420-friendly

MY 1st CANNABIS BUTTER

by Herb Cook

I watched a gazillion YouTube vids on how to make cannabis butter. Okay, so maybe just a dozen if that, but it was enough. I also googled some cookie recipes. With this knowledge in mind and already knowing about stoves and measuring cups and such, I decided to make some cannabis butter. After all, I had to do something with this bag of trimming I had.

If you are looking for a recipe, you'll have to extrapolate from what I type here. I do not do recipes, I do walkthroughs. I also want to add that making cannabis butter is illegal since cannabis is illegal. Silly, I know, but there you have it. I do not condone one breaking the law. I read once that the only criminal thing about cannabis was the law. I'll just leave it there. If you want to make butter that is your choice. Here, I am merely reporting what happened.

I started with a 2 ounce bag of stickless shake. This was 3rd generation clippings. I trimmed a plant very well, trimmed the trimmings and ground up the results to arrive at my 2oz.

On one of the vids they used a slow cooker. I happen to have one as well as some of those real handy slow cooker liner bags. I figured this was the less finicky, less messy method. I melted 1lb of butter in a sauce pan and put it in the slow cooker, then stirred in my herb. It was pretty thick so while it was cooking slowly I looked at more vids to see what texture they were working with.

That done, I realized mine was like a paste whereas theirs was more like a soup or herby stew. I went to the store for another $2.97 lb of butter. It was while at the store I decided to buy a cookie mix. None available called for butter, but all called for oil. I figure one is as cook as another. I selected a Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Chunk mix. Ready in 20 minutes!Just $2.49. (I wonder how old Betty would feel knowing my intentions?) I also grabbed a dozen eggs 'cause the package of mix told me to add one. Just one egg, not the dozen, but at my store that's how they sell 'em. :P

Back home I melted the other lb of butter in that same sauce pan. By now my previous mixture was pretty thick. I added it to the freshly melted butter and was pleased that it looked much more like what the other's did on YouTube. It was messier than it should have been. That handy slow cooker liner had a leak. I expect it was my fault, but damn.

I got that cleaned up and now had 2lbs of butter with 2oz of herb lightly bubbling on my stove. The one guy I really liked on the vids said 45 minutes with lots of stirring. Not knowing what lots really was, I just stood there and stirred almost constantly. That was the point I started thinking about writing about it.I also started thinking I was getting a buzz from the fumes. Maybe so.

Sometime later I strained this fine smelling blend into a large measuring cup. With much stirring, mashing and stirring some more I was satisfied I had drain every last drop of butter from this paste that I could. I chucked the mush and strained again. This left me with 2.5 cups of green butter. 1.5 cups went into the fridge and 1 cup went into the cookie mix.

The cookie mix recipe called for 1/3 cup of oil and 2 tablespoons of water, not the 1 cup of liquid I added. This left something more akin to a cake batter. I thought of baking a cake, but cookies are faster. Besides, I already knew this was going to happen. I tossed in 2 eggs ( I know it said one but I had a dozen and like to leave them even) and kept adding flour until it was more like cookie dough.

It seemed that 350 was the common temp for cooking cookies from the recipes I read and that is what the package said. Who was I to argue? I set the oven to 350. While the oven was doing as it was told, I dabbed a glob of dough on a cookie sheet covered with baking paper. I prefer to wipe than wash. This was not as easy as I had thought. The dough did not want to co-operate, but I managed. Into the oven went the 1st batch. This was going to be a two batch lot.

When done, I ended up with 21 cookies averaging about 3" across. I say averaging because no two were the same and round was not a common shape. If they were round and the same size they'd be 3" across. Personally I prefer my cookies to show some individuality and not follow that silly shape trend.

It was 7:00. I ate 2 cookies. After about 15 minutes I thought I felt a heaviness, but decided that was just my brain playing tricks on me. Now at 8:00 I am not sure. I have a strong urge to go play Batman on the PS3 but did managed to type this out.

So there is my cannabis butter cooking cookies adventure. Buzz or no, they are damn fine tasting cookies. Maybe, with help of Betty's mix and my herb we can give those Girl Guides a run for their money. Better yet, how about another cookie and some cool Batman moves.

MI: At This School, It’s Marijuana in Every Class.
The New York Times | 11/28/09 | TAMAR LEWIN

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to’s of Michigan’s new medical marijuana program.

“This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars,” said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few bare-bones rooms in a Detroit suburb.

The six-week, $485 primer on medical marijuana is a cross between an agricultural extension class covering the growing cycle, nutrients and light requirements (“It’s harvest time when half the trichomes have turned amber and half are white”) and a gathering of serious potheads, sharing stories of their best highs (“Smoke that and you are ... medicated!”).

The only required reading: “Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible” by Jorge Cervantes.

Even though the business of growing medical marijuana is legal under Michigan’s new law, there is enough nervousness about the enterprise that most students at a recent class did not want their names or photographs used. An instructor also asked not to be identified.

“My wife works for the government,” one student said, “and I told my mother-in-law I was going to a small-business class.”

While California’s medical marijuana program, the country’s oldest, is now big business, with hundreds of dispensaries in Los Angeles alone, the Michigan program, which started in April, is more representative of \ that have legalized medical marijuana.

Under the Michigan law, patients whose doctors certify their medical need for marijuana can grow up to 12 cannabis plants themselves or name a “caregiver” who will grow the plants and sell the product. Anyone over 21 with no felony drug convictions can be a caregiver for up to five patients. So far, the Department of Community Health has registered about 5,800 patients and 2,400 caregivers.

For Mr. Tennant, who is certified as both a caregiver and a patient — he said he has stomach problems and anxiety — Med Grow replaces the auto detailing business he started straight out of high school, only to see it founder when the economy contracted. Med Grow began offering its course in September, with new classes starting every month.

On a recent Tuesday, two teachers led a four-hour class, starting with Todd Alton, a botanist who provided no tasting samples as he talked the students through a list of cannabis recipes, including crockpot cannabutter, chocolate canna-ganache and greenies (the cannabis alternative to brownies).

The second instructor, who would not give his name, took the class through the growing cycle, the harvest and the curing techniques to increase marijuana’s potency.

Mr. Tennant said he saw the school as the hub of a larger business that will sell supplies to its graduate medical marijuana growers, offer workshops and provide a network for both patient and caregiver referrals. Already, Med Grow is a gathering place for those interested in medical marijuana. The whiteboard in the reception room lists names and numbers of several patients looking for caregivers, and a caregiver looking for patients.

The students are a diverse group: white and black, some in their 20s, some much older, some employed, some not. Some keep their class attendance, and their growing plans, close to the chest.

“I’ve just told a couple of people I can trust,” said Jeffery Butler, 27. “It’s a business opportunity, but some people are still going to look at you funny. But I’m going to do it anyway.”

Scott Austin, an unemployed 41-year-old student, said he and two partners were planning to go into medical marijuana together.

“I never smoked marijuana in my life,” he said. “I heard about this at a business expo a couple of months ago.”

Because the Michigan program is so new, gray areas in the law have not been tested, creating real concern for some students. For example, it is not legal to start growing marijuana before being officially named a caregiver to a certified patient, but patients who are sick, certified and ready to buy marijuana generally do not want to wait through the months of the growing cycle until a crop is ready. So for the time being, coordinating entry into the business feels to some like a kind of Catch-22.

Students say they are getting all kinds of extra help and ideas from going to class.

“I want to learn all the little tricks, everything I can,” said Sue Maxwell, a student who drives each week from her home four hours north of Detroit. “It’s a big investment, and I want to do it right.”

Ms. Maxwell, who works at a bakery, is already a caregiver — in the old, nondrug sense of the word — to a few older people for whom she thinks medical marijuana might be a real boon.

“I fix their meals, and I help with housekeeping,” Ms. Maxwell said. “I have an 85-year-old lady who has no appetite. I don’t know if she’d have any interest in medical marijuana, but I bet it would help her.”

“We were talking at the bakery all summer,” she said. “Just joking around, I said: ‘I’m going to grow medical marijuana. I’m a gardener, I’ve always dreamed of having a greenhouse, I think it would be great.’ And then I suddenly thought, hey, I really am going to grow medical marijuana.”

Article:

I realize that this is Michigan and I want all articles involving London, but this one was too good not to share. When cannabis is legal here, this sounds like a great business plan. If this were offered here it would add to the nickname "Funshawe College". At least, that is what we called it in my day.-ed.

The London Police Service has executed search warrants for production of a controlled substance at the following locations: