Everyone knows that music sounds better on drugs, right? Right. Sure, some drugs make music sound better than others, and some music is better suited to particular drugs. I can’t imagine a heroin user sitting back, shooting up and slapping on the latest happy hardcore vinyl, for example, but in general, music and drugs are regarded as an excellent combination.

Here’s what everybody’s hero, Carl Sagan had to say about cannabis and music:

A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music [compared with art] has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I’m down.

Since there’s such an obvious synergy between good music and good drugs, I thought I’d put together a littler series of posts reviewing some music that I reckon is essential to listen to while high. I’m not sure yet how it’s going to work – it might be single album recommendation, the odd collection of awesome tracks or focusing on one particular genre. I’m also not sure how frequent posts in this series will be. I’ll try to keep them pretty regular, but other more important stuff might crop up. I’ve created a new Music On Drugs category for these posts though, so they’ll all be in there.

This is the first post in that series, but today I’m not going to be suggesting any music – there’s a lot of preparation work to do before that!

Getting Your Shit Together

Before you can get the most out of your music, you’re going to need to spend a bit of money. Your auditorium (bedroom) needs to not only sound good, but also be comfortable and look great too. Luckily, you don’t need to spend a fortune to really improve the atmosphere.

Comfort

This is important – you can’t get stoned sitting on a bar stool, so get yourself some kind of massive bean bag or reclining chair if your bed isn’t suitable. You’ll want to be lying down so you can just focus on what you’re listening to.

Excellent Aesthetics

If the only lighting options in your room are having a harsh energy saving bulb either on or off, then consider getting some other lighting before we begin. You can spend hundreds on amazing lighting technology, or you can get yourself a red light bulb for a couple of quid. Here are a tonne of options roughly ordered by price:

Red Light Bulb Toadstool (Fly Agaric) Light Cube Colour Changing Mood Light Lava Lamp Plasma Ball Fibre Optic Lamp Salt Crystal Lamp Fake Red Flowers Philips LivingColors LED Mood Light

If you play music through your computer, you might want to get yourself some great visualisations for whatever media player your using. I’d recommend G-Force.

Awesome Audio

You can NOT listen to any of the music I’ll be reviewing through shitty little PC speakers or built-in laptop speakers. You might think that they’re fine because you can hear all the words to your favourite Afroman song, but you are wrong. Luckily, you can get some adequate speakers for under £50. So long as you’ve got a subwoofer (or sub; a giant speaker who’s job is to pump out the kind of bass that’s inaudible through laptop speakers), you’ll be OK. I’d recommend these Logitech X-230 speakers, which will plug straight into your PC or laptop.

Great, so you’ve got some speakers. Now you need to arrange them so they sound good. First pick out where you’ll be sitting to listen to your music, then arrange the left and right speakers symmetrically in front of you. Next, put your sub on top of a blanket or something. This will stop vibrations from the sub travelling through your walls or floor. Not only will this make the bass sound better, but it also won’t piss off the neighbours anywhere near as much, so you can turn it up even louder. Finally, make sure your speakers aren’t buried away at the back of your desk behind a load of crap. If sound waves have to navigate past old crisp packets, unpaid bills and ounces of weed, then the sound quality won’t be as good. If you’re going to spend the money on decent speakers, I’d also recommend actually buying (or at least illegally downloading) the music talked about. YouTube quality will not do it justice.

You’ve got at least a week to get yo’ shit together. In the mean time, here’s some more from Carl Sagan:

I just listened to the worst thing I’ve heard so far about the Nutt Sack scandal – BBC Radio 4′s “The Report“, that aired on Thursday. Not only is this as balanced as a lone fat guy on a see-saw, but their arguments compel you to shout at the computer as you listen along. This program was more damaging to my mental health than any kind of “skunk” might be. My favourite bits are when the reporter asks if he can get high by smelling some cannabis and when this woman’s son has a “schizoid episode” because he robbed his mum’s jewellery. Unbe-fucking-lievable! A BBC Radio producer actually got in touch, and encouraged me to pass the link around (excellent marketing there by the BBC, and for once I’m not being sarcastic) so here goes: you can listen to it here.

So, let’s have some fun! I’ll be giving away a 5g bag of Mellow Yellow to the best comment on this post deconstructing this program. You can pick your favourite bits or you can pick apart the entire thing bit by excruciatingly painful bit. Points will be awarded for thoroughness, any references to relevant facts and the cut of one’s jib. I’ll pick the best one by Dec 14th.

It turns out that not all MPs are useless! If you remember, I wrote to my MP about this whole Dave Nutt business, and she got back to me in this post. She’s since been in touch again, forwarding me a copy of the letter she’s sent to Alan Johnson:

Further to our recent email correspondence about the sacking of Prof. David Nutt, below is a copy of the letter I have sent to Alan Johnson today.  I will send you a copy of the reply I receive.

Next week I am co-sponsoring a cross-party event with Evan Harris (Lib Dem) and Peter Bottomley (Con) at which Prof. Nutt will be speaking to MPs.

Regards, Lynne Jones

And here is that letter:

Dear Alan

Professor David Nutt

As I was unable to be in the House to hear your Statement on Monday regarding the removal of Professor Nutt as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), I wanted to write to you to express my concerns.

I have seen a copy of your letter sacking Professor Nutt on the BBC website and I have read the Hansard of Monday’s debate.

During the debate on your Statement you infer that Prof. Nutt was removed for not being clear when speaking personally at a lecture to Kings College (London) that he was not speaking for the ACMD and for publishing documents relating to the Government framework without giving the Home Office first sight of them. You also say it was unacceptable for him to criticise Government Ministers and Government policy.

On the issue of speaking personally or on behalf of the ACMD, I note from a report in the 3 November edition of the Financial Times that Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College, who invited Prof. Nutt to give his lecture, stressed that:

“at no point did he make reference to his role as chair of the ACMD, nor did he give the impression that he was speaking on behalf of the ACMD”

Given this, on what basis are you arguing that it wasn’t ‘clear’ that he was speaking personally?  Surely it would be a matter for the members of the ACMD to complain if they felt this was the case (when in fact members of that Committee have resigned in protest at your action against Prof. Nutt).

On the question of publishing documents, unless you want to stop advisers expressing their views publicly, what are the reasons for the Government insisting on first sight of material published on the subject areas advisers give advice on?  Can you clarify what the documents were that Prof. Nutt published without first showing them to the Home Office and what action your Department would have taken had you had first sight of the documents?  Specifically would the Home Office have taken any action to change the content of the documents in question?

In the House on 2 November you said that whilst Prof. Nutt had the right to ‘express his views’ he did not have the right to criticise the Government and its drugs policy framework.  Isn’t this putting restrictions on his right to express himself independently in his role as an academic with expertise in this area?  It seems to me that this is different from campaigning against Government policy as you have accused him of doing.  If the Government wants independent evidence-based scientific advice doesn’t it have to face the consequences if it ignores the advice given?  Why didn’t you just defend your policy if you have confidence in it?

I should also be grateful for your response to the widespread criticism that your decision has received from the scientific community and the concern that you have jeopardised the relationship between independent scientific advisers and Government.  In particular, I noted the letter in the 2 November edition of the Times from Ian Stolerman, Emeritus Professor of Behavioural Pharmacology from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London:

“All scientists who work without pay to advise the Government must surely be considering their positions.”

And no doubt you will have heard Professor Colin Blakemore, former head of the Medical Research Council, on the Today programme and his comment that:

“This is not just an issue about drugs: the Government depends very widely on advice from experts who give their time freely.”

Critics of your decision are backed up by the recent Government response to the Innovation, Science and Skills Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2008–09, published only a matter of days before the sacking of Prof Nutt, which states:

“The Government agrees that the independence of science advisers is critical. It was precisely for this reason that the GCSA wrote to then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to express concern over her criticism, in Parliament, of Professor Nutt (Chairman of ACMD) with regard to an article he published in a peer-reviewed journal“

I note that despite this official Government declaration of concern over criticism by your predecessor of the ACMD Chair, on Monday, you referred to Jacqui’s criticism of Prof. Nutt as if this somehow justified your own action against him.  Do you accept that your dismissal of Prof. Nutt contradicts the Government’s position as outlined in this recent Response to the ISS Committee Report?

Turning to the issue of the classification of cannabis itself, in 2007, before the announcement in 2008 that cannabis was to be reclassified back to class B, I tabled an Early Day Motion about the dangers of cannabis use that I would like to bring to your attention (text printed on the back of this letter).  From this you will see that, whilst I accept that there are hazards associated with cannabis use, as does Prof. Nutt, this would not of itself justify the reclassification to class B, as classification is about relative hazard – the very point of Prof. Nutt’s comments.

Furthermore, in the EDM, I also pointed out that the downgrading of cannabis to class C from class B in 2004 was actually associated with reduced cannabis use by young people, as evidenced by the following table produced by your own Department with information from British Crime Survey respondents:

As you of course know, cannabis was reclassified from B to C with effect from January 2004 and reclassified back to B in December 2008 with effect from January 2009.  As you will note from the above statistics for this period, the proportion of 16-24 year-old respondents declaring cannabis use in the previous year fell from 25.3% in 2003/04 to 18% in 2007/08.  I was therefore very disappointed by your response to the question put to you during the debate on your 2 November Statement by George Howarth:

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North and Sefton, East) (Lab): If my right hon. Friend had taken Professor Nutt’s advice and lowered the categorisation of cannabis, and if as a result more young people had started to use it, would not that have been irresponsible?

Alan Johnson: Yes, I think it would have been. That is why my predecessor decided not to take that advice and why that decision has been endorsed by this Parliament.

I would be interested to know why you did not base your answer on the statistical evidence on cannabis usage rates amongst young people during the period when categorisation was lowered.  Were you unaware of the above data or were you aware but misleading the House in your reply by your suggestion that it was because more young people started using cannabis when it was classified downwards to class C that Jacqui reclassified the drug upwards?

Either way, your failure to refer to your own published data on this particular question serves to reinforce the point that Government is ignoring evidence on issues relating to drug classification.

LYNNE JONES MP

Brilliant! When I first got in touch, I had no idea she’d even respond, let alone write a letter to Alan Johnson! She’ll copy me in on his reply too, should he ever write back. Somehow I don’t think he will…

If you haven’t written to your MP yet, please do so. Details on how to get in touch with them can be found here.

This week has been a massive middle finger not only to every single scientist, but also to legal highs users all across the UK. Today, I’m going to be moaning about both.

Malcolm Tucker: The angriest man on telly

Firstly, as everyone will know Prof. David Nutt was sacked as head of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Ever since this news broke, I’ve not been able to shake the image of Prof. Nutt getting a bollocking from Malcolm out of The Thick Of It. On its own, this isn’t big news; people get sacked all the time. But the reason why he got sacked is gobsmacking.

The Situation

It all started in 2008 when the government decided cannabis was far more deadly than ever before, what with all these new “skunk” strains appearing, and reclassified it back up to Class B. Of course, because the cannabis was “much stronger” than in previous years (for more on why that’s total horse shit, read Bad Science), everyone who smokes it will get schizophrenia, or so Gordon “Golden” Brown would have us beleive. Actually, he just pulled that straight out of his arse. Prof. Nutt, et al., wise to this bullshittery, recommended against the reclassification and was ignored. More recently, Dave (I’m sure I can call him Dave) published a paper comparing the dangers of ecstasy with the dangers of horse riding, finding that horse riding was actually more dangerous – “Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms” [pdf; 65 kb]. This wasn’t a piece of propaganda published by some idgit with an agenda; it was a paper in a peer-reveiwed journal, alongside other factually accurate and interesting publications – all Dave did was let the evidence speak for itself. Dave’s final piss-take of current policy came when he delivered a lecture on entitled “Estimating drug harms: a risky business?” [pdf; 366 kb], basically saying the same thing that this episode of Horizon says – heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone are the only drugs more harmful than alcohol, while LSD, ecstasy and cannabis are all less harmful that both alcohol and tobacco. As a result, Alan Johnson, our beloved home secretary and ex-postman, has lost confidence in the advice given by Dave, with over 40 years of relevant scientific background in the subject. Here are my top quotes (and interpretations) from Alan “I’m a fucking moron” Johnson:

This was not about Prof Nutt’s views, which I respect though I don’t agree with them.

This means “I don’t understand the importance of evidence” or “I disagree with the evidence because it doesn’t support my conclusion”

You cannot have a chief adviser… campaigning against government

This means “We’re not willing to accept advice that goes against the political message we’re trying to send”

There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse – there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction.

This means “What goes on in my constituency is applicable to the entire country.”

More Dangerous Than Ecstasy

This last (and most recent quote) is my favourite. Not only does it show an unbelievable arrogance, it also shows a deep misunderstanding of either the research or his constituency. Horse riding kills more people than ecstasy – that’s a fact. Is he arguing that thousands of people are at risk from a hitherto-unheard-of ecstasy addiction? Bollocks!  Or is he perhaps saying that all drugs are a problem? In that case, the comparison to horse riding isn’t fair, since that only applies to ecstasy, not all drugs. Who’d have thought that one single sentence could make someone look so stupid? Oh, and one final point – what about cheap, legal alcohol? I wonder how many people in his constituency have been sucked into hopeless despair though alcohol addiction?

Why Dave Is In The Right

Firstly, the Code o’ Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees states:

Rules of conduct need not affect a member’s freedom to represent his or her field of expertise in a personal capacity. The committee’s rules however should generally oblige members to make clear when they are not speaking in their capacity as committee members.

Guess what – the lecture was given as the Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London, not as chairman of the ACMD. This was made perfectly clear. BAM! Next, the Misuse of Drugs act includes the following within the ACMD’s remit:

educating the public (and in particular the young) in the dangers of misusing such drugs and for giving publicity to those dangers

BOOM! If that includes setting the current drugs policy straight in order to better communicate the relative harms of illegal drugs, then well done Dave for doing the job you were hired to do!

The Resignations

So far, other than Dave, Dr Les King and Marrion Walker have resigned. Les is part-time advisor to the Department of Health, and was a senior chemist on the ACMD, who’s responsible for drafting the legislation I’ll talk about shortly. Marrion is the clinical director of Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s substance misuse service and was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s representative on the ACMD. As you can imagine, the resignation of these key figures has been a massive blow to the ACMD’s future credibility.

With any luck, the rest of them will resign next Monday, and no other respectable scientist will take their place.

What YOU Can Do About It

Facebook has been the primary theatre of action in this conflict between reason and the idiot brigade in power. If you use Facebook, you might like to join the “Support and Reinstate Professor David Nutt: We want an evidence based drugs policy.” group, which has been set up by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy UK. There are tonnes of comments, discussion, links ‘n’ all that, and it’s currently just over 8600 members strong. Alan Johnson’s Facebook page was public until very recently. Last time I went on there, it was covered in comments informing him of his own stupidity.

There are also a couple of worthwhile petitions UK residents can sign:

• Reinstate Prof. David Nutt
• Evidence-based Drugs Policy

And finally, I’d suggest writing to your local MP. Obviously, an actual letter would carry more weight than an email, but if you’ve got 10 mins to spare, you can use the website WriteToThem to find your local MP and fire off an email. I sent one off yesterday and got an encouraging reply this morning. I copied one someone else wrote from that Facebook group above and edited a few bits here ‘n’ there, and if you do the same, please edit my letter before you send it – that website won’t send identical messages. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Lynne Jones,

I am writing to express my disappointment at the recent sacking of Professor David Nutt, Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs by the current Home Secretary, Alan Johnson.

It is the role and duty of a scientist to objectively determine truth and fact about the way in which the world works, and to present the evidence demonstrating those facts. Whether such facts are convenient, inconvenient, comfortable or uncomfortable or happen to contradict government policy is irrelevant. A scientist influenced by political expediency is not a scientist.

I fully understand that advisers advise and that ministers are responsible for decisions on policy, but the terms of reference of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, as laid down in the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1971 include the following:

“educating the public (and in particular the young) in the dangers of misusing such drugs and for giving publicity to those dangers; ”

Professor Nutt has made public remarks about the relative risks of the use of substances currently illegal in the UK, comparing them to other legal substances and other common leisure pursuits. This fulfils the remit, quoted above, of ‘educating the public’, especially since the current drugs classification system does nothing to highlight the relative harms of illegal drugs.

In this case, the facts, as determined by the scientific method, may well cause many members of the public to question current Government policy. This is only right and proper in a democracy.

By asking Professor Nutt to stand down, the Home Secretary has sent a message that he finds it acceptable to disrupt the education of the public and that he is willing to suppress those who have a clear remit to present the public with facts in order to do this.

It is also worth noting that the document: “Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy: Government Response to the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2008-09 – Science and Technology Committee ” states the following in Appendix One:

“SAC members should not be criticised for publishing scientific papers or making statements as professionals, independent of their role as Government advisers. (Paragraph 64)

“The Government agrees that the independence of science advisers is critical. It was precisely for this reason that the GCSA wrote to then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to express concern over her criticism, in Parliament, of Professor Nutt (Chairman of ACMD) with regard to an article he published in a peer-reviewed journal. ”

To my mind, the actions of the Home Secretary are undemocratic, dishonest, an attempted suppression of freedom of speech and a middle finger to anyone who understands and appreciates the scientific method.

Should not the Home Secretary now be considering his position?

I would be grateful for your thoughts.

Yours sincerely,
John Clarke

Here’s her reply:

I agree with you. When the issue if reclassifying cannabis back to class B in 2007, I tabled the following parliamentary motion:

EDM 209

RESPONDING TO THE DANGERS OF CANNABIS USE

That this House supports the mental health charity Rethink in its call for a public education campaign to convey the dangers of cannabis use; offers this support in light of the recent review of research published in the Lancet, which concludes that frequency of cannabis use increases the risk of psychotic illness such as schizophrenia by up to 40 per cent.; calls for clarity on the cannabis debate, particularly regarding the strength of skunk varieties of the drug; believes that reclassifying cannabis will not in itself lead to a decrease in the number of people who use it; notes that the proportion of young people using cannabis has actually fallen since it was reclassified in January 2004 from 25.3 per cent. of 16 to 24 year olds in 2003-04 to 20.9 per cent. in 2006-07; and urges the Government to commit to the development of a long-term awareness and information campaign with health promotion rather than a change in the law as the main lever to reduce use, in addition to funding research into the link between cannabis use and mental ill health.

If search under cannabis on my website, link below, you will find further information on my views and a report of a meeting of the All-Party Group on Mental Health on cannabis and schizophrenia.

I will pass on your comments to the Home Secretary to get his response.

Personally, as a former scientist myself, I despair at the selective use of science by colleagues from all parties and this latest example will no doubt give me further opportunities to raise my concerns. [My emphasis]

Regards

LYNNE JONES MP

House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

http://www.lynnejones.org.uk

That’s certainly much better than I’d have hoped!

Legal Highs ban

Next up is the BZP/GBL/Spice ban – here’s the proposal [pdf; 46 kb]. It looks like it goes into effect on December 23rd. I can’t give much more detail yet, since I’m not really a chemist, but it looks like all the decent smoking mixes will be gone by then. Better stock up before Christmas.

Hash, or hashish, is prepared from the most potent part of the cannabis plant – the trichomes. Trichomes are little hairy appendages found on plants that perform a wide variety of functions, depending on the particular plant. In the case of cannabis, the trichomes are packed full of THC and give your buds a white, frosty appearance. Hash is consumed in much the same way as cannabis buds by smoking in a pipe, bong or joint, hot-knifed or cooked, with similar effects. Unfortunately, decent hash is a rarity in the UK. All we have is “soapbar” – an incredibly hard, dark, poor quality material that is likely packed full of shit you don’t want to be smoking. Luckily for us, making hash is easy, fun and rewarding work, and you can put as much effort in as you like!

Why make hash?

• Save Space – An ounce of hash takes up a lot less room than an ounce of weed, making it easier to stash. It also smells less.
• Shelf Life - Hash will last a very long time if you keep it wrapped up tight, in the cold and dark. Bud, on the other hand, has a habit of going mouldy if you leave it too long.
• Health – You need to smoke less hash (provided it’s decent, home-made hash and not soapbar) to get high. Also, since hash is primarily trichomes, you don’t smoke any of the other compounds in the buds that don’t get you high.
• Notoriety – You will become “that guy with the amazing hash”. Simple as that. Since good hash is hard to find here, women will want you and other men will want to be you. Unless, of course, you’re a woman. Or gay. If you’re a gay woman, that will probably still happen.
• Prevent Wastage – If you grow your own cannabis, you can use all your leaves, stems and male plants that would otherwise be thrown away.
• Why the hell not? – You don’t need fields of cannabis plants to make good hash. If you’re a casual smoker, you can still get a pretty decent yield for next to no effort on your part, and you still get to smoke your weed as usual.

The Principle

1. Collect Trichomes
2. Press Trichomes
3. ???
4. Profit

Collecting Your Trichomes

Cannabis Trichomes

This step will vary depending on your level of commitment, budget and laziness. Traditionally, the first hash was created by people who would sit around and just rub buds and live plants all day. Gradually, their hands would accumulate a sticky resin that could be scraped off and pressed. Unfortunately, for this method to be any use today, you’d need a massive crop of cannabis plants at your disposal and a lot of elbow grease. Thankfully, we, as a species, have come up with some much more efficient methods since then. Let’s take a look:

Method #1 – Using a Pollenator or pollen catcher

For: The lazy pot smoker
Starting Material: Your usual weed supply
Effort: 1/10
Time Taken: Months

As I mentioned before in Top 4 Cannabis Tips, storing your weed in a container with a mesh screen in the bottom will net you a reasonable amount of trichomes from your bud. It will certainly take a while, but all you need to worry about is smoking your pot as usual. The idea is that constant storage and slight agitation will break off a small percentage of the trichomes on your bud, which fall through the screen into the chamber at the bottom. The mesh will be fine enough to only let the tasty trichomes fall through, keeping any other plant matter on top. The resulting unpressed trichomes are commonly referred to as kief.

Pro tip: each time you put more weed into your container, grind it up first, only fill it half way then feel free to give it a good shake from time to time. That ensures that more of the weed will come into contact with the screen, and that it has plenty of room to move around in your container.

Method #2 – Using a Sieve

For: The small time grower or the amateur hash producer
Starting Material: At least 2 ounces (56 g) of bud, or 200 g of old leaves, stems and entire male plants
Effort: 7/10
Time Taken: Several hours

Kief ready to be pressed

This is simply Method #1 scaled up for some serious hash production. 56 g of quality bud should get you about 6 – 11 g of kief. You’ll need a mesh or silk screen with 65-125 micron holes, or 120-230 lines per inch. If the holes are smaller than about 65 microns, the trichomes that make it through will be small and immature, but if the holes are bigger than 125 microns, more unwanted plant material makes it through. Framed screens are best, for the extra stability. Printing shops tend to sell frames with a screen already in, or you can easily make your own with four bits of wood, nails, glue and your screen of choice. You’ll also need a clean, flat surface such as a mirror which you’ll sieve over. A light coloured surface makes it easy to see your results.

If you’re using bud, begin by grinding it up and placing it on your screen. Then, tilt the screen back and forth just enough enough so that your ground up bud moves over it. You’ll begin to see your kief collecting on your mirror or other surface. As less and less trichomes come through the screen, you’re nearly done. Now start to wobble and tap the screen to get the last remaining trichomes. Unlike Method #1, the weed is now not suitable for smoking, so you may as well use a shitload of it to make some cannabis butter. It won’t be very potent, but that’s better than throwing it out. You could also mix it in with your tobacco if you’re a joint smoker, to keep the delicious weed smell and stretch out your tobacco supply.

Pro tip: If you’re sieving massive quantities of weed, use multiple screens with different sized holes. The smaller holed screens will produce a small quantity of top quality kief, while screens with larger holes will produce larger quantities of less potent material. You can then save your highly potent stash should the Queen come for tea or any other special occasion.

If you’re using your unwanted plant material, make sure it’s fairly well dry first. Not too dry, otherwise it’ll crumble and end up going through the sieve. Place the screen down over your clean surface and stick your dried plant material on top. Then, gently push your plant material around on top of the screen. The slower you push, the higher quality hash you’ll produce.

Pro tip: Sieve your plant material once using a screen with slightly bigger holes than usual. This will let through all the trichomes plus small chunks of plant material. At this point, you can throw away your plant material and sieve the results again using the usual screen. This will ensure a potent hash even when using the worst starting material.

Method #3 – Using a Drum

For: The small time grower or the lazy amateur hash producer
Starting Material: A small amount of bud, or lots of old leaves, stems and entire male plants
Effort: 3/10
Time Taken: Several hours

A drum is an electrically powered cylinder lined with a screen like that in Method #2, and the yield is about the same. This is the same principal of sieving, but this time you’re harnessing the power of electricity to do all the actual work. As the drum revolves, your bud or plant material is tumbled against the mesh, freeing the trichomes which will collect under the screen. Unfortunately, this method involves much less quality control than sieving manually.

Pro tip: Tumble once for a short amount of time to get the top quality kief. Subsequent tumblings can then be performed to collect more low quality material.

Method #4 – Using a Blender

For: The small time grower or the semi-pro hash producer
Starting Material: At least an ounce (28 g) of bud, or 200 g of old leaves, stems and entire male plants
Effort: 4/10
Time Taken: < 1 hour

This method relies on the fact that trichomes are heavier than water, and the colder they are, the more likely they are to snap off. 28g of weed should earn you 5 – 7 g of kief. For this, you’ll need a blender, two glass jars, a metal coffee filter or silk screen, paper coffee filters, some ice and some water. Begin by placing your bud or waste plant material in the blender until it’s half full. Then cover with cold water, add a lot of ice cubes and blend for less than a minute. We’re basically making a cannabis slushie at this stage. The agitation of the blender will snap off most of the now-brittle trichomes into the green frothy mixture, so the next step is filtration. Pour the mixture into your glass jar through the coffee filter or silk screen to get rid of the plant material, and you’ll be left with a greenish liquid and trichomes. Allow your jar to stand in the fridge for 30 minutes until all the suspended trichomes have fallen to the bottom of the container. Then, remove two thirds of the liquid being careful not to disturb the layer of goodness that’s settled at the bottom. If you’ve got more plant material to process, now’s the time. Make sure you keep filtering it into the same jar, so you only have to collect the trichomes once at the end. Put your jar in the freezer for 10 minutes before pouring the contents through a paper coffee filter into your second jar. The trichomes will collect on the paper. Dry the filter for at least 12 hours to several days and you’re done!

This method may seem completely counterintuitive (Add water? To MY cannabis?!), but don’t worry – science is on your side!

Pro Tip: After the first filtration through the metal filter or silk screen, you might want to put the contents of the jar back in the blender for one last whiz. This should further purify your end product. You might also try blending your discarded plant mush one last time to collect any remaining trichomes. Don’t add this to your first filtration product, as it will be much worse quality, but still better than the shitty soapbar available.

Method #5 – Using Hash Bags

For: The small time to semi-pro grower or the semi-pro hash producer
Starting Material: At least an ounce (28 g) of bud, or 200 g of old leaves, stems and entire male plants
Effort: 5/10
Time Taken: 1 – 2 hours

This method certainly has the most overheads, but will produce the most potent hash and is essential if you want to process large quantities of herb. The yield is also pretty high, recovering 5 – 7 g of goodness per 28 g of weed, separated by quality. If you’re using unwanted plant material, 200 g could net around 5 to 20 g, largely depending on the quality of the plant matter. Hash bags combine the best features of the blender method and sieving, using the cold to make the trichomes brittle and snapping them off with agitation from the sieve. For this, you’ll need a fucktonne of ice, two impeccably clean 20 l buckets, an electric hand whisk and a Hash Bag kit. These are comprised of many bags made out of different sized mesh screens that fit inside each other, and tend to be pretty pricey, but if you’re serious about hash, this is the way to go. Hash produced in this way is often referred to as “bubble hash” because it’s so awesome that it bubbles when it’s burned.

To start, freeze as much water as possible. Fill up ice cube trays, empty drinks bottles or whatever else is suitable and bang them in the freezer. Once you have enough ice for an igloo with a garage, empty the ice into one of your buckets, add your herb and top up with cold water. Now whisk the shit out it. You can whisk for as little as 15 minutes to over an hour, but remember, the more you whisk, the more you sacrifice quality for quantity. 45 minutes should be plenty. Also, take breaks every so often and allow the contents of your bucket to settle. Once the mixing is done, add your “work bag” (the bag with the biggest holes, usually between 200 – 250 microns) to your second bucket, and pour the contents of the first bucket into it. Remove the bag from the second bucket, squeeze as much water out as possible and set it aside for a second wash later. Now your first bucket is empty, arrange your other bags inside it so that the one with the smallest holes goes in first and the one with the biggest holes goes in last, then pour the green water from bucket #2 through the bags. As the holes in the final bag are so small, it will take some time to drain so be patient. The idea is that the multiple screens will automatically grade your trichomes by size, so that the more potent material will be found in the last bag and the least potent, more leafy material will end up in the top. Lift out all the bags in one go and set them aside. Stick your work bag back in bucket #2 (the empty one) and pour the green liquid from bucket #1 through it. Squeeze the bag once more to get as much water out as possible and set it aside for the last time. Place your hash bags back in bucket #1 and pour the liquid now in bucket #2 through them as before. Now you can remove the bags from the bucket, separate them out and scrape up the gunk from the screens. Place your wet kief on some paper, dab off excess moisture with some tissue and allow to dry for at least 12 hours to several days.

Pro tip: There are no pro tips, other than “use this method because it’s already awesome”.

Funking It Up

Why not add a bit of funk to your hash? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just adding a pinch of this or a pinch of that. We need pure chemicals whose dosage is know beforehand. Before you add anything, you need to weigh your kief so you know exactly how much hash you’ll end up with and you need to work out how much an average dose of hash weighs (you do weigh your weed, right?) You can then work out how many doses that hash will give you by dividing the total weight by your dose. When you know how many doses you’ve got, you can then multiply that number by the suggested dose of your additive, so you know exactly how much to add. Then you can blend it all together and get on with the pressing.

So what might be a useful addition? Here are a couple:

Synthetic cannabinoids such as JWH-018

This would give your hash more kick so you can use less of it. You’d only need 0.5 – 1 mg per dose. Read up on it here .

95% Mesembrine from Sceletium tortuosum

Sceletium tortuosum, or Kanna has a known synergy with cannabis, which is particularly useful for those with a large tolerance. You’d only need 15 – 20 mg per dose. Read up on it here.

Pro tip: If you’re adding large quantities of a certain additive, it will make your hash more crumbly. Add a little alcohol to your mixture before you press it to help it stick together.

Pressing Your Trichomes

Method #1 – Use lots of force

If you’ve only got a small amount of kief to press, you might want to buy a hash press for cheap. You basically pour your material in the empty press, assemble all the parts and screw it together as tightly as you can. Then just leave it for a week or two and open. The cheaper presses tend to break after a few uses, so you might want to get one for a bit more money if you plan on regularly pressing small amounts of kief (the lazy pot smoker, I’m talking to you).

Pro tip: Try tightening it some more every day.

Method #2 – Use heat

If you’re pressing a hefty quantity of material, pressing might not be an option, especially if you’ve only got a small press. For this method, you’ll need to cut a template out of cardboard that will be the shape of your hash bar. Next, wrap some heavy duty plastic wrap around the cardboard to make a kind of loose bag, and remove the cardboard. Then fill your bag with kief and seal. Next, wrap the bag in several layers of wet newspaper and place in a frying pan. Turn the heat on low making sure the paper stays wet all the time and turn every couple of minutes. Eventually the trichomes will melt together. When they do, remove the package from the pan, transfer to a flat worktop and roll with a rolling pin for at least half an hour. Stick your flattened parcel into the freezer for a bit to cool down and unwrap.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Always wear gloves when handling your kief. If you don’t it sticks all over your hands and you’ll never recover all of it
• Freezing your kief before you press it will force all of the water out of it into a frosty coating. This can then be dabbed off with tissue as it melts. Water in your hash could lead to mould if you plan on storing it, so if you’ve used one of the “wet” methods to collect your trichomes, this might be a good idea. Remember to air dry once again after freezing to ensure there’s no moisture in there at all.
• If you plan on smoking your hash in a joint, be sure to crumble it up into grains as small as possible. Anything over 1 mm might fall out of the doob and burn holes in your clothes and you.

The other day, everyone’s favourite advisory council, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), decided that “harms of the synthetic cannabinoids” in Spice and similar (fucking powerful) smoking mixtures “are broadly commensurate with those of cannabis and that they should be classified accordingly.” Apparently, “they have no recognised medical use“, which of course means we must ban them straight away! You can read the full report here [PDF; 128 kb] (except the bits that are withheld from the public… perhaps we can’t handle the truth?!).

Let us pause for a moment to consider the numerous medical applications of tobacco & alcohol… Oh, wait! What’s that, ACMD? There are none?! Didn’t think so. Apart from the blatant double standards, let’s talk about why they’re wrong.

Medical Marajuana: By the looks of these doobs, this patient probably has Parkinson's

Cannabinoids bind to cannabinoid receptors in your brain and immune system. These includes the synthetics, such as JWH-018, THC in cannabis and of course our body’s own cannabinoid compounds (called endocannabinoids, which include Anandamide and many others). The fact that our body not only has these receptors, but also produces compounds to act on them means they’re important, otherwise they wouldn’t have evolved. Unfortunately, research into the cannabinoid system is difficult, because cannabis is illegal, so synthetic cannabinoids which aren’t flat-out illegal are a useful tool in the lab, both to help us learn more about the cannabinoid system and related processes such as feeding & anxiety, and in the quest to develop new drugs. Also, if very little research has been conducted using these compounds about to be banned, it’s no wonder that no specific medical uses have been discovered! These things take time.

One more interesting point… Cannabis itself has medical uses, so how can these similar compounds have none? In fact, just today, the BBC reported that Cannabis may prevent Osteoporosis. I’m not going to list all the medical reasons for legalising cannabis, because I’d be writing all day. If it had no uses what so ever, why do medical dispensaries exist in the US? Banning these compounds is a massive step backwards for medical science.

Needless to say, this has been picked up by a shitload of big news outlets, including The Guardian, The Metro, Sky News, BBC Radio 1 and The Times (who listed Coffeesh0p as a source! It’s a poor article, but christ, that cheered me up!)  A lot of those sites allow users to comment under the article, so let’s take a look at a few:

Simple solution to stop people using Spice –
Legalise cannabis.
Sorted.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Banning a drug because of its “potential harm” with little research is laughable, especially seeing as it is reported to have similiar effectto cannabis of all things.

Is anyone able to explain whats implicitly wrong with psychoactive drugs in the first place?

I fail to see why spice should be banned without any evidence that it is dangerous. It seems to me our government just doesn’t like people getting high, probably incase they start thinking.

The powers that be like to control us, in other words – if it makes you feel good, or gives you some happiness, then ban it.

The stresses of paying tax are bad for me. Are they going to ban that too?

Everything we eat or do kill us slowly. Air kills us, although slowly. Time kills us. How much are they going to ban? Let people do what they want with their bodies, that is the meaning of life. If I want to smoke cannaboloids [sic] with chemicals on it, slap a warning on there and let me decide.

If they are going to ban this stuff for health reasons then they HAVE to ban alcohol and tobacco too, as they are just as, if not more, dangerous – except, of course, they provide the Govt with Tax..

Well we can’t have people getting high on anything but alcohol now can we?
After all it’s America’s recreational drug of choice and the UK’s too.

Now, these aren’t from threads found on pro-drugs forums, or comments under a pro-drugs blog, these are comments under actual articles on massive news sites. Not just one site, but all of those sites I mentioned that allow comments. I’m not saying that the internet-savvy people that’re likely to leave comments are representative of the population as a whole, but surely it says something about what the people want? I don’t think I’ll bother voting next time.  Seriously.

In short, it looks like our Smoking Mixtures section won’t be around for too much longer. Get them while you can!

Cannabis is now Class B

Don’t worry though! Our awesome Smoking Mixtures do the trick and are totally legal!
According to our government, amphetamine (speed) is as bad for us as cannabis – what other message could reclassification send?

Your typical cannabis smoker tends to

1. stay indoors
2. chillax
3. get through a lot of crisps

Your typical whizzkid tends to

1. go out a lot
2. get somewhat overconfident and aggressive
3. listen to awesome drum ‘n’ bass
4. approach the speed of light (literally*)

*Not literally

I’m not necessarily knocking amphetamine or it’s users, just pointing out that drugs are a class apart. Oh no, wait.

Check out the (now out of date) graph below, placing drugs from most harmful on the left to least harmful on the right.The score assigned to each drug takes into account harm to yourself and to society as a whole, and what’s that… alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than the class A drugs LSD and ecstasy! Considering that the link between cannabis and schizophrenia is as tenuous as ever (why isn’t the Netherlands one big psych ward?), why is our government ignoring it’s own scientists? Religion has more regard for evidence than Mr. Brown (and that’s saying something!) If you want to learn more about just how stupid our current classification system is, you can watch this episode of BBC’s Horizon, which tackles each drug in turn. (49 mins)

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

This recipe is just a quick one to follow on from the cannabutter and infamous hash brownie recipe I posted recently. Even without the cannabutter, these cookies are amazing. Here goes:

Method

1. First, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add the egg, vanilla essence, flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and fold in.
3. Next, add the cereal and chocolate and mix thoroughly.
4. Drop small spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray, around 5cm/2in apart.
5. Bake at 180ºC (350F or Gas Mark 4) for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy!

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

Introduction

Although I do say so myself, this is the ULTIMATE Hash Brownie recipe. So good in fact, we recommend trying them without Cannabis Butter, because you’ll want to eat so many of them. They’re very moreish so take care if you do make the cannabis version – it can take up to 45 minutes to feel the effects, so don’t just eat more and more – it could get very messy! If you want to learn how to make hash brownies, this is the article for you.

Ingredients

Hash Brownies

• 4oz (115g) Cannabis Butter
• 2oz (60g) Self Raising Flour
• 8oz (225g) Soft Brown Sugar
• 1.5oz (45g) Cocoa Powder (NOT Drinking Chocolate Powder)
• 1oz (30g) Ground Almonds
• 2 Eggs
• Grated Rind Of One Large Orange (Important!)
• 1/2tsp Baking Powder

Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

Making icing for a cake really isn’t an exact science – it’s difficult to give amounts as you may have a different sized baking tray meaning more or less brownies, or you may just have a different personal preference. The following amounts are a guideline so feel free to tweak as you wish!

• 4oz (115g) NORMAL Butter or Margarine
• 1 – 2oz (30 – 60g) Cocoa Powder
• 8 – 10oz (225 – 285g) Icing (Powdered/Confectioners) Sugar
• 2tsp Water, as needed
• Maltesers (optional, but totally worth it)

Equipment

• Kitchen Scales
• Sieve
• Large mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Shallow baking tray
• Greaseproof paper / Wax paper

Method – Hash Brownie Base

1. First, sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the ground almonds, sugar and orange rind and mix together well.
3. Next, add the butter and eggs and beat the mixture together until smooth.
4. Bake at 150ºC (300F or Gas Mark 2), in a shallow dish, greased and lined with greaseproof (wax) paper for 50 – 55 minutes.

Method – Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

1. Just mix together the ingredients in a bowl and spread over the top of the brownie.
2. As an optional tasty extra, smash up a couple of packets of Maltesers and sprinkle them over the top. Do this straight away so they will stick in the icing rather than just fall off when you try and take a bite!
3. Cut into at least 16 pieces and serve! If it’s your first time cooking with cannabis, be sensible and don’t have more than one or two in the space of an hour, no matter how absolutely fantastic they taste.

Enjoy!

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

Introduction

This recipe produces a small amount of cannabis-infused butter, or cannabutter, which can be used in a massive range of recipes to add that extra kick! If your recipe requires more butter than the amounts given here, feel free to multiply up all the amounts.

Ingredients

• 4oz (115g) Butter or Margarine
• 1/8oz (3.5g) Cannabis buds/hash OR
• 1/4oz (7g) Cannabis leaves

Equipment

• Small saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• Sieve (optional)

Method

1. Melt the butter slowly in a pan. Add 1/8 oz (3.5g) finely ground cannabis, and simmer on a low heat for around 30 minutes. This allows the cannabis to infuse fully into the butter. Take care to keep the heat low, and stir continuously as the butter can burn easily.
2. After 30 minutes, pour the butter into a jug or tub. As you do this, if you want to remove the bud/hash/leaf, you can pass it through a fine sieve. You won’t be wasting any “good stuff”, since all the THC should have dissolved into the butter, but if you don’t mind getting green bits in your teeth, you can just as easily leave it in.
3. Allow the cannabutter to set for around an hour, or until relatively hard, before using.