Do you want to learn more about medical marijuana tinctures?
Cannabis treatment comes in many forms. Each of the options has its advantages and disadvantages depending on your personal preferences and treatment plan. The active compounds are the same, yet the administration, dosing, and general experience may be considerably different.
As a patient receiving medical cannabis in Hawaii, you have quite a few options to choose from. Among other methods of consumption, you have lozenges, strips and tinctures.
In this piece, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about medical cannabis tinctures. You’ll also learn about the administration, benefits and potential risks of using marijuana tinctures.
1. What Are Medical Cannabis Tinctures?
Tinctures allow you to consume medical cannabis orally. They are packaged in a glass bottle with a dropper. The tincture inside contains a high percentage of pure alcohol. The alcohol percentage can run as high as 90%.
Using glass bottle with a dropper means that you can get exact dosing when consuming a medical marijuana tincture. Even though the tinctures have many benefits, they receive much less attention compared to other routes of consumption.
2. What Is the Science Behind Cannabis Tinctures?
To manufacturing the tinctures, one must soak the cannabis flowers in alcohol for a prolonged period of time. It should be noted that not all manufacturers use flowers in every product. For instance, you might have a tincture that’s derived from leaf trim or hash instead.
Some may wonder why alcohol is required? It helps extract useful cannabinoids from the cannabis plant. However, cannabis needs to be decarboxylated for all the ingredients to become active.
Alcohol has three important properties that benefit tincture production:
- Both cannabinoids and terpenes can be extracted from cannabis plant material using high-percentage alcohol.
- The resulting liquid has a very high concentration of active compounds, making it a high-efficiency product.
- Alcohol helps to preserve these active compounds, enabling the storage of medical marijuana without quickly losing its potency.
3. How Do You Administer Cannabis Tinctures?
After receiving your first medical marijuana tincture, you have a couple of options when it comes to regular administration.
Here are some of the different ways you can use tinctures:
• Sublingual: This is the most popular method of administering medical cannabis tinctures. The onset of medical marijuana effects are rapid and will have you feeling the effects in 15-30 minutes, followed by a peak at about 90 minutes. That’s because the tincture is absorbed via the sublingual artery, under the tongue, quickly bypassing the metabolism pathways.
• Ingestion: Just swallowing a single dose of your cannabis tincture is an option as well. This can be done by adding a few drops to food or into a drink. Ingesting the tincture this ways means the effects’ onset get delayed in the way as they would if you consumed an edible.
Additionally, it’s good to shake the tincture before administration. It’s possible that the compounds could have separated with time.
4. Why Consider Medical Cannabis Tinctures?
No method of administration is perfect. Sometimes it boils down to individual preferences. Still, there are quite a few reasons why you might want to consider the tincture route.
• Discreet Method: The sublingual administration of a cannabis tincture is easy and discreet. You simply have to drop the tincture under your tongue and hold for a minimum of 15 seconds. A drop of tincture can be applied quickly and it will deliver the results rapidly.
• Maximum Precision: The drop-by-drop method of tincture dosing allows you to have maximum control over your dosage. Compared to medical marijuana edibles and inhalation, tinctures allow you to exercise full oversight over how many active ingredients you put into your body at any given moment.
• Great Shelf-Life: Under the right conditions, your tinctures can last for a few years. Ensure that the bottles are kept in a cool, dark place, and the cap needs to stay on tightly. Otherwise, the tincture may start evaporating over time.
• Low-Cal Option: Edibles may contain a considerable number of calories, with some containing fats, sugar, and sodium. Tincture offers a great way to ingest medical marijuana without needing to account for extra calories.
5. Risks of Using Medical Cannabis Tinctures.
Medical marijuana tinctures don’t have any additional risks that wouldn’t already exist in other products. You may experience side effects like dizziness and drowsiness. The individual risks and reactions depend on your age, weight, genetic makeup and other factors.
Smoking medical marijuana products increase your risk of developing diseases related to smoking. You can remove this risk by opting for medical cannabis tinctures instead.
In a Nutshell: Medical Cannabis Tinctures
The use of medical cannabis tinctures is not as common as vaping, smoking and edibles. However, tinctures have numerous benefits that you should consider.
They are discreet, precise, low-calorie, and smoke-free. You can put tinctures in your food or drinks. The quickest route of administration is taking the tincture sublingually. In this case, the onset is around 15-30 minutes with a peak at about 90 minutes.
Don’t forget to consult with your physician before considering a novel use for cannabis tinctures.
For more information check out Malie Cannabis Clinic.