The Mad Toker
New Member
Well, here's my first go at writing an informative piece. Let me know what you think. Constructive critiscism is greatly encouraged as eventually I want to try and get published in one of the many marijuana magazines avaliable.
The Mad Toker’s Guide to Conserving Your Stash
Let’s face it, weed aint cheap. So I know everyone out there wants to make what they have last as long as possible. Here are some proven tips and tricks of the professional pothead to accomplish just that. But first, let’s look at the main issue and that being tolerance.
Tolerance
Whenever you smoke some cannabis your body slowly builds up a tolerance to it. And soon enough you will have to smoke more and more to get your desired effects. If you already have to smoke ungodly amounts of weed just to get high it will be in your best interests to not smoke at all for a week or two. This gives your body enough time to clean out some of the cannabinoids and thus allowing you to smoke less to get where you want. It may be difficult but trust me its well worth it.
Once your tolerance level has dropped enough that you can get high off smoking a bit of weed try and keep it that way. You don’t need to get absolutely blazed each and every time you toke up. Smoking a lot of cannabis once and a while won’t really build up your tolerance level that much so it’s ok to do but not all the time.
Treat your buds kindly
Marijuana buds are extremely delicate flowers so you want to treat them with the utmost care. Here are a few things you can do to preserve your buds:
Stay away from baggies
When you bought your cannabis chances are it came in a plastic bag. You want to remove your pot from this bag as quickly as possible. Plastic bags have a nasty habit of attracting the trichromes (the yummy resin glands that contain most of the THC) from the buds so it is then wasted seeing it’s stuck to the side of the bag. It’s best to store your bud in a glass jar or even a plastic container seeing you can easily scrape off any kif that has collected on the sides.
And even better storage solution is a kif box. Basically a kif box is a wooden box that has 2 main compartments. The first is where you store your cannabis. The bottom of this compartment is a fine mesh screen or silk screen. As the box is moved around and agitated from normal use, some of the resin glands (or kif) will fall off the bud and be collected in the second compartment which is usually a glass or plastic plate. This makes is extremely easy to collect the kif after a period of time.
Handle your buds as little as possible
This can be difficult to do because I know how everyone likes to admire the beauty of the buds. However, the more you handle them the more resin glands are knocked off them and lost forever. When handling your buds always hold from the stem and try not to touch the flower part at all. If you want to remove some for use, use a small pair of scissors to cut the desired amount off. By doing this you’re making contact with a much smaller area of the bud and any trichromes that do stick to the scissors can be easily collected. Just remember, sticky fingers are not a very good thing.
Bongs, pipes & vaporizers
A bong, pipe or vaporizer is perhaps the most economical way to toke. Unlike a joint there is very little smoke wasted as the pot is not constantly burning. Another good thing is that it is quite easy to get high off of a small amount of cannabis because you’re taking concentrated tokes. A bong or pipe could be acquired from any headshop for a very reasonable price.
A vaporizer on the other had does not even burn the bud. Rather it heats it up to a certain temperature at which the THC vaporizes. This is also perhaps the healthiest way to toke seeing you’re not inhaling those nasty carcinogens that come with smoking. Also keep your spent bud from a vaporizer as you can use it to make cannabutter and extract any leftover THC.
Grinders
A grinder is something that no toker should be without. Grinders come in many shapes, size and forms. Everything from hand powered grinders to electric grinders can be had at a very reasonable price from any well stocked headhsop. They are extremely useful for breaking up your bud because again, you can collect the resin glands that stick to the grinder.
Perhaps the best style of grinder to get in my opinion is the sifter grinder. How this grinder differs from the others is that it is usually a 3-part grinder. The top part where the grinding takes place has holes for the ground bud to fall through to the second compartment. This makes it impossible to over-grind your bud. The second compartment functions much like a kif box in that it has a mesh screen which allows the resin glands to fall through to the third compartment. You can also store your ground bud in these grinders for further kif collection. Perhaps the best make of these grinders comes from Spacecase. Though they are a little pricey they are more then worth it in the long run.
Kif
So now you might be wondering what to do with all this kif you have been collecting. Well you can put it directly into a bowl and smoke it. You can sprinkle some into a joint to make it more potent. Or you can do what I mostly do and that is make some finger hash. Here is my simple way of making some delightful finger hash that is guaranteed to get you high as a kite.
You’ll need the following:
- Your collected kif
- Parchment paper (non-waxed baking paper)
- Damp paper towel
- Clothing iron
First off what you want to do is pour your kif onto a piece of parchment paper and fold it up nicely so no kif falls out. You can seal it up with a piece of tape though this is really not necessary. Secondly you put the damp paper towel overtop of your kif package. Make sure the paper towel is damp, not soaking wet. Thirdly, take the iron and on the lowest setting run it over the paper towel and press down hard. You can re-wet the paper towel if it dries up too fast. Do this for several minutes. Finally unwrap the paper and you should be left with a nice flat piece of hash. While it is still warm mold it into a little ball or whatever shape you like. Now all that’s left to do is break off a small piece and smoke it. Remember, a little goes a long way.
Bong resin & roaches
Many people smoke the resin scrapped from bowls as an absolute last resort. Basically the resin is composed of all the tars, resins and ash that did not really fully burn. It also contains variable amounts of THC and can get you quite high when smoked. To make it a little more user friendly and less harsh to your lungs and over all health here is what you can do.
Simply put your collected resin in a container of hot water. This allows all the nasty stuff to separate from the resins which can then be collected and smoked. It still tastes bad and is bad for you but it’s a little cleaner this way.
Roaches are the left over remains of a joint. They usually contain a little bit of pot that is coated in lots of resin (all depends how much you smoked your joints down to). You can smoke these any way you wish do it in a bowl or re-rolling them into another quite potent but nasty tasting joint. Again this route is not the healthiest one but it works.
Stems and leftovers
Many people discard they stems and bits after rolling a joint or packing a bowl. This wastes those precious resin glands. Though smoking stems is a bad idea and quite disgusting they can get you a little high but also give you a killer headache. What you can do with them is throw them in a grinder and grind them up to collect the little bit of kif that may be on them or use them to make any number of extracts and cannabutter. You could also make some stem tea. Though you won’t get high off this it is pleasant to drink.
These are some of the ways I have used personally for quite a while to make the most out of the little bit of weed I usually have. Just remember, the less you smoke, the longer your stash lasts.
Until next time, keep tokin!
The Mad Toker’s Guide to Conserving Your Stash
Let’s face it, weed aint cheap. So I know everyone out there wants to make what they have last as long as possible. Here are some proven tips and tricks of the professional pothead to accomplish just that. But first, let’s look at the main issue and that being tolerance.
Tolerance
Whenever you smoke some cannabis your body slowly builds up a tolerance to it. And soon enough you will have to smoke more and more to get your desired effects. If you already have to smoke ungodly amounts of weed just to get high it will be in your best interests to not smoke at all for a week or two. This gives your body enough time to clean out some of the cannabinoids and thus allowing you to smoke less to get where you want. It may be difficult but trust me its well worth it.
Once your tolerance level has dropped enough that you can get high off smoking a bit of weed try and keep it that way. You don’t need to get absolutely blazed each and every time you toke up. Smoking a lot of cannabis once and a while won’t really build up your tolerance level that much so it’s ok to do but not all the time.
Treat your buds kindly
Marijuana buds are extremely delicate flowers so you want to treat them with the utmost care. Here are a few things you can do to preserve your buds:
Stay away from baggies
When you bought your cannabis chances are it came in a plastic bag. You want to remove your pot from this bag as quickly as possible. Plastic bags have a nasty habit of attracting the trichromes (the yummy resin glands that contain most of the THC) from the buds so it is then wasted seeing it’s stuck to the side of the bag. It’s best to store your bud in a glass jar or even a plastic container seeing you can easily scrape off any kif that has collected on the sides.
And even better storage solution is a kif box. Basically a kif box is a wooden box that has 2 main compartments. The first is where you store your cannabis. The bottom of this compartment is a fine mesh screen or silk screen. As the box is moved around and agitated from normal use, some of the resin glands (or kif) will fall off the bud and be collected in the second compartment which is usually a glass or plastic plate. This makes is extremely easy to collect the kif after a period of time.
Handle your buds as little as possible
This can be difficult to do because I know how everyone likes to admire the beauty of the buds. However, the more you handle them the more resin glands are knocked off them and lost forever. When handling your buds always hold from the stem and try not to touch the flower part at all. If you want to remove some for use, use a small pair of scissors to cut the desired amount off. By doing this you’re making contact with a much smaller area of the bud and any trichromes that do stick to the scissors can be easily collected. Just remember, sticky fingers are not a very good thing.
Bongs, pipes & vaporizers
A bong, pipe or vaporizer is perhaps the most economical way to toke. Unlike a joint there is very little smoke wasted as the pot is not constantly burning. Another good thing is that it is quite easy to get high off of a small amount of cannabis because you’re taking concentrated tokes. A bong or pipe could be acquired from any headshop for a very reasonable price.
A vaporizer on the other had does not even burn the bud. Rather it heats it up to a certain temperature at which the THC vaporizes. This is also perhaps the healthiest way to toke seeing you’re not inhaling those nasty carcinogens that come with smoking. Also keep your spent bud from a vaporizer as you can use it to make cannabutter and extract any leftover THC.
Grinders
A grinder is something that no toker should be without. Grinders come in many shapes, size and forms. Everything from hand powered grinders to electric grinders can be had at a very reasonable price from any well stocked headhsop. They are extremely useful for breaking up your bud because again, you can collect the resin glands that stick to the grinder.
Perhaps the best style of grinder to get in my opinion is the sifter grinder. How this grinder differs from the others is that it is usually a 3-part grinder. The top part where the grinding takes place has holes for the ground bud to fall through to the second compartment. This makes it impossible to over-grind your bud. The second compartment functions much like a kif box in that it has a mesh screen which allows the resin glands to fall through to the third compartment. You can also store your ground bud in these grinders for further kif collection. Perhaps the best make of these grinders comes from Spacecase. Though they are a little pricey they are more then worth it in the long run.
Kif
So now you might be wondering what to do with all this kif you have been collecting. Well you can put it directly into a bowl and smoke it. You can sprinkle some into a joint to make it more potent. Or you can do what I mostly do and that is make some finger hash. Here is my simple way of making some delightful finger hash that is guaranteed to get you high as a kite.
You’ll need the following:
- Your collected kif
- Parchment paper (non-waxed baking paper)
- Damp paper towel
- Clothing iron
First off what you want to do is pour your kif onto a piece of parchment paper and fold it up nicely so no kif falls out. You can seal it up with a piece of tape though this is really not necessary. Secondly you put the damp paper towel overtop of your kif package. Make sure the paper towel is damp, not soaking wet. Thirdly, take the iron and on the lowest setting run it over the paper towel and press down hard. You can re-wet the paper towel if it dries up too fast. Do this for several minutes. Finally unwrap the paper and you should be left with a nice flat piece of hash. While it is still warm mold it into a little ball or whatever shape you like. Now all that’s left to do is break off a small piece and smoke it. Remember, a little goes a long way.
Bong resin & roaches
Many people smoke the resin scrapped from bowls as an absolute last resort. Basically the resin is composed of all the tars, resins and ash that did not really fully burn. It also contains variable amounts of THC and can get you quite high when smoked. To make it a little more user friendly and less harsh to your lungs and over all health here is what you can do.
Simply put your collected resin in a container of hot water. This allows all the nasty stuff to separate from the resins which can then be collected and smoked. It still tastes bad and is bad for you but it’s a little cleaner this way.
Roaches are the left over remains of a joint. They usually contain a little bit of pot that is coated in lots of resin (all depends how much you smoked your joints down to). You can smoke these any way you wish do it in a bowl or re-rolling them into another quite potent but nasty tasting joint. Again this route is not the healthiest one but it works.
Stems and leftovers
Many people discard they stems and bits after rolling a joint or packing a bowl. This wastes those precious resin glands. Though smoking stems is a bad idea and quite disgusting they can get you a little high but also give you a killer headache. What you can do with them is throw them in a grinder and grind them up to collect the little bit of kif that may be on them or use them to make any number of extracts and cannabutter. You could also make some stem tea. Though you won’t get high off this it is pleasant to drink.
These are some of the ways I have used personally for quite a while to make the most out of the little bit of weed I usually have. Just remember, the less you smoke, the longer your stash lasts.
Until next time, keep tokin!
