Hidden Herbal Medicine
Some medicines were ignored, others burned, but one way or another, so much of our plant knowledge has been lost.
We can blame our plant phobia on a few historical blunders:
power (fear of a power greater than ourselves, a power that, if can be used for good, could also be used for evil)
ignorance of natives and/or women and their functions in society. You have to search old journals of more recent old men who paid any amount of attention to the humans considered “lesser” and their use of (and relationship with) the natural world to really understand the stories passed down over generations by word of mouth or practice only. Only those [able to be] educated, studied, published and read made it into his-story.
civility (as society “advances”, we tend to lessen perceived importance on anything natural. we pride our straight lines, fences, fancy meals, concrete walkways).
money (you can’t patent anything natural. you also don’t make money from people growing food and medicine in their backyard. there is a lot of money to be made by taking the power out of the lay person’s hands)
the drug wars (which drew a line of what is good and bad, legal and , and prevented even research from looking deeper into potential life-enhancing and saving benefits)
along with the other drug wars: the mega pharmacy and food corporations whose goal is to have long-term customers (addicted, needing, and not thinking there is any other way)
scale. (the race to feed more people, hastily, under the assumption that mono-cropping and mass production is the only way out. But this actually only is a temporary fix, which, in only a few years, hurts the land, but also our physical bodies. Large plots of land dedicated to a single plant, tree, animal, drug. Perceived advancement, but only short term gain and long term suicide, which kills the land (which in turn will kill all life on this planet), while also supporting chemicals that kill our internal microbiomes, our internal ecosystems slowly SLOWLY but steadily. Effects can be seen in a few decades, and are presenting themselves in our generation. We can see many past cultures that knew better than to plant a single thing year after year.
Past civilizations from beyond the Roman empire, Europe, the Balkans, the Americas, Russia, China, Africa, the fertile crescent, and natives from every single conquered continent in history, show mass removal of people, histories, monuments, plant species, books, cultures, languages, music, art and recipes with the intention to wipe out entire existences, human and plant alike. How much have we lost in these grabs for power? How far have we set ourselves back in humanity, by having to re-learn our connection to the larger world?
As we look deeper, we see some important lessons were missed because of ignorance of peoples considered “lesser”, who tended to use more simple earthly goods. But is there anything more complicated than LIFE? Of being closer to that natural world that know how to create life?
We cannot make life. Ok, we have made computers which change our perceived views of the world and broaden our means of communication, but we still cannot make something as intricate as a human brain, or bring anything close to resembling the intricacies of LIFE. We are obsessed with it, with stories of Frankenstein, of Johnny 5, Westworld, even digital soulmates, imagining lightning striking (another natural thing) to bring conscious thought to a once “lifeless” thing.
But even to call something dead requires drawing an invisible line. What brings something to life? While I can’t say what breaths new life into something, or what created that first something, or whoever wrote the intial code imbedded into everything, we do know something for sure. We live in an endless cycle, where one species waste is another’s food. It is actually an incredibly beautifully efficient process (until humans get in the way to block it). Decay (from mushrooms) closes the circle, taking food scraps, forest scraps, any natural substance, even our own lifeless bodies one day, to break all organic material down to be absorbed by bacteria and plants to turn back into the building blocks for our food that feeds all other natural things. Decay sustains life. Our bodies are just a fire that keeps burning, a fire we do not know how to start. A living thing can’t be made from nothing, it just continues reading its script, which requires others to continue to read their own scripts. “Food” becomes subjective. Our bodies are food to the plant life that becomes our food. That food, water and air required for all our living things all continue their own scripts. Plants need our waste to flourish. We need the their waste to flourish. And those mushrooms need all living things to die to bring all back to life. Pretty incredible.
So much is taken for granted, much with the intention to let us think we have more control over nature than we really do. Look at all this we create, look how we have tamed nature. But let’s not get hasty. Nature still has a pretty big leg up on us.
Then there is the information that we discovered as humans, only to hide it, for one reason or another, to the rest of the human species. Many of it outright burned (along with those that used plants as medicine), or literally cherry picked to keep in modern translations. Many times over, you have to go back to original sources to glean your own interpretation of what the original author was trying to say, and to see what the reigning order wanted you to read.
There is so much to learn. So much that has been lost. One thing we know, every plant has a personality, reacts differently to seasons, the land, and to the person planting/using them. It can all be studied in such agonizing detail, our whole lives spent just to catch a glimpse of their full ancient lives. Understanding nature is a slow, intimate process. Our timescales are much to quick to be compared to theirs. And, let’s not forget how engrained our vocabulary is for anything aside from us humans. “It” refers to anything “other”. But is that plant an “it’? A “he” or a “she”? Is water a lifeless thing that can be grabbed in your hands? We have to learn where to draw the line of living things, or of the detail to dive into to be able to talk about them at all. We have to make moral boundaries to decide who to protect and who to save. At one point in time, women, slaves, we were ALL something not worth protecting. There is no pure race, we all evolve from the same seed. We ALL evolve from the same seed, humans, plants, animals. If you go far back enough, our DNA is more similar to plants than animals. Funghi are not even a plant or an animal, something entirely different, and yet, still the same as us at one point in time. We are all offshoots of some single celled-organism, that at once became 2, then the billions that we can find today.
So, back to the original train of thought, pictured here is an ancient medical journal from mid 1300-1600’s. This may seem old, but plants have been around way way longer than this, way way longer than us, and much of our learning from them was passed on through stories, a game of telephone that lasted for generations. Lives depended on this word of mouth. Only the most recent history do we have printed journals and catalogs, but very few of us care to know any details. But physical representation or not, information can be tainted or forgotten. Medicinal uses of certain plants were still being hidden in the 1990’s, in the United States, the so-called leaders of the free world. We have to learn to follow threads to our past to make our own understanding of how we want to live in this world today.
We know the power of plants has been hidden to us in the past, intentionally or not.
But there is a particular plant we will focus on today. How much do you know of more recent, intentional, hiding of information about plants?
A Lost Medicine, most recently found
Below are some notes on a controversial topic: Cannabis. First, notice in yourself your reaction to that term. What has our society engrained in us about this plant? About any plant? (on that same train of thought, what do you think of herbalists, hippies, tree-huggers, flower children, environmentalists? Doctors, nurses, apothecaries, witches, priests, gardeners, farmers…). They are all inescapably linked to that connection we have with our food, our medicine, and ourselves. Diving into herbs or food history, or language history for that matter, brings in all kinds of biases you never knew you had.
2500 year old skeleton found in eastern Asia, found with pack of herbs: mullen, fennel and something else that national geographic (in the 1990’s story) left out: cannabis. An archeologist called them out on their emittance, and they thought it too sensitive at the time for ppl to know he had it on him.
Many histories rewritten to hide the plant usage (including the bible). Many forms of stories tainted, burned, or purged, but Ayurveda never hid its use of the plant.
THC formulas were found to fight cancer in studies conducted during the Clinton administration, but those studies were only recently published. Information was hidden that could have really helped people, all because controversial in a political reasons (not due to health reasons).
Nothing gets me more interested in something than when you know some very powerful people did their best to hide it. That in mind, what else have I found that was interesting about this little herb? (with a bunch more other plant stories to come :)
Hemp, cannabis, marijuana are all the same thing. Just as there are different types of roses or tomatoes, there are different types of cannabis. All varieties produce tough hemp fiber used for all kinds of things, medicinal and industrial. First, a quick run through history:
Evolution
Believed to evolve about 28 million years ago on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, (specifically Qinghai Lake in China), cannabis spread from there:
Origination of cannabis plant, 28M years ago
28M years ago: Cannabis pollen grains share an ancient ancestor with hops (their grains still get confused today in studies)
6M years ago: Cannabis reached Russia
1.2M years ago: Cannabis reached eastern China
28,900 years ago: Chinese farmers started to grow hemp for oil and fiber to make rope, clothing, and paper.
9,000 years ago: The Chinese brewed some kind of beer with grapes, honey, hawthorns, and rice
7,000 years ago: ancient shamans buried with their cannabis plants
also around this time, beer made from hops found in Iranian pottery. The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization (staying in one place)
5,0000 years ago, Egyptians write the oldest recorded recipe in the world: beer from hops on papyrus scrolls
4,900 years ago (2900 BC): Chinese Emperor, credited for bringing civilization to China, references Ma, the Chinese word for cannabis as a very popular medicine with both yin and yang (very rare in an herb)
3,500 years ago (1500 BC): Cannabis officially written in ancient Chinese healing records
3,450 years ago (1450 BC): referenced as a Holy Anointing oil in the original Hebrew version of Exodus, including a recipe:
cannabis, extracted into about six quarts of olive oil, along with a variety of other fragrant herbs
the fragrant cane changed to calamus in the King James version of the Bible
3,213 years ago (1213 BC): Cannabis pollen found in mummies of emperors. Egyptian prescriptions found for treatment for the eyes, inflammation, and cooling the uterus
3,000 years ago (1000 BC): Bhang, a Drink of Cannabis and Milk, used in India as an anesthetic and other maladies
2,700 years ago (700 BC): Ancient Persian religious text of the Venidad records medicinal use of cannabis, listing it as the most important of 10,000 medicinal plants
2,500 years ago (500 BC): Burned cannabis seeds found in the graves of shamans from China and Siberia
2,200 years ago (200 BC): Ancient Greeks use cannabis as a remedy
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depicted as roots drying in a shed, 1AD
Roman Medical Text, 70 AD
1 (AD, 2,000 years ago): Ancient Chinese text recommends marijuana for 100 ailments. The symbol depicted as plants drying in a shed (above)
30 (AD): In the Bible’s New Testament, Jesus anointed his disciples with a potent psychoactive oil, sending out the 12 apostles to do the same. The word Christ meaning 'the anointed one'.
70 (AD): Roman medicinal text of a Roman Army doctor cites cannabis oil to suppress sexual longing, along with its use in making rope. Both male and female parts of the plant referenced (meaning psychoactive parts too).
same time: Pliny the Elder (ancient Roman nobleman, scientist and historian) writes that 'the roots boiled in water ease cramped joints, gout too and similar violent pain.’
200 (AD): Chinese surgeon uses cannabis resin and wine as an anesthetic
600 (AD): Beer being produced and sold by European monasteries
1500 (AD): Islam spreads to India, and Moslem doctors use Persian theories of medicinal cannabis
1538 (AD): Hemp in middle ages throughout Europe, praised as “central to any herbalist’s medicine cabinet”
1600 (AD, 400 years ago): Found in Shakespeare’s garden residues of ‘tobacco’ pipes tested. (of 24 samples: 8 found residues of cannabis, 1 with tobacco leaves, and 2 with cocaine)
1611 to 1762: Cannabis cultivated in America by early colonists. Hemp grown for textile and rope.
In the early 1600s, the Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies required farmers to grow hemp
1621: Popular English Mental Health book published to treat depression with cannabis, in The Anatomy of Melancholy
1745: George Washington grows hemp in his garden for over 30 years, and several diary entries indicate high THC content. Thomas Jefferson grows it as well.
1776: Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
Betsy Ross made the first U.S. flag out hemp fabric.
1799: Napoleon brings cannabis from Egypt to France
1830s: Sir William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish doctor studying in India, found that cannabis extracts could help lessen stomach pain and vomiting.
1840: Queen Elizabeth uses medical cannabis for period cramps
1846: Mexico-American War, after the Annexation of Texas
1850: cannabis makes its way into the US Pharmacopeia (officially used to set standards for all rx and over the counter medicine). Extracts sold in pharmacies and doctors’ offices throughout Europe and the United States for all kinds of ailments
1865: American Civil War, and Slavery abolished in US
1869: African American men given the right to vote
1890’s: the popular Sears and Roebuck catalogue included an offer for a syringe and small amount of cocaine for $1.50
Congressional state and federal taxes begin on morphine and opium
1906: Pure Food and Drugs Act under Roosevelt requires labeling of medicine, alcohol, or cannabis
1907: States in US start to pass laws to sterilize criminals: literally giving forced vasectomies to “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists.” The doctor performing the surgeries stated to the National Prison Association that “We owe it not only to ourselves, but to the future of our race and nation, to see that the defective and diseased do not multiply.”
31 states passed eugenics laws. In practice, most states targeted their efforts at the “feebleminded” and the poor, using state agencies and social workers to identify individuals to sterilize. The victims were most often women of color.
Eugenics laws remained on the books in many states until the 1970s.
1911: Folks weren't just worrying about Mexicans and jazz musicians. "Within the last year we in California have been getting a large influx of Hindoos and they have in turn started quite a demand for cannabis indica," wrote Henry J. Finger, a powerful member of California's State Board of Pharmacy.
1913: the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau announced they succeeded in growing a domestic strain of cannabis of equal quality to India’s strain. Prior to WWI, cannabis was entirely imported from India (and Madagascar occasionally), especially since the US Pharmacopoeia specified flowering tops of the Indian variety.
1915: Wilson signs the Harrison Act, (not applying to cannabis), to halt the purchase of international opium. This served as a model for the 1937 Marijuana Act. Doctors wanting to prescribe narcotics had to register annually with the federal government.
1918: US pharmaceutical farms grow 60,000 pounds of cannabis annually
1919: Women given the right to vote
1919 to 1933: Prohibition (alcohol)
Legislature tackling morals complaints of prostitution, racetrack gambling, prizefighting, liquor, and oral sex. Amidst these, cannabis also being prohibited in 10 states.
1920’s Flexner Report released, pushing out homeopathy. Commissioned by wealthy Americans who wanted only a single medical education system, mainly one they could profit from. This meant having people forget (or be afraid of) the power of their own gardens. It meant only specific people to be able to get an education or practice anything “medicinal”, and most importantly, to make sure you had to pay for any foods or medicines that once popped up naturally in their backyards. This also includes the era of adding petroleum to natural things, in order to sell and/or patent anything at all.
1920: Cocaine added to the UK's "Dangerous Drugs Act”
1925: Egypt signs treaty to use cannabis for scientific and medicinal purposes only
1928: Marijuana added to the list of UK “Dangerous Drugs”
1930’s: the term “marijuana” starts being used in the US, preferred to hemp or cannabis. Theories started from strong female Spanish General Mari-Juana (and her famous lover Pancho Villa) who would smoke large joints with her armies before battle with the US.
Anti-cannabis factions wanted to underscore the drug's "Mexican-ness” to play off of anti-immigrant mentality.
Between 1936 and 1968, nearly a third of the women in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico were sterilized (permanently prevented from having children)
1937: Marijuana Tax Act on sale of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana (modeled after the opioid-focused Harrison Act of 1915)
Stoking racial fires. Drafted by Harry Anslinger, U.S. Narcotics Commissioner, who read a letter to Congress, “I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of whom are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions."
Hemp’s use as a fiber crop crippled by politics. Propelled by millionaire newspaperman William Randolph Hearst, heavily invested in the paper industry (intimidated by the popularity of the superior hemp stock). And another influential man: the Secretary of Treasury, the nation's richest man, who had significant investments in DuPont who made synthetic fibers like nylon and rayon, that competed with hemp’s strong natural fiber.
The War on Drugs: lumping cannabis into a dangerous category
1971: Nixon declared a War on Drugs
“Schedules” created to rank the most dangerous and addicting drugs based on potential for abuse. Schedule 1 are the most dangerous, showing little evidence of medicinal benefits. Marijuana included on this list (however, see America, and the world’s heavy use of cannabis as a medicine for thousands of years, above)
Research on marijuana banned
1986: Congress under Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, with mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses
other incentives and biases revealed. heavy criticism of racism, as seen in the prison sentences for:
5g of crack cocaine triggered an automatic five-year sentence (used more often by black Americans)
500g of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence (used more often by white Americans)
2009 to 2013: 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws
Cannabis research BLOOMS
2014: nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges
2020: Cannabis legalized in 29+ states, and in Washington, DC
though still illegal from the federal government’s perspective.
Looking at the history, it seems clear that much anti-cannabis sentiment had racial, and financial dimensions. After being banned to any research for decades, recent studies reveal Marijuana has over than 100 active components, and that our bodies have certain receptors that only bind to components of the plant. For those worried of hallucinogenic effects, CBD dominant strains report little or no alterative effects on consciousness, and patients only report benefits, from everything ranging from relieving insomnia, anxiety, spasticity, and pain, also helping to combat heavier things like cancer and to manage the side effects of HIV/AIDS/Parkinsons. It seems the biggest crime was committed was allowing the government to keep medicine away from people.
Some amazing recent discoveries
the Endocannabinoid system discovered in the last decade (receptors in every living thing to react positively to cannabis, creating a homeostasis by bringing balance, up or down, to things out of whack. can you imagine a drug being that smart?)
Endocannabinoid system restores balance (homeostatic)
affects mood (CB1) and movement (CB2)
Great for: Memory (hippocampus), appetite, bone density, digestion, neurological, endocrien, limbic, cardiovascualr, reproductive
Different areas of the body receive various strains of cannabis through different systems:
indica received throughout the body (receptors spreads through the spine, neck and brain)
sativa (only received in neck and head)
As babies, our bodies were formed from initial balls of tissues, many things stemming from the same chunks of skin.
Some areas that are very similar include: the stomach (GI tract), liver, skin and lungs, which all starting from the same tissue. These also all happen to bring things into body (by food, air, or absorption). This also means that skin issues could forsee larger issues in the internal absorbing organ, the liver, where nutrients will be needed more aggressively, and taken up first.
Also, in a male, the brain and genitals form from another single clump of tissue. Which is why you could say men have problems thinking w/ the wrong section sometimes.
Ginko opens the blood vessels to both the brain and genitals, used in male tonics and brain memory formulas, for bringing up more oxygen and nutrients to the brain by increasing blood flow
Rosemary is another cerebral herb (smell while studying, and just before/during exam to remember)
Lemon balm acts as a euphoric
Add cannabis in there with any of the above, to make a really nice formula
Cannabis is categorized as officially more dangerous than heroin, with no medical benefit. But you literally cannot overdose lethally on marijuana. It becomes the first kink in understanding a broken system. When people try it, they realize it won’t kill them, and see that the government is lying to them, creating a whole chain of rebellion. It becomes dangerous because it causes a 14 year old to think in a more analytical way at levels of authority.
Many people don’t feel the effects work on them the first few times they try, and the theory goes that those receptors have to get activated
Size matters
Smoking: 1g in single joint
Eating: 1g hash pills or in coconut oil, can last a week
Your skin can eat! Your skin absorbs 94% what you put on it. It is actually how LSD was discovered. Don’t discount topicals (including all the chemicals in mainstream makeups, shampoos, lotions… all highly toxic but very legal)
Vitamins C and D are more readily absorbed through the skin than in supplemental form
Never use cosmetic grade oils on your body. The US gov says they can use pesticides and chemicals in their formulas. Only put FOOD grade oils anywhere on your skin.
Levels of THC
Earliest cannabis strains are believed to have low levels of THC, the part that gets you high. Others were buried with the herb to take to their afterlife, 2700 years ago, that did show only female plants that could have had more THC (psychoactively) strong strains.
It is actually kind of impossible right now to really test how much THC/CBD %’s are in any strain (depends not only on genetics, but also growing conditions). Many people have wasted thousands on lab tests that were complete BS.
Many of the most popular plants today are bred per the heaviest users requests of high THC, but this leaves out the people who don’t want the high, but more medicinally potent strains.
You can actually change strength of medicinal potency if you grow the plant in more shade. If it gets more sun, more THC develops.
Only the feminine plants produce the THC, growing bigger buds as her own way to hopefully attract a male pollinator. Today’s buds are actually bred to be freakishly big, as she tries harder and harder to produce.
When trying to grow for higher levels of CBD, you get the highest concentrations in the seeds themselves. The highest amount of CBD can be harvested in the tiny seedlings only a week old. However, every sprout is considered a separate plant, and, in the eyes of the government, makes it extremely dangerous, on the sole basis of being made out of 10k plants in its tincture! (which would be highly illegal, for no other reason than more plants being used, an example of the law not being so intelligent to the facts of dangers).
Every person can have a different reaction. In most people, they will mellow out with an indica strain. But for the 13-15% of the population, ones that have higher aptitude for getting addicted, who tend to be on ridaline as teens, have opposite reactions. Valerian, a typical sleep herb, will jack them up. So will a strain that in most people, would sedate.
There is no such thing as a FULLY non-psychoactive cannabis. There is no way to get all CBD with zero THC, and the real issue is that you need them both. CBD won’t work without THC. You need at least 4% THC for body to absorb and uptake the CBD.
The plant will create more THC when it is stressed out. So some growers give the plant less water and less fertilizer, to increase terpenes to get better medicine
Recipes
Butter Recipe
1 oz plant (flower bud or trim), fresh or dried
1 lb butter
1/3 c vodka +1 jigger
7 c water
moisten trim with vodka, let sit 1 hour (esp dry, but also fresh ok too)
add butter and water, bring to a low boil (stove top)
turn down heat to simmer, all day, about 8 hours (using veggie steamer basket to push the plant material down to base, bc butter rises to top, easier to strain)
turn off heat, let sit overnight
Refrigerate until hard, lift off butter cake and cut into 4 slices (each slice is a cube of butter)
Alternative: crock pot: if a warm setting, ok, not on low. or use a mason jar and water bath
low is too hot! if have warming setting, ok
or mason jar submerged in water
Oil Extraction
making a Ghee is a but messier, cook on low 8 hours
Cold CBD extraction
with coconut or olive oil, stable ones
using a yogurt maker method, proofing box
1 oz to 2 cups oil
Strain it
Massage oils, salves and creams
Warming: sesame, flax
Cooling: avocado or hemp (but both really unstable)
Stable and neutral:
olive, great for skin balm
coconut (really stable, 1-2 years), also thickens, melts at skin temp, will leak all over car)
can just lightly heat the coconut, and right before it becomes solid, pour over fresh chickweed (in the spring), slightly heat again, really low heat, strain, and in fridge last 2 years.
Topicals
3 active ingredients:
mint (menthol) especially peppermint (works well with cannabis, bc activates opioid/pain receptors) and eucalyptus
camphor: Frankinscense
capsaicin: when get cut on skin, signal to brain to say ow! pain is a good thing, telling us something is wrong. total elimination is wrong, bc could keep burning self. do need that pain.
pepper: not used as much, difficult to handle, like pepper spray! can burn, but a really good anti-inflammatory. can take as capsules so wont burn you down there, but will burn your skin
Tinctures with Alcohol, under the tongue
Ratios, weight to volume
1:2 fresh (1 part fresh to 2 part alcohol) bc water in the fresh, so diluting your alcohol)
1:5: dry
Vs Infusion: cooked in water, like a tea
Absorb fast, 5 min feel tincture, bc some blood veins blue or red, based on oxygenated or not. And these don’t go through liver, but straight to the blood.
Topical liniments
liniments, came to america through mexico, from spain first
oil: warm/neutral/cool
Vinegar: cool
rum/vodka: very cool
General Baking tips
masking taste and oder: keep temp under 340F (vaporizing starts at 365-380)
Decarboxylation: charge in oven at 250 for 10 min.
Herbs that combine well with cannabis:
skullcap
kava
mugort
escholozia
corydalys
Making your own cbd tincture
Pick a solvent
For an alcohol free tincture vegetable glycerine
High proof alcohol
Vinegar
MCT oil
Dry buds from a high CBD strain
Debarboxylate them: fancy term for meaning lightly heat up, which makes it more of the CBD bioavailable to the body. Spread your buds out in a single layer on a sheet pan and bake at 230°F for 40 minutes
Once the buds have been heated, put them into jar. Don’t worry too much about amounts, just fill whatever size jar you want to use about ¾ full with buds.
Fill the jar with solvent (alcohol or MCT or whatever), making sure to cover all of the buds. Cover the jar with a lid and put it in a cool and dark place to infuse for at least 6 weeks. It can go several months or more, will just get stronger.
Ingredients:
1/2-gram CBD isolate
1 ½ tablespoons MCT (medium-chain triglyceride) oil OR coconut oil
Small funnel
1-ounce dropper bottle
Instructions:
Place about 1 to 2 inches of water in the bottom pan of the double boiler. Place the pan on the stove, set to low-to-medium heat.
Place the top pan of the double boiler onto the bottom pan. Add the MCT oil and the CBD Isolate powder.
Stir gently until the CBD isolate is fully dissolved.
Remove double boiler from heat and allow CBD tincture to cool.
Use the funnel to pour CBD tincture from pan into the dropper bottle. Keep in refrigerator when not in use.
Making CBD oil
Can use any kind of oil. If you want to use a dropper, pick one you like the taste of
coconut or MCT oil (best for topical, works great on skin and wont clog pores)
olive oil
double boiler (or simply placing a glass bowl in a pot or pan so that its top sits an inch or two above the water’s surface). This will keep your tincture from touching an extra-hot surface and burning, which will allow the CBD to slowly dissolve safely without causing degradation.
Note: Do not let the oil exceed 118°C/245°F, as this will burn the CBD. This is where a thermometer comes in handy!
Topical pain relieving oil or salve
This recipe will make approximately ten ounces of salve in total. I used five 2 oz tins to store the salves in. Great for reducing pain, inflammation, and for various skin issues
Make a double boiler by putting a smaller pot or bowl over a larger pot that has a couple inches of water in it. You can also use a glass pyrex measuring cup instead of the smaller pot.
Put the CBD infused oil into the smaller pot or pyrex and bring the water to a gentle simmer.
Add the beeswax to the oil and stir often. A wooden skewer works well as a stir stick.
When the beeswax is almost completely dissolved, add the shea butter. Stir until it is completely dissolved. Carefully pour the hot salve into your desired containers or tins.
Let them sit undisturbed until they completely solidify, it usually takes an hour or two.
