Hey guys I have a question and where else could I get an honest answer but here? Lol I recently was trying to figure out who is right in the pro or con Rick Simpson naphtha oil debate. Some places keep mentioning that the naptha is never 100% removed after extraction and that lab tests of the oil and tests of urine samples of users confirm that naptha is ingested via the oil. And then there's all the testimonials of people who make it just the way Rick advises and dont give a second thought to these dangers. which one is right? is there any 100% safe way to make high quality oil for cancer etc with an absolute zero amount of harmful impurities? ( plant matter and chlorophyll isnt a big deal when your ingesting) Plus I've often seen that ricks extraction and end product can't be much better or purer then properly purged bho or iso or even a simple aged tincture. Wouldn't these all still have the same merit for medicinal patients as the naptha made oil?
I do know that Rick has suggested that you can also use ISO *highest % you can find 91-99 is common* to get a good extraction instead of Naptha, but I have also been keeping up with RSO info as it comes along and have heard a few contrary remarks about using alcohol to extract, as if it's grabbing up too much chlorophyll, diluting your oil. I guess if you did it using the qwiso method (frozen) it would pick up less chlorophyll, I usually make qwiso and have used alcohol 99% iso, to make oils for ingesting and also topical use. I have not worked with Naptha at all, so I have no experience with it, and can not tell you how potent or pure my oils are because I do not have a way to test them. Sadly, it seems most of us are just stuck having to guess right now, and are just lucky to be able to make any kind of oils, as there is limited access to real solid information. Some viable research is going on in other countries, and in the US as well, but until we get this thing fully out of the closet, we will not be able to get the answers we seek. There is a lot of complaints about people making and selling RSO that is not nearly pure enough for terminally ill patients to be relying on to save them. Probably from using trim instead of bud for the extraction.
Naptha is a dirty solvent compared to lab grade n-hexane, it has a bunch of different hydrocarbons with different boiling points, some higher than hexane. So, harder to purge, and more likely to leave nasties behind. After reading his instructions, he only says to heat purge! He doesn't even mention measuring the temperature. Do not do this, even with hexane oil the solvent remains after heat purging. I always re-dissolve the oil in ISO and evaporate, repeating at least once or twice. I wonder why Simpson makes his cancer medicine out of something so particularly carcinogenic. The only reason to use naptha is because it is cheaper than hexane.
Solvents are more or less impure.. That and the budget for a clean setup are what's keeping me off experimenting concentrates. I feel safer using flowers. If I could have access to lab tested stuff I would really enjoy for sure. This petroleum based product freaks me out.
I am still curious to know how much difference in potency there is between the concentrates made with solvents, and water hash (bubble bags).
I feel the same but I'm gonna dab for now. This wasn't ever really gonna be long term thing for me regardless if dabbing is safe or not I can't imagine to be 30 years old and still have time for this lol I see. And properly purged bho? Would that also need more iso washing before being pure medication for ailing patients? And could bho wax also be purged enough to be of benefit to a patient for topical, oral application?
I have used RS Oil and can attest to witnessing the merits of using cannabis oil for cancer treatment. I can also attest that using Ricks method for extraction is what I would consider far from perfect. The chlorophyll in the oil was overpowering and unpleasant, with large doses seemed to upset my stomach a bit. Mine was made with iso using Ricks method. If i was to do it again i would either do a qwiso or bho and decarb my oil. I really don't think in this case though that you have to use a solvent extraction, as long as you are up-taking mass quantities of cannabinoids the more the better. Solvent extracted oil just makes it easier to intake those quantities, imo you could make really strong coconut oil or butter and eat it it regularly it would just be more time consuming and not feasible for some who are really sick. Good luck Treatment of Alzheimers using decarb`d bho extracts: http://skunkpharmresearch.com/alzheimers-mom-and-cannabis/ Really good site for the kind of topics you are researching.
I have been researching a bit more about RSO this past days myself, so this thread is quite a coincidence. I have heard inumerous times about the medicinal properties of cannabis and its array of applications from food to fuel, but i've been thinking more and more about using a powerfull extract like RSO to eat (i don't want to dab into super tolerance) since the concentrated effect of the cannabinoids potentiate the medicinal properties of the plant. It was my understanding while researching that Rick Simpson just did his own version of thc extraction and in a trial-and-error kind of way. And about the potential harm of a wrongly performed purge, it seems that the oil balances that, much in the same way that smoking pure cannabis does not cause cancer like smoking tobacco because of it's anti-tumor properties. I also heard that RSO was 80% THC, and imo the concentration of cannabinoids is what provides the medical value and not the way you extract, right? If it is so, then, an extraction whether its an iso or butane extraction is as better as the concentration of THC. Does anyone know if it's possible to judge cannabinoid concentration by colour or density of the oil? This would bypass the need to run it through a lab.. back in 2000AC there weren't many ways to gauge this as well.
Disclaimer: I'm no expert on this It's actually cool that you link SkunkPharm. On that blog, there is actually a link to a podcast with Rick Simson and the writer of that blog(i forgot his name) as guests. Rick pretty much invented the oil in a modern sense. It's not new, people have been making oils from cannabis forever, but the backyard, DIY modern oil, Rick started it. This is why his method is so bad. Everyone else, took what he did, and ran with it. In this podcast, though, the guy from SkunkPharm blasts on Rick for using naptha, and in this conversation Rick pretty much says that the solvent doesn't matter. The important parts are 1. Flowers only 2. Strong indica strains 3. Decarb the oil 4. 90 grams over 90 days. Rick also mentions that his extraction process has changed a lot since he made the video everyone has seen. He also says some things that I don't think could be true. Like saying reclaim from vaporizers is the strongest oil there is lol. Here's a link to the podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/papsite-radio/2013/02/02/one-and-a-half-hours-of-sensibility
Does he says anything about evaluating potency of the oil? And when you say 90g over 90days, you mean, eat 1g/day of oil? Also, how do you decarb the oil? Same as with flowers?, heating at 120C in an oven?
lol...Check out my disclaimer once again. I suggest you go to the source with these types of questions. I'm looking through the previous shows for that podcast and there's a ton of info there, and it looks like they regularly do call ins. They talk specifically about this subject i.e. treating cancer with cannabis...a subject I know nothing about.
Quality of concentrate can be hard to pin down, viscosity and appearance of the oil can differ depending on its state of decarb and to a certain extent the strain. Rick does recommend ideally eating a gram of oil a day or more. If you use ricks method of extraction its decarb'ed as its purged, but letting the iso sit in there while you slowly cook it out is also how you extract all that plant matter that can upset your stomach or make pretty unpalatable unless you cap em. If you decarb say a bho oil you can heat it up at about 250 until the bubbles stop. The bubbles are the decarb actively taking place in your oil. At this point i would personally use a coconut oil base, and soy lechitin for maximum absorption, bio-availability, and homogenization for proper, consistent dosing. I have only seen bubble extracts in the 50% range (although i have seen pictures of really good bubble that i would guess exceeds the 60% ), solvent extractions without being lab refined can hit in the high 80's if test results are to be believed. That would make 25-30% higher cannabinoid concentration in solvent extractions favor a pretty general number as far as raw purity is concerned. Bubble hash though imo keeps a lot of flavor and "soul" of the plant by leaving the plant trichromes unmolested in mother natures glory. Under magnification really pure sifted hash looks like some beautiful crazy diamonds or something its GLORIOUS
You'll know naphtha isn't consistent, right? Its a collection of various hydrocarbons, and the mix is different depending on brand. we should specify that we are talking about light naphtha, contents boil at 90 degrees C or less; heavy naptha is completely unusable since its heaviers boil at 200 degrees C. The only light naphtha that i would not advise against would be Shellite which they have out in aussie-land, it's basically straight petroleum ether. Anything in America has too many heavies, at least of what I've looked into.
Yes ISO washing would work, but since butane has such a low boiling point many people just vacuum purge. I don't know whether it would be of benefit to a patient, is it the cannabinoid content supposed to be what makes these oils medicine? It'd be a shame if the cancer-fighting part of weed was polar and we are actually removing it when applying these methods
The studies I've read and seen referenced have attributed cancer stopping properties to cbd, which is fairly similar to thc. the polarites are slightly different because of the center ring in thc isn't connected in cbd: http://www.unodc.org/images/odccp/bulletin/bulletin_1964-01-01_4_page005_img002_large.gif So, based on the diagram the overall polarity should be close enough that they both will be dissolved by agressive non-polar solvents. I believe it, CBD, is hydrocarbon miscible, but I am not completely certain.
So the option for butane extractions stems from a higher cannabinoid concentration? And is it possible to achieve similar results with ethanol or other less hazardous solvents?
^ I have heard of people using d-limonene, a very nonpolar food-safe solvent. (Pure Gold from Tetralabs is 5% d-limo) It is only for edibles though, as the finished product cannot be smoked due to residual solvent. With a polar solvent like ethanol or isopropyl alcohol, the only thing you can really do is a quick wash. A friend of mine likes to make hash using an ice method, which he qwisos to make oil.
Ingesting and applying directly on skin? Most cancer patients have no desire to smoke anyway. But many cant ingest and need to apply on the skin for certain ailments. I've heard of people taking a dab of oil to knuckles for a month to cure gout and after the month is over the gout doesn't return even though after the month the user hasn't taken any oil! This plant rejuvenates our body!
