Socrates in Peace | When we talk about marijuana, what are we talking about?

I can’t tell exactly when it started, but the word “marijuana” appeared frequently in my life.

Perhaps it’s because I pay attention to Asian politics and found that there are intense discussions on the decriminalization of marijuana in Thailand and Taiwan;

Maybe it’s because I travel to the United States more frequently and I always smell the smell of marijuana on the streets of California;

Or maybe it’s because of my few explorations into cannabis,

There is no hidden danger of addiction, but I have gained many spiritual experiences beyond the worldly world.

In short, for a long time, I was thinking, what exactly is marijuana?

I've asked many people this question, but I've never gotten a clear and rational answer.

I have witnessed a variety of emotional reactions,

Some people talk about "marijuana" and their expressions are full of disdain that "you must not be contaminated with drugs";

Some people are generous with their praise and regard it as a "magic medicine" for advancing enlightenment.

Others are filled with indignation and say that cannabis is a new type of opium used by the West to harm China.

These reactions always amuse me - it turns out that many times before we figure something out, we have already decided whether to support or oppose it.

I didn't want to stand first and found Mr. Zhu Jin.

After immigrating to the United States in high school, he grew up in a continent where marijuana was legal;

He has now been working on cannabis for eight years at a bioengineering company;

His company provides Nanjing University with extremely pure cannabis,

Obtained China’s first intellectual property rights for using hemp to treat brain cancer.

His enthusiasm and professionalism make this blog extremely informative.

He said that as an organic substance, cannabis cannot be simply distinguished by CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). Its growth state is always changing;

Advocating for the legalization of marijuana and advocating for smoking weed are two completely different things, he said;

He said that the prerequisite for smoking marijuana is to first learn to be responsible for oneself.

I rarely recommend content that I create.

But in this issue I would say, give it a listen, you should be inspired.

00:44 How did you get involved with cannabis?

02:20 What exactly is cannabis?

05:00 Is marijuana a drug?

8:59 Why can’t marijuana be defined as a drug even if it has side effects?

10:11 How is alcohol decriminalized? How did marijuana become illegal?

15:13 What effects does cannabis have on people?

18:01 How should cannabis be used recreationally?

20:17 How does the best way to smoke weed right now—sucking grease—work?

22:54 What exactly are you advocating for by advocating for the legalization of marijuana?

31:07 How to find good cannabis?

32:27 How do you smoke marijuana responsibly?

English nouns mentioned in the recording:

Solventless Extract: solventless rosin

The Father of Israeli Cannabis Science: Raphael Mechoulam

Cannabis information websites: leafly, weedmap

Hemp Growing Company: Humboldt Seed Campany

Its founder is Nat Pennington

High-Quality Cannabis Brands: Skypack, Cookie, Sherbinski

"The guests in this issue are industry stakeholders, please treat your comments with caution.

The program does not have any advocacy tendency.

Please respect local laws and regulations with any decision you make about smoking marijuana. "

[The following text manuscript is compiled from the recording, and has been deleted and edited for the sake of reading experience. 】

1.

What is cannabis?

Most people’s understanding of cannabis comes from some popular science.

These kopris usually say to describe cannabis,

Marijuana generally refers to the cannabis plant, and the two most active elements in it are THC and CBD.

But in fact, it cannot be seen so simply.

Cannabis is a flower, an organic organism, containing more than 150 active ingredients.

Two of the most common ingredients are THCA and CBDA.

These two are the true “raw” cannabinoids.

But why do people only talk about THC and CBD without mentioning the “A”?

It's because this A represents acid, acid.

Acid cannot interact directly with our bodies.

It must be converted into THC or CBD through heating or other methods before it can be psychoactive and enter our bloodstream.

So the way we smoke marijuana is to light a match and heat it up so that the ingredients can be absorbed by our bodies.

Moreover, with changes in growth status or external environment,

The active ingredients in cannabis are constantly changing.

It is very common for THC and CBD to change and mix with each other.

Even if the harvested cannabis flowers are dried and placed in a bottle, the bottle's degree of shading, temperature, humidity, storage time and other factors will cause changes in its active ingredients.

Different active ingredients lead to different feelings in the human body after ingestion.

When we were growing up on the East Coast of the United States, almost everyone from the best students to the worst students smoked pot.

At that time, there were no good flowers on the east coast. We often breathed some flowers from Mexico. These flowers had been transported for several months and the experience was not very good after finishing the flowers. I always felt like sleeping.

Later I found out that this was because the CBD and THC in the cannabis "aged" and turned into CBN due to the long storage time and lighting time.

An obvious effect of CBN is to induce sleep.

2.

Is marijuana a drug?

What are drugs?

I immigrated to the United States from Beijing in high school and discovered that the United States also has a drinking culture.

In Mainland China, when you are seventeen or eighteen years old, you are still preparing for the college entrance examination at home.

But at this age in the United States, you are already in a free-range state, and you will hang out with all kinds of people.

If you don’t drink, no one will invite you to the party, and you will be out.

Young boys all think, "I want to integrate into mainstream society."

So I started drinking too.

After graduation, I discovered that, just like in China, in the United States, if you have to do business and do things, you also have to drink with people.

From starting your own business, to entering the financial management industry, to building a fund,

He drank so much that he opened a joint venture with Goldman Sachs executives and some wealthy and powerful financial people to open a bar in Beijing CBD.

What I'm playing with is high-end Japanese whiskey.

I am allergic to alcohol, but I drank alcohol from the age of 16 until I was 35.

The biggest drinking incident I had was getting caught drinking and driving in America and spending a night in jail.

Although I was released after one night, if I want to maintain my driver's license,

I had to take a 20-hour alcohol education class,

That class will explain what alcohol is,

It says very clearly:

As you drink more and more, your body becomes more receptive to alcohol,

The reactivity will become lower and lower,

For example, you might be able to get high after drinking four bottles of beer a week ago.

You might have to drink five beers today to feel the same good;

But at the same time, your body’s threshold for alcohol will not be elevated.

If the alcohol content in your blood reaches a certain percentage, your life will be in danger.

This is why alcoholics drink themselves to death.

It's the same thing with all drugs - like cocaine, poppies, heroin.

So why isn’t marijuana a drug?

You smoked marijuana and you got high after just three puffs yesterday.

Today I only need three mouthfuls to get the same feeling.

You don’t need to increase the amount to feel good.

Although some people say that marijuana can cause side effects such as hallucinations and schizophrenia,

But none of these things mean that marijuana can be defined as a poison.

What is the definition of poison?

Drugs are something your body builds up to a tolerance to,

It’s that you need to inhale more to reach the previous feeling.

It is you who becomes so addicted that you eventually lose control of the drug.

Under this definition, marijuana is not a drug.

3.

We live in a society where black and white are reversed.

Alcohol hurts people the most, but it is not defined as a drug.

Marijuana is not addictive and is illegal in many areas.

In fact, more than two hundred years ago, when the United States was first founded,

Most of the founding fathers of the United States believed that alcohol was a poison and a way for capitalist totalitarianism to exploit civilians.

So for a long time, alcohol was illegal in the United States.

But more than 100 years later, many gangsters resell alcohol in order to make money.

Some churches are often turned into bars.

The door looks like a church, but actually people are drinking in the basement.

We can't catch these people either.

The alcohol market is simply too big to contain and has become a huge part of the economy and tax system.

So alcohol is also legal.

Why is smoking marijuana illegal?

There once was a capitalist who sold cotton and was a white slave owner. He was very rich.

There were many black slaves to help him grow and pick cotton and sell cotton products.

Later, the capitalist discovered that his biggest competitor was linen producers.

He also discovered that the hemp plant, in addition to making cloth, could also be used to make paper, fry oil, and even be rolled into cigarettes for smoking. It had many benefits.

I went to the capitalists who sold liquor and hoped to ban hemp together.

At that time, alcohol had just been legalized.

Most educated intellectuals don’t drink;

The capitalists who sell wine want to open up other markets, such as Mexico.

Mexico was once a Spanish colony,

Spain has always promoted cannabis culture, including the emperor who smoked cannabis.

That’s why Mexicans smoke marijuana and don’t drink alcohol.

Eventually, the two gangs of cotton sellers and liquor sellers joined forces in Washington for their own benefit.

He spent a lot of money to bribe people inside and outside the Congress at that time.

A bill was passed making marijuana a drug.

So why would Congress allow these two forces to come together?

Because capital wants to forcefully open a new physical market.

This is how marijuana became illegal.

4.

Many of the problems related to marijuana today are not caused by marijuana.

It is caused by the imperfect development of the cannabis industry.

Advocating for the legalization of marijuana does not mean advocating for smoking marijuana.

Instead, we hope for a more compliant cannabis market.

With 150 years of industrialization, alcohol has become the backbone of the capitalist economic system.

It is very standardized, refined and has efficient quality assurance.

Over the years, you rarely hear of anyone dying from drinking poor quality wine.

Marijuana has only become legal in the past twenty years.

As a new product, the quality problem in the supply chain is still very big.

When marijuana was still a drug,

Many people grow this stuff by selling drugs;

At that time, the wholesale price of marijuana in California was $3,000 to $4,000 per pound.

Sold in New York, one pound is US$8,000 to US$10,000.

Almost a huge profit.

In this situation, many people want to make quick money, and many quality problems have arisen in the industry.

In 2016, I met several cannabis cultivation bases in Los Angeles and wanted to cooperate with me on cultivation technology.

In the end, we couldn't cooperate because we couldn't accept that they ignored quality in order to make money.

I had just entered the cannabis industry at that time, and I went to visit their farm. I thought the flowers were awesome and they looked so fragrant.

As a result, a friend of mine who has been growing marijuana for 30 years said after one look at it, "This wave of flowers are all pests!"

I said, "What kind of pest? I can't even see it. What kind of pest?"

He said, "If you look carefully, you turn your eyes into magnifying glasses."

Then I saw that the flowers in the whole house were covered with spider webs.

I got angry and found a partner. I said I would provide the technology and you would provide the farmers. Let’s do this job well, right? How did it become like this?

He said don't worry, and then he took a chemical insecticide and sprayed it all over the house.

The next day he told me that they had sold all the marijuana at a price of US$2,400 per pound.

So think about it, where did that contaminated marijuana go?

Maybe it was distributed to illegal channels to make money.

I realized at that time that the legalization and standardization of this industry would be a long road.

In 1998, Oregon introduced medical marijuana through the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

In late 2014, voters passed a resolution legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults 21 and older.

Today in Oregon, the relevant departments of alcohol management use the comprehensive liquor control system to manage marijuana.

Over the past few years,

There are now only more than 200 cultivation licenses issued by Oregon out of more than 2,000.

Because the planting system is not good, the efficiency is not high, and the finished product is not good for various reasons,

Ninety percent of productive enterprises were closed.

In 2023, there were a total of 14 times in Oregon when cannabis products were launched on the market and quality issues were detected.

A situation in which all products are withdrawn.

But this is actually a good thing, which means that many government agencies have intervened in this industry,

There are already some ways to oversee the market for recreationally consumed cannabis,

This is a protection for consumers.

In my opinion, a complete industrial chain should do three things:

First, the technical process must be improved, and all products must have very detailed test reports;

Second, products can be traced to the original manufacturer (traceability);

Third, departments must be able to punish companies that do not comply with regulations (enforceability).

In a legal system and healthy competition, if there is six or seven years,

The market can screen and polish a group of brand companies that grow cannabis.

Moreover, with legalization, investment will flow in and the market will gain economic scale.

The industry will also gradually become mechanized, automated and intelligent.

5.

With the legalization of marijuana,

There are also more and more people thinking about how to produce the best cannabis products.

What I recommend most at the moment is a method of absorbing grease.

I mentioned before that the original compounds of cannabis are actually THCA and CBDA.

It's this acid.

So many people who grow cannabis are thinking,

How to retain this acid, the most natural and top-notch active ingredient?

The more advanced method currently is called solvent-free extraction.

The moment the cannabis is harvested—within three to five minutes—the flowers are quickly frozen and turned into solid ice;

Then, no alcohol or melting agent is used, just ice water for extraction.

Extract cannabis oil.

The active ingredient of cannabis is in the oil.

But cannabis is essentially a flower, a plant, and a carbohydrate.

So the carbohydrates in the oil are separated from the active ingredients,

What's left is the best acid.

That thing is the true original intention,

It is the essence of cannabis,

Usually greenish white, pure milky white or golden yellow,

It looks particularly pure and bright. Keep that thing in the bottle again,

Put it in a dark and low-temperature environment,

Can last a long time.

There is a place in California on the west coast of the United States called Arcata.

It's a deserted place,

But the environment for growing cannabis is incredibly good.

There is Humboldt County in it,

That is a place nearly 1,300 meters above sea level in the deep mountains and old forests.

Many people grow marijuana;

Basically, this method is used to quickly preserve flowers harvested outdoors;

There is also a brand in that county called Humboldt Seed Campany.

The founder is Nat Pennington.

Dude, it’s been 40 years.

Large-scale hybridization of thousands and tens of thousands of cannabis plants has always been carried out.

To screen different flavors and different active ingredients,

Just to produce the best cannabis possible.

6.

How to smoke marijuana recreationally?

You must be responsible for yourself,

Know exactly what you are using,

When you drink, you will know what brand of wine you are drinking,

When drinking water, you will care about the quality of the water.

The same goes for smoking marijuana;

You need to know where and how this thing put into your body comes from.

Don’t use flowers whose origin and brand you don’t know,

Don’t buy things through illegal channels.

It may have a lot of additives and a lot of contamination, which are harmful to your body.

If you want to play, play pure and clean.

Find a trustworthy supply chain,

In our Beijing dialect, it is a "time-honored brand".

You can go directly to offline retail stores,

Ask the store clerk where the flower came from, when it was harvested, and how long it was stored.

The clerks at legal market retail stores will tell you all this information responsibly.

You can also ask them to produce inspection reports for each product.

There are also some websites in the United States, such as leafly, weedmap,

Many cannabis products in the United States and Canada have been informatized.

Just like when you go to Amazon, you can see which products have how many positive and negative reviews.

and thus make a choice.

In the past few years, under the screening of the market,

A number of high-quality cannabis brands have also emerged on the East Coast of the United States.

Such as Skypack, Cookie, Sherbinski,

They are also good choices.

If you decide to try it,

Then try to collect as much information as possible,

Learn the ins and outs of cannabis.

For indoor flowers, buy fresh flowers and don’t buy flowers that are 30 to 60 days past their production date.

Try not to buy outdoor flowers. If there are no insect pests in outdoor flowers, it must be because they have been treated with pesticides and insect repellents.

Smoking marijuana should be done in moderation, don’t overdo it;

Eating too much of anything can cause problems.

The first time I bought less, I bought half a gram.

Take one breath first, wait for half an hour, and then take a second breath after nothing happens.

Never mix it with other drugs or anything else, especially alcohol.

There will be many questions.

In short, don’t start smoking marijuana carelessly.

Be responsible for yourself, respect yourself,

Give yourself enough time to get to know yourself and understand yourself,

You must manage yourself, learn yourself, and improve yourself.