Can Weed Stems Get You High? Are You Missing Out on an Exciting Buzz?
You’ve finally puffed your way through your entire weed stash. Now looking at your stash jar, all you can spot are those lingering bits of cannabis weed stems.
So a light bulb goes on in your head, and you decide to grind up those weed stems, roll them nicely in a joint and smoke away. But hold your horses. We’re afraid you’re not on the nose with this one.
The debate as to whether or not you can smoke weed stems is a raging one in the cannabis consumption realm. Suppose you scour any cannabis forums, you’ll get different opinions on the topic. But everyone seems to agree that smoking weed stems are a giant pain in the neck, not just figuratively but also literally.
First, there’s that fit of coughing you have to endure and secondly, you won’t be rewarded by any psychoactive effects. So do stems get you high? No.
Cannabis stems do not have the same makeup as cannabis flowers—hence their inability to get you high.
But that doesn’t speak to their worthlessness. You can still be economical with the stems in weed and find creative ways to get some worth out of them.
And in today’s guide, we’ll tell you some creative ways to milk your cannabis stems for everything their worth. That’s not all. We’ll also answer the burning question: “can weed stems get you high?”
What Are Weed Stems?
Weed stems are tiny stalky, stick-like pieces that can sometimes be found in your cannabis flower.
Usually, when you buy your favourite buds, you’ll get dense buds covered in resinous trichomes, but depending on the quality of your flower, you’ll end up with a lot or a few weed stems mixed in.
Do Stems Get You High (Do Cannabis Stems Contain THC?)
Do stems have THC? THC (or tetrahydrocannabinol) is the psychoactive compound in cannabis that gets you high. THC is usually found highly concentrated in the buds or flowers of cannabis plants.
Weed stems, on the other hand, contain cannabinoids in little to no concentration.
In fact, the levels may not be enough to get you high. So to answer the question, “can weed stems get you high?” The short answer is no. Since weed stems contain little to no THC, you’d need to smoke a boatload to begin to feel any psychoactive effects. The smoke will cause a lot of irritation to the throat and lungs as well.
The weed stems essentially act as fodder for the fire. The result will be big clouds of billowing smoke produced from the combustion.
When inhaled, this hot smoke will cause a burning sensation in the lungs and throat.
The fact that you’ll need a large amount of it to start feeling any psychoactive effects will only exacerbate the situation.
If you want to get higher and faster using little products, you’re better off smoking buds or vaping concentrates.
Can You Smoke Cannabis Weed Stems?
Can you smoke stems? As mentioned earlier, you can smoke weed stems. However, the matter of whether or not you should is an entirely different one.
Choking yourself while smoking isn’t worth it with the insignificant levels of THC and other cannabinoids found in weed stems.
The unpleasant effects and sometimes irreparable damage to your lungs make setting aside the weed stem joint an obvious choice.
Aside from severe lung damage, burning weed stems can release carcinogens and toxins that can increase your risk for heart disease and cancer.
Apart from the smoke-related effects, you can also develop other unpleasant symptoms, including
- Severe coughing fits
- Sore throats
- Raging headaches
If you love cannabis because of its robust scents and flavours, you won’t get any of that from weed stems. Instead, stems in weed burn to produce a pungent wood chip smell.
Other cannabis consumers on different cannabis forums have admitted to unpleasant experiences after smoking weed stems, including nausea, abdominal pain and gastrointestinal symptoms.
What About Cannabis Seeds?
Yes, you can crush cannabis seeds and smoke them. But no, you shouldn’t smoke cannabis seeds. Marijuana seeds contain very little THC—not nearly enough to get you high.
The acrid smoke can cause serious irritation, resulting in severe throat infections or persistent cough fits.
And like with smoking weed stems, smoking cannabis seeds may also lead to vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain and gastrointestinal complications.
Moreover, marijuana seeds have been known to pop up and crackle when ignited. The unpleasant jumping up and down of the ignited seed can lead to an unpleasant toking session.
To avoid all this unpleasantness, take a moment to pick the cannabis seed out of your trim before rolling up your joint.
Although the seeds aren’t worth smoking, that doesn’t mean they’re entirely worth nothing. Growing your cannabis is legal in most provinces in Canada. So planting those seeds can help you get some extra stash.
How to Prepare Your Cannabis Stems for Use
Just like cannabis seeds can be useful, so can weed stems. But for the matter of “can weed stems get you high?” the answer is a probable no.
But if you want to milk your weed stems for all the cannabinoids they’re worth; there are safer ways of consuming them.
You could brew it with your tea or use it to make cannabis butter and other topicals. More on this later. But before you get cooking, you’ll need to do a couple of preparations.
Collecting the stems first is a great place to start if you don’t have the stems on hand. Next, dedicate a jar that you will use to store any stems you separate from your cannabis haul.
Over time you’ll have enough stems worth the long extraction process.
With your weed stems on hand, you first need to activate the cannabinoids in the stem. This process is called decarboxylation.
Decarboxylating Cannabis Stems for Alternative Consumption
Decarboxylation exposes cannabis to certain temperatures so that cannabinoids can be transformed from inactive to active.
Without this process, psychoactive compounds will be absorbed into our systems, and we wouldn’t notice any changes.
A great example of such a transformation is the activation of the compound THCA to the psychoactive THC.
You can easily decarboxylate your weed stems in your oven.
To do that, follow the steps highlighted below:
- Preheat your oven to 235 degrees Fahrenheit
- Spread your weed stems on parchment paper on the baking tray
- Allow the weed stems slowly bake in the oven for the next 45 minutes
- They’ll be ready when they change colour to a brown tinge. You’ll also smell the characteristic weed scent.
Take care not to leave your weed stems in the oven for too long. Higher temperatures or prolonged exposure to heat may lead to denaturing of essential cannabinoids.
How to Alternatively Consume Weed Stems
Now that you have activated weed stems, here are ways to make a worthy delicacy.
Cannabis Stem Tea
Ready to awaken the barrister in you? To brew your weed stems, you’ll need to grind them.
Then, once they’re nicely ground, you can put them in a tea diffuser and mix them with your favourite tea herbs or brew them as is.
Once the metal tea ball is locked and loaded, leave it steep in boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes.
Then, place a coffee filter over your favourite tea cup and pour to strain the herbs out.
Your steaming cup bursting with umami goodness is now ready for sipping.
Cannabutter
Cannabutter is a popular ingredient in the making of edibles. It’s usually used as a potent substitute for butter as it’s, in essence, butter infused with THC.
Though the weed stems won’t increase your butter’s potency, you can include them with your flowers to add some umami flavours to your final products.
Slow-boil butter mixed with decarboxylated weed stems and flowers on the stovetop to make cannabutter.
As the boiling continues, the cannabinoid and THC will infuse into the butter fat, resulting in a cannabinoid-rich butter.
You can then strain out the herbs using a cheesecloth.
Cannabis Stem Body Oils and Topicals
Cannabis salves, topicals and body oils are gaining popularity because they deliver the many benefits of cannabinoids directly to the ailing spot in the body.
Following the steps below, you can make your batch of body oils and topicals from cannabis stems.
However, to ensure your batch is potent, you’ll need to mix buds with your cannabis stems as you decarboxylate.
- Set your cooker to low heat and place a pan on top
- Add some coconut, oil, or shea butter to the pan and let it melt
- Once the oil has melted, add in the ground stems and nug
- Start stirring the mixture regularly as you let it stay on the cooker for 30 minutes
- Secure a cheesecloth over the storage container you’ll use to store your oil.
- Strain the mixture through the cheesecloth.
- You can discard the strained herbs, then let your cannabis topical cool before storing or using it.
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