All Credit Goes to Willie Nelson
“Willie Nelson stopped smoking marijuana” was the top news of the week for anyone interested in the industry, even making its way to mainstream news sources. After all, the beloved country musician is a lifelong activist for the legalization of marijuana, one of the world’s best-known potheads and owner of a legal marijuana brand, Willie’s Reserve. He is also, allegedly, the only man alive able to out-smoke Snoop Dogg. That is to say, it was a shock when the Red Headed Stranger publicly announced that he stopped smoking.
"I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days, and I have to be careful,” Nelson said in an interview with KSAT. “I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever, and that almost killed me.” He added, “I don’t smoke anymore—take better care of myself today.” Of course, the headlines came out immediately, claiming Willie Nelson was done with pot.
However, the marijuana icon is still getting high, his son confirmed in a Wednesday, Dec. 4, tweet: “There is a lot of articles going around saying my father is no longer smoking weed. It’s almost 2020, how people ingest cannabis has changed. Between vaping, edibles, gummies, drops, etc. I think it’s safe to say Willie will never stop enjoying Mary Jane!” The sentiment was echoed through the Associated Press. Willie’s Reserve also took to social media, proudly claiming that Nelson will “never stop” enjoying marijuana: “No pigs in the sky, Willie’s still getting high! At 86, Willie Nelson demonstrates there’s more than one way to get high.”
Getting High Without Smoke
It’s no secret, people typically conflate consuming marijuana with smoking it. This is due to a chemical reaction called decarboxylation, which occurs when intense heat is applied to the cannabis plant. Raw cannabis does not actually contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive chemical that causes the high people associate with weed. At natural, the cannabis plant contains tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), a precursor of THC, which is not psychoactive. If one eats raw cannabis flower, they will not get high—they will simply give themselves a stomach ache and potentially vomit. Burning cannabis material is simply the easiest and fastest way to turn the THCA contained within into the sought-after THC, which is why most people smoke it.
In its official “fact” sheet about marijuana, the National Institute on Drug Abuse barely mentions other methods of ingesting it, while quoting damages to the lungs as an effect of marijuana—which entirely ignores the fact that inhaling smoke is what causes these nefarious consequences, not marijuana itself. When consumed through edibles, marijuana does not even pass through the lungs.
The “edibles, gummies, drops, etc,” that Willie Nelson turned to in order to limit harmful smoking habits exist because the decarboxylation process can occur while cooking cannabis, too. THC binds itself particularly well to fat, so it is exceedingly simple to cook it, even at home with just a pan and a stovetop; merely heating up cannabis while it is coated in oil, for instance, creates basic yet potent “cannaoil,” a liquid that can then be added to food items to instantly turn them into edibles. Although professional edible-making companies have much more complex and efficient methods, all such processes create cannabis that is easily ingested and achieves the desired high with no smoke or damage to the lungs.
So, to all of us who worry about our health while wanting to mellow out some, let’s follow Willie Nelson’s example!
