Vancouver dispensaries and RSO

[Bmac1]

I just got news that my mothers stage 4 lung cancer has flared up and spread. She has small cell lung cancer, stage 4, that started in her lungs and had spread to her liver.

She did chemo and radiation and it was shown that the tumors had stopped growing so they told her she gets a break till March. She has been in some pain the past week and back and forth to the hospital and a CT scan has showed that it has flared up in her lung badly, it has spread to her bones and lymph nodes.

I have been trying to get her to try the RSO since the beginning. She has been against getting high as she has never been a recreational user and is afraid of being high. I did manage to get here to start eating edibles to help with pain and sleep.

Now with the most recent news, I think she will be more willing to try the oil but I fear it may be too late. I want to get some oil for her but I am very fearful of a dirty product. I have made oil before using BHO and ISO but I see now that it may not have been the best, cleanest way. I dont want to give her something that still has contaminants in it.

Some local dispensaries are selling "phoenix tears oil" but Im not sure how much I trust most of these places as they are driven by profit. I would buy it from someone if I was confident they were giving me a good, clean product. I can get 99% ISO and can follow instructions, I just worry that I wont purge the product enough.

At this point, there is nothing left to try. This is going to kill her and even if it isnt a miracle cure, if it can make the short time she has left more comfortable, I want to try it for her.

I read all these things about vacuum purging etc but in the videos, I have seen, they just use iso to extract, boil it off in a rice cooker and then purge the final product on a mug warmer. Will this make a clean product or would I be doing more harm than good?

Im sorry for the rambling but its just a hard time right now trying to process everything that is going on.

Im wondering if anyone knows for sure that any of the dispensaries has a legit, clean product. I dont want to throw boat loads of money at someone for something I could do myself.

 

[mojoman]

a post from another forum.... I've recently taken to eating my ISO oil...my method is similar to the ones presented here...I didn't read all 19 pages, but will add my .02...I chop my pound of bud in a blender so the majority is small chunks maybe a tad too big to roll a joint...it is dried for a couple days and then packaged up in plastic 200 gr tobacco containers about 3/4 full...these are tossed into the freezer along with about 3 gals of 99% ISO...I usually waait at least a week before I continue the process...when its time I fill the containers with ISO quickly and they go back into the freezer...I don't want any loss of "cold" while soaking the mix...I wait 20 mins then filter thru coffee filters into another 200 gr container...I repeat for every container...once I have enough THC-laced ISO I dump it into an electric wok I have set up in the front porch...I set the temp to low and keep watch on it as I finish filtering the rest of the containers...once all the containers are empty the wok is pretty much full...when the solution is almost ready for final cure I add a couple drops of water to the brew...this helps keep the THC from burning in the final stages of the cook...then the liquid is transferred into a glass bowl with a lid...I leave the lid loose or off for the final cure...I use a coffee maker heating plate for the finish...it takes a couple days and must be stirred to get all the ISO out or it tastes like ****...once its ready to consume I'll average about a 1/2 gr every evening...eases my back pain....relaxes my muscles and allows for a minimum of 5 hrs straight sleep...the previous 24 years have been spent waking every hour to change position to relieve my pain...not any more...and sleep has never been so glorious!!!...I also feed my Lab a drop in the morning to help with her hypothyroidism...have given friends small amounts to apply topically for skin cancer and diabetic ulcers...both were more than happy with the result...I also provide my chiropractor with batches as he has 1/2 a kidney left..he started eating it 2 months ago and looked like death warmed over...he returned to work this past month and looks much healthier...1 lb of decent bud will yield about 2 ounces of bliss...when smoked it is a knock-out...hope this helps someone...



mojo

 

[Chimera]

Hey Bmac,

First off really sorry to hear about your mom. I've had this conversation with a bunch of people in the same position over the past couple of years, so I'm going to be straight up with you as it is the only honest way to be in this situation - the truth needs to be made clear from the outset.

Here's the shitty part, which it sounds like you are already well aware of. If the cancer is metastasizing and is already in her liver as a secondary set of tumors, there is very little conventional western medicine can do at this point. It's refreshing to see you are aware of this, because I've seen and spoken to so many folks who think at this stage they are going to save someone's life or cure cancer with Rick Simpson oil, only to in the end have to come to the realization that the cancer will probably be what ends up taking her life.

On the Rick Simpson oil, Rick's recipe is really quite dangerous is made using the wrong forms of naptha; the solvents many people use are nasty and like you say very difficult to purge. Arno Hazekamp from Bedrocan did a study where they made RSO following Rick's recipe in a laboratory setup (and also made some other extracts using information supplied by some over the internet), and then did a chemical analysis using HPLC to detect for residual solvents in the extracts. All of the extracts showed residual solvents even after a purge. (http://www.cannabis-med.org/data/pdf/en_2013_01_1.pdf)


What that says to me is, unless you know the person who made the oil, and are able to question them about the solvents used and decide if you want to put those solvents in your or a family members' body - its safer to not ingest cannabis oils made using an unknown solvent.

You can make your own extracts using a safe solvent like olive oil, coconut oil or butter.. If you can get some high proof grain alcohol (ethanol) from Alberta, you can use that to make your extracts. Of course BE CAREFUL when making extracts, you can blow yourself up.

Here is a look at what Micheal Backes from the Los Angeles Patients and Care Givers' group has to say on the subject, and a few words from Arno also... I hope you find it helpful.


"Exacting About Extracting, Backes Backs Olive Oil

Michael Backes kicked off an informative discussion about extraction methods with a recent post that quoted in full an FAQ piece by Arno Hazekamp. Here’s why Backes, who is director of research & development at the Los Angeles Patients & Caregivers Group, backs olive oil.

“I speak with hundreds of persons with cancer about cannabis. Nearly all of them ask me about using cannabis oil to cure their cancer. Here’s what I tell them…

The majority of oncologists in United States recommend cannabis to their patients, whether they live in medical cannabis states or not. That’s reality. They typically recommend it for symptomatic relief of the side effects of cancer treatment. Ask any oncologist. Oncologists have been recommending cannabis to people with cancer since the ’80s. It’s not some suppressed medicine.

Cancer has been around for as long as we’ve been around. Cannabis has been around as a medicine for thousands of years. Cannabis was not considered a cancer treatment, back in the day. It may be preventative of some cancers, then and now. It might also encourage a few cancers, too. Cannabis may provide promising treatments for a variety of tumors. But… it may also encourage certain types of cancer and it would be nice to know which ones it kills or slows and which ones it encourages. Medical science doesn’t know, so caution is definitely advised.

Cannabis oil for topical treatment of some forms of skin cancer looks like a very promising treatment and appears to have been effective for many people with certain forms of skin cancer. Will it work for all skin cancers? No, it won’t. Skin cancers come in too many forms and not all will respond to cannabinoid therapy.

High dose oral cannabinoid therapy with cannabis oil is going to down regulate parts of the endocannabinoid system resulting in reduced cannabinoid receptor density. There is no one that can currently tell us what reducing that receptor density does.

It may be that high dose cannabinoid therapy with cannabis oil retards the proliferation of some types of cancer and tumors. It may be that low dose cannabinoid therapy cures others. It may be that certain cannabinoids kill certain cancers and encourage other cancers. This isn’t a simple problem, so don’t listen to simpletons for advice when dealing with it.

Cannabis oil is an unproven treatment for cancer. It is not a cure for cancer. A cure for cancer is considered something that keeps you cancer-free for five years. There aren’t enough people that have treated their cancer with cannabis oil and are cancer-free to make the assertion that cannabis oil is a cure.

If you want to self-experiment with cannabis oil on your cancer, that is your right. It may not be your right to experiment on someone else.

The question is what is the most effective delivery method for cannabis oil therapy, oral, oromucosal, inhaled, or topical. Likely depends on the specific form of cancer and whether the cancer has spread.

Not all cannabis oil is the same. The difference depends on the cannabis variety from which it was extracted. Cannabis extractions that were sold as medicine in the 19th and early 20th centuries by big pharma were extracted from varieties of cannabis that are not widely available today. And the difference between yesterday’s cannabis and today’s cannabis is an important difference, when it comes to medicinal chemistry.

Cannabis oil that is available in most dispensaries is high-THC with no CBD whatsoever. CBD is not easy to find, but it is getting easier. CBD is not responsible for the “indica” effect (like a well-meaning person told me at a dispensary last week).

Cannabis oils made with solvents other than ethanol are difficult to purge of solvent residues. Solvent residues can be unsafe and some could potentially interfere with immune function required to fight off certain forms of cancer.

The safest way to make cannabis oil is not with Rick Simpson’s recipe. It’s with olive oil. And you won’t blow yourself up making infused olive oil and it’s cheaper than using solvents. Preferably make the oil from cannabis that has been lab screened for bacteria and molds. Never infuse raw cannabis into olive oil without pasteurizing the finished product. Anerobic pathogenic bacteria can thrive in olive oil.

Cannabis infused olive oil is highly perishable. It needs to be kept very cold and in the dark.

And lastly, I am not doctor and I don’t pretend to be one. I do believe that people have the right to treat themselves. I do not believe that people have some innate right to practice medicine on others.

Here’s a great new FAQ on cannabis oil from researcher Arno Hazekamp that was posted today, May 5, 2013 on the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine website . Definitely worth a read. My only suggestion would be to do his suggested infusion in a pressure cooker, since pressure cooking will kill any pathogen on the cannabis.

What is the best and healthiest way to produce cannabis oil?

by Dr. Arno Hazekamp

What is Cannabis oil?
Concentrated cannabis extracts, also known as Cannabis oils because of their sticky and viscous appearance, are increasingly mentioned by self-medicating patients as a cure for cancer. In general, preparation methods for Cannabis oil are relatively simple and do not require particular instruments. The purpose of the extraction, often followed by a solvent evaporation step, is to make cannabinoids and other beneficial components such as terpenes available in a highly concentrated form. Cannabis oil is usually taken orally, by ingesting a small number of drops several times a day. Please find here some information on the question whether cannabis can cure cancer.

How is Cannabis oil prepared?
Various methods have been described for the preparation of Cannabis oil. The most popular method, as described by former (skin)cancer patient Rick Simpson from Canada, suggests the use of naphtha or petroleum ether as a solvent for the extraction. Following the success of Simpson oil, a number of related recipes have sprung up, emphasizing small but significant changes to the original recipe. Examples include focusing on safer solvents such as ethanol, or preventing exposure to organic solvents altogether, by using olive oil.

What is naphtha or petroleum-ether?
In general, petroleum-ether and naphtha refer to very similar products, even though different names may be used around the world; e.g. in some countries naphtha is equivalent to diesel or kerosene fuel. Both solvents are a mixture of petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs), often available in a wide range of qualities. All the solvent components should be considered harmful and flammable, and some of them, such as hexane and benzene, may be neurotoxic. Both naphtha and petroleum-ether are considered potential cancer hazards according to their manufacturers. Moreover, products sold as naphtha may contain added impurities (e.g. Coleman® fuel) which may have harmful properties of their own.

Are residual solvents a health risk?
Although Cannabis oils are usually concentrated by evaporating the solvents that were used for extraction, this does not completely eliminate residual solvents. As a result of sample viscosity, the more concentrated an extract becomes, the more difficult it will be to remove the residual solvent from it. In such a case, applying more heat will increase solvent evaporation, but simultaneously more beneficial components (such as cannabinoids or terpenes) may be lost as well. The use of non-toxic solvents should therefore always be advised, so that potential residues are not harmful to health.

What is the best and healthiest way to prepare Cannabis oil?
Recently, an analytical study (link to the article will follow here in a few days) was performed to compare several generally used preparation methods on the basis of cannabinoids, terpenes, and residual solvent components. Solvents tested included ethanol, naphtha, petroleum-ether, and olive oil. Based on this study, the following recommendations can be made:

As extraction solvents, ethanol and olive oil were shown to perform the best, extracting the full range of terpenes and cannabinoids present in cannabis plant material very efficiently. Additionally these solvents are safe for consumption.
Unfortunately, pure ethanol also extracts large amounts of chlorophyll from cannabis material, which will give the final extract a distinct green, and often unpleasant, taste. Removing chlorophyll by filtering the ethanol extract over activated charcoal was found to be effective, but it also removed a large proportion of cannabinoids and terpenes, and is therefore not advised. Additionally, in many countries consumption-grade ethanol is an expensive solvent, as a result of added tax on alcohol products.

Of the solvents tested, this leaves olive oil as the most optimal choice for preparation of cannabis oil for self-medication. Olive oil is cheap, not flammable or toxic, and the oil needs to be heated up only to 100°C (by placing a glass jar containing the product in boiling water for 1-2 hours) so no overheating of the oil can occur. After cooling down and filtering the oil it is immediately ready for consumption. As a trade-off, however, olive oil extract cannot be concentrated by evaporation, which means patients will need to consume a larger volume of it in order to get the same therapeutic results.

Preheating of cannabis to ‘activate’ (decarboxylate) the cannabinoids may result in loss of terpenes as a result of evaporation. If the full range of terpenes is desired in the final Cannabis oil, dried buds and leaves can be used directly for extraction, without preheating.

About the author
Dr Arno Hazekamp is a phytochemical researcher at the Department of Plant Metabolomics of Leiden University, The Netherlands. He also coordinates the R&D program at Bedrocan BV. This FAQ was posted on the invaluable IACM website, where you’ll also find a relevant paper by Luigi Romano and Hazekamp, Cannabis Oil: chemical evaluation of an upcoming cannabis-based medicine.

 

[teemu shalanie]

I would make it with 190 proof everclear, safest to consume IMO
TS

 

[Chimera]

^ If you can get it, it's definitely is the choice to use since ethanol is food safe, but you can't easily get high proof ethanol in BC.

 

[med-man]

i would like to share that pot is not the wonder cure

lifestyle is.

- alkaline ph
- raw organic and atkins diet
- transcendental meditation and or falun dafa
- lots laughing and allowable excercise
- candida cleanse
- avoid refined white sugar and salt
- appleseeds and apricot cores or straight vitamin b17 shots (lots of info on web)

quantum healing by deepak chopra is a great start for personal encouragement.

add resin to the equation with a positive outlook and anything is possible.

i just did a cancer clinic for a mother of a friend girl of mine

western doctors advice - "eat whatever you want, smoke whatever you want, drink as much as possible." pretty gross prescription

sorry to hear about your situation

if you have a reliable source for real phoenix tears, get them, they are trustworthy. i think they actually have a website for direct buys

med-man

 

[TheBlackman]

yo
Chimera/med man

ya'll be droppin' mad knowledge,
an I as well as the OP be appreciatin' the lesson, this I acknowledge,

I be researchin' this here topic forever it seems'
aside from makin' Cannabutter an some Canna Oil with coconut/olive oil for cookin',
makin' healthy RSO seemed but a dream,

this here seems like a ton of great info,
I be readin' it again,
makin' sure it sinks in,

I thank ya'll for expandin' my grey matter.

 

[Bmac1]

Hi guys and thank you for the help and advice, I really appreciate it. At this point, the ship has sailed IMO on a healthy diet and the other things you listed Med Man. She has never been a big proponent of a healthy lifestyle. At this point, I am pretty sure things are going to be happening quickly and it will be about providing some comfort and quality to what little time she has left. I am making some budder as we speak and we will see how that goes.

Again, many thanks Chimera and everyone else who has chimed in.

 

[med-man]

hey bmac

i know. habits are hard to reverse.

you ever read many lives many masters?

med-man

 

[vapor]

^ If you can get it, it's definitely is the choice to use since ethanol is food safe, but you can't easily get high proof ethanol in BC.

Ethanol is uber easy to make, if you can figure to grow you can make ethanol. The still is where it gets a bit crafty, learning when to cutt and when to stop/heat/go slow etc. I encourage everyone to have a still and have ethanol knowledge, good one to have in the back pocket, many uses for ethanol...

 

[Bmac1]

hey bmac

i know. habits are hard to reverse.

you ever read many lives many masters?

med-man

At this point there is no point in taking anything away that she likes/wants IMO. Im pretty sure thats her attitude at the moment. I have not read that book but I will look into it for sure.

 

[LowFalutin]

^ If you can get it, it's definitely is the choice to use since ethanol is food safe,
but you can't easily get high proof ethanol in BC.

See if you can find some in Point Roberts, WA the next time you're
there to pick up a package/get gas?

 

[guitar guy]

BioFlame Ethanol, 3.78L, $25 at Canadian Tire.
95% ethanol 5% isopropyl

 

[Hashmasta-Kut]

while i agree some solvents are quite deadly, i dont agree that one should be worrying about residual solvents if its something easily purge-able, even with healthy people, nevermind if the person is a terminal cancer patient, if suffering can be decreased and life may be lengthened, residual solvents such as butane wont effect anything.

 

[ortsa1]

only shitty thing about eating tons of oil is you get so high you cannot function

 

[Bmac1]

YEs, and she is not a fan of being high, thus her reluctance at the beginning when I was pushing her to try this. I am aware that there are strains that can be more heavy on the CBD side with less THC to lessen the high. Only problem is that from what I have been reading, the effectiveness of RSO comes from the combo of high THC and high CBD.

 

[pho]

Great discussion and great tips, guys. I hope the OP's mom does good. My stepdad has renal cell carcinoma and I was also hoping to find reasonably priced RSO oil. I don't want to play with volatile chemicals and wouldn't have the time to make a preparation anyway.

Are there any dispensaries in BC selling this?

 

[Blused]

Hey guys not sure if this helps and i have no idea on the quality of there RSO but there is a video on Jason Wilcox channel on you tube where he is talking with the director of Eden dispensaries about programs in the club and the director says they have a program to supply RSO at the very lowest price possible. It is a video called Coalition full Benefit Concert after party at EDEN Society. At 5:51 the interview starts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8jMdsgh04A