cannabis is heated to about 190° C, its resins are released into an unburnt vapor which can be inhaled.
Laurence McKinney and Harvey Levine (of Toast-r-Oven, the Shick hair dryer, and later the first vaporizer, called the Tilt, fame) developed a device call the Maximizer, an automatic self-timed decarboxylator which uses boiling water as a timer. (ibid., p.15)
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