There are many ways to consume cannabis for recreational purposes. There’s smoking, vaping, dabs, topicals, suppositories, edibles, and sex lube, to name a few. (Actually, that might just about cover it. If you know some other way, I’d love to hear about it.)
But there’s one way to use the cannabis plant that you maybe haven’t thought of. It’s possible to juice cannabis, and it’s good for you even if it doesn’t get you high. (Cue the sound of numerous readers clicking off this webpage.)
I had heard about juicing cannabis for years before I tried it for the first time a couple of years ago. I was down at a farm in Southern Oregon to write a story about how CO2 oil is made, just as they were wrapping up harvest season. The marijuana matriarch of the farm was a woman named Mama Lou, and she recounted the challenges of keeping a house full of trimmers healthy and happy during the grueling slog of harvesting cannabis 12 to 14 hours a day. She showed me gallon-sized Ziplocs of frozen “canna juice,” which had been made with nothing more than a handful of wide, dark green shade leaf, AKA water leaf. These broad leaves have virtually no crystal on them, and thus little to no THC.
She showed me how she made it—grabbing handfuls of shade leaf, she rinsed them to remove any dust, pollen, and dirt, and then fed them through a juicer. The emerald green juice smelled like wheatgrass, and was so dark I couldn’t see the bottom of the shot glass she poured it into. After confirming once again the juice wasn’t going to get me stoned, we clinked glasses, and I shot it down. It wasn’t going to win any James Beard Awards for taste, but it was not horrible, just… grassy.
I asked her what she had used it for, and was surprised at her answer.
