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Oprah Explains Her Perfect Date Night And It’s So Oprah

Oprah, one of the richest humans on the planet, is treasured in all corners of the world. People love her show, her magazine, her movies, her cooking. They also want her to be president (even though she never asked for that). Among all of her talents, Oprah is also treasured for her advice. It’s no surprise then that on a recent Instagram Q&A, she was asked for her idea of a perfect date.

On O, The Oprah Magazine‘s Instagram, the famous TV personality discussed a ton of things, which you can find on the magazine’s profile highlights.

The video that went viral featured her reply to the perfect date question, where she explains that on her perfect date, she’d cook for her long time partner, Stedman Graham, who loves everything she makes.

“My favorite date night is to make him black-eyed peas and cornbread as a surprise for dinner,”she says, explaining that nothing too fancy is needed. “Me cooking, and then it’s on.” Oprah’s certainty is a little bit intimidating because it’s just cornbread and peas, right? How good can they be?

If you want to be a master of seduction just like Oprah , you can check out some of her recipes on her website. Specifically, take a peek at the cornbread and black eyed peas because we have to know what’s in those.

Different Ways You Can Consume Cannabis

With so many new ways to consume cannabis evolving around every corner, we decided to break down the most tried and truly reliable methods.

Smoking And Vaping

Smoking, vaping, or otherwise inhaling marijuana is the quickest way to feel its effects. Users feel euphoria envelop them within minutes of consumption. However, regardless of what is said to the contrary, smoking or vaping anything is not healthy for the lungs. Smoking cannabis in its pure flower form is healthier than smoking a cigarette that contains tar, nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, lead, arsenic, ammonia and hundreds of other cancer-causing chemicals — but that does not mean smoking cannabis is healthy.

While there are few long-term studies, which determine how unhealthy it can be, it has not been proven safe.

Some patients feel the benefits outweigh the risks, or the ends justify the means. The same way many pills produced by Big Pharma have unpleasant side effects, which nefariously lead to taking more pills (For example, a person covered in hives may be willing to accept heartburn as a side effect of antihistamines), having a coughing fit after a bong or bowl hit has become an acceptable, cultural norm. Inhaling is definitely not recommended for anyone with asthma. Enter sublingual tinctures and edibles.

Edibles

Edibles take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes before a patient begins to feel the effects of consuming cannabis orally. Taking a second helping has led to incalculable, epic edible fails. Tales of a friend who was cautioned to eat only one cookie, brownie (“space cake”), or gummy, but ate more because he did not feel the effects yet, are the stuff of suburban legend.

While the effects of consuming edible cannabis take much longer to kick in, the feeling also lasts hours longer than smoking cannabis. Additionally, there is the discretion factor. No one’s clothes, hair, and skin will stink (from several feet away) like Cheech and Chong, from eating a pot brownie.

RELATED: Differences In Marijuana Highs: Flowers, Edibles and Concentrates

Fledgling edible consumers should proceed cautiously. When eating a pre-packaged pot-infused product, adhere to the recommended serving suggestion.

The “high” that users experience by eating marijuana is more of a “body” buzz, rather than a cerebral one. Too much consumption will turn even an experienced consumer into a couch or bed potato.

Another difference, besides how long the effects take to kick in, and how long those effects will last, is that the energizing and sedative differences between Sativa and Indica strains are usually not present in edibles. Unless a manufactured edible specifies which strain(s) of cannabis it contains, chances are most edibles are made from “shake.” Think of shake as the ground beef of cannabis. Who knows what is really in it? It is the leftover scraps, trimmings and weed dust, not the best commercially-viable, juicy bud.

Candies

Another category of cannabis consumption is candies and lozenges. Neither work as fast as smoking or vaping cannabis, but usually work slightly quicker than eating other edibles; although, it is somewhat counter-intuitive to consume medicine in a sugary piece of candy, especially at night.

Sensi Chew has a whole line of CBD “candy,” from chocolate chews to gummy bears. However, as Dr. Anna Folckomer, a licensed acupuncturist and board-certified herbalist, points out, “Regarding eating sugar at night, your insulin cycle follows circadian rhythms and light exposure. We are less sensitive to insulin at night, and it is hypothesized that timing meals with insulin sensitivity would be a game changer in the onset of diabetes. Your body knows how to use glucose for fuel during daylight hours, but due to decreased sensitivity at night, it tends to store it for later.”

RELATED: Marijuana Dabs 101: A Guide to Your First Time

One tiny THC-infused bon-bon at night might not be critical; but why not avoid the sugar before bedtime altogether, and take pure sublingual drops?

Sublingual Drops

Some restricted medical marijuana dispensaries only carry sublingual drops, which make them a patient’s go-to, by default. Drops are pretty powerful, but are not as fast-acting as inhaling, but faster than other edibles. Drops are best consumed about an hour before bedtime. A dropper full of liquid held under the tongue for 90 seconds is the best method of consumption. Merely swallowing it, without waiting for at least a minute, will dilute its effectiveness, because stomach acid will destroy the effectiveness of the dose. Allowing the infused liquid to assimilate into the body via the mucosa under the tongue’s frenulum will provide delivery more rapidly and effectively.

Drinking

With all the beer and liquor companies rushing to cash in on cannabis (to neutralize their biggest recreational competitors), pretty soon a whole slew of cannabis beverages will be on the market. For now, pioneering companies like Keef make THC-soda and sparkling water.  Keef Life contains 100mg of THC, with a built-in dosing cap. It can be added to any (non-alcoholic) beverage, or consumed by itself.

Finding a preferable method to consume cannabis is always a personal choice.

Rapper Tyga Teases New Weed Strain

You may be wondering at this point in time if there are any rappers left to join the cannabis industry, but it appears that none other than Tyga is ready to take his turn in line. Tyga’s career is experiencing a second wind, thanks to the Offset-assisted single “Taste,”,  which you’ve undoubtedly heard on the radio. Recently, rapper Tyga teases a new weed strain, a tie-in to the song also called Taste.

Tyga posted a picture of himself inside a grow room with the caption, “Lil babies @tastekush coming soon.” The Instagram page Tyga links to is for what looks like a new cannabis business.

Filling the page are pictures of a similar-looking grow room that Tyga appears in. In fact, the first post from the company back on June 26 features Tyga as well, with his arms over his head, and a caption that simply reads, “#TasteKush.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_t9DqHrvO/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkgXiD_AZwz/

Scrolling through the company’s Instagram page reveals other possible clues. “Everyone stay tuned @tastekush is coming strong, exclusive taste kush strain only by us, and the first drop will be coming very soon,” reads one post, which is tagged ADCC Dispensary, hinting where interested parties might find the upcoming Taste Kush.

Another post reads, “The future is looking green. #Tastekush dropping soon,” while Tyga’s “Taste” single plays in the background, solidifying the relationship between the two.

Rappers establishing their own cannabis strains isn’t exactly new, however. Wiz Khalifa, Freddie Gibbs, and Cam’ron have all experimented with one-off weed strains that bear their brand. But Tyga could also follow in the footsteps of Berner or Paul Wall, who used a cannabis strain to build a complete brand line of products around. Whether Tyga goes this way or not remains to be seen.

Study: Adolescents Who Use E-Cigs More Likely To Use Cannabis Later On

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The Journal Pediatrics conducted a study this year to see if younger teens who used common tobacco products were more likely to use cannabis a couple years later. The results showed that heavier e-cigarette use meant higher odds of heavy cannabis use down the line for younger adolescents.

The study abstract conclusion was this, “E-cigarette use predicts subsequent marijuana use among youth, with a stronger associations among young adolescents. Reducing youth access to e-cigarettes may decrease downstream marijuana use.”

There are many factors at play, however, and one thing holding us back from coming to any conclusions on the real dangers and factors at work here is that cannabis is federally considered a Schedule I drug, which means that from flowers to vaping to comparative studies, we won’t learn nearly enough until it’s freed from its restrictive status.

We’re in an era of vaping, however, mostly e-cigarettes as far as population ratio is concerned, but also deeply in the cannabis community. Vaping is simply all the rage and when a substance becomes popular in our culture, it’s conceivable that impressionable and curious adolescents and teens are going to experiment and use them whenever they can get their hands on them.

While the use of cannabis is not encouraged in the minor population, unless the kid has a malady that requires the herb’s medical benefits, nicotine, even in an e-cigarette, has proven to be far more addictive than cannabis could ever be. It also causes lung cancer, whereas cannabis is shown to reduce cancer cells. There has also never been a case of lung cancer or COPD that was associated with cannabis use alone.

And while adolescents will be adolescents, which means a good deal of that good ol’ fashioned experimentation, we don’t want our kids smoking or vaping anything at such a developmental age. The study, however, only shows us the data, not the solution (aside from the advice that we reduce youth access to e-cigs).

Many people believe that vaping nicotine is a safer method of smoking because of the lack of carcinogens and chemicals associated with smoked cigarettes. However, there needs to be more studies done on the effects of e-cigarettes and how they affect lungs of all ages. As for vaping cannabis, well, again, we don’t want our kids vaping at a young age, but there are a lot of “buts” when it comes to cannabis and once it’s taken off its Schedule I, we can study its many facets without impediment.

Inside Jimmy Kimmel’s Dr. Quinn, Medicinal Marijuana Woman

Reboots are all the rage these days, whether it be in TV or movies. Heck, even The Karate Kid got rebooted on YouTube as Cobra Kai. The key to a successful reboot is shifting a few key variables that updates the original premise to contemporary settings, but doesn’t corrupt its nostalgic allure. A new one could be on the way – Jimmy Kimmel’s Dr Quinn, Medical Marijuana Woman

In that spirit, Jimmy Kimmel decided a certain TV series needed a green-thumb tweak of sorts. “Frasier Crane isn’t the only TV doctor from the ’90s who deserves new life,” Kimmel says. Enter a faux-promo for Dr. Quinn, Medicinal Marijuana Woman, a spoof on the Jane Seymour vehicle popular in the ’90s for its progressive themes and historical setting.

“New trails are about to get blazed,” Seymour narrates in the spoof.

We watch Seymour reprising her Dr. Quinn role as a traveling weed dispensary, reminiscent of The Guy from HBO’s “High Maintenance.” Dr. Quinn rides into tow to treat a man experiencing “so much cholera.” To combat his ails, we see her “Best in the West” medicinal marijuana. Names include Cornbread Kush, Calamity Mary Jane, Wyatt Earple Haze, Pineapple Pony Express, Doc’s Holiday, and more.

Asked on Buzzfeed News’ “Profile” about an actual reboot, Seymour responded enthusiastically: “We wish!…They have brought back absolutely everything, I have no idea why they wouldn’t bring this back…people all over the world, all cultures, love ‘Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman’…It’s so relevant to today, it could not be more relevant.”

People Are Now Getting Plastic Surgery To Look Like Snapchat Filters

Welcome to the future, where instead of using photo filters where they belong (on social media), people are using them as a template for what they want to look like IRL.

It’s called “Snapchat dysmorphia” and according to a study published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, the desire to look like a filtered version of oneself is a growing trend.

Today, with apps like Snapchat and Facetune, that same level of perfection is accessible to everyone. Now, it is not just celebrities propagating beauty standards: it is a classmate, a coworker, or a friend. The pervasiveness of these filtered images can take a toll on one’s self esteem, make one feel inadequate for not looking a certain way in the real world, and may even act as a trigger and lead to body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).

The article, written by doctors from Boston University School of Medicine’s department of dermatology calls this an “alarming trend because those filtered selfies often present an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy for these patients.”

The paper notes that plastic surgeons first identified this trend in 2017. Current data show that 55 percent of surgeons report seeing patients who request surgery to improve their appearance in selfies, up from 42 percent in 2015.

Researchers say that while adding flowers or animal ears to a photo can be innocent fun, other edits may actually increase pressure to attain an unattainable look.

It can be argued that these apps are making us lose touch with reality because we expect to look perfectly primped and filtered in real life as well. Filtered selfies especially can have harmful effects on adolescents or those with BDD because these groups may more severely internalize this beauty standard. It is important for clinicians to understand the implications of social media on body image and self-esteem to better treat and counsel their patients.

80-Year-Old Granny Jailed Because Her MMJ Card Expired

For the first time in her existence, 80-year-old Delores Saltzman from Clare County, Michigan spent a night in jail. It began on June 13, when Deputy Ashley Gruno came to Salzman’s front door, looking for her great-granddaughter and to return a lost phone and ID. When Deputy Gruno smelled marijuana coming from the residence, she inquired to find that the pot was indeed Dolores Saltzman’s — and her medical marijuana card was expired.

After a search of the Saltzman home, the Sheriff’s deputy found “7 marijuana pipes, 4 joints, a grinder, and a purple glass jar that also held a quantity of marijuana inside,” according to a statement released by the Clare County Prosecutor to Fox 17. All together it equalled less than an eighth of an ounce of cannabis.

After the house search, Deputy Gruno helped Saltzman with tidying up the kitchen, at the conclusion of which, Saltzman said, “Are you ready hon? Let’s go.” Gruno handcuffed the great-grandmother in the back of the car and did not read her Miranda rights.

Luckily, Saltzman was released the following day and once she renewed her medical marijuana card, the charges were dropped without prejudice. However, Saltzman and her son Mark said that “[cannabis] worked up her appetite when she was sick; helped her heal after surgeries; and eases her pain from ongoing health conditions. [We] are disturbed a deputy jailed her overnight for using her medicine.”

Clare County Sheriff John Wilson wrote an additional statement, “What the person was doing was illegal, had she renewed her medical marijuana card she would have been fine. I agree with the action the prosecutors office and allowing the subject to renew her card, thus dismissing the case. The person was illegally in possession of marijuana.”

No one should be arrested for the simple act of using cannabis, and especially in such a demonstrably medical situation. Aside from the reasons for which Saltzman stated she uses medical marijuana, she also suffered from severe anxiety during the whole ordeal. She spent the night in pain, in a jail cell, away from her medication, all because of an expired medical card.

While the tides are turning in the direction of the cannabis stigma being lifted, there is bound to be confusion about the intricacies of the laws state to state. And while it’s good that the charges were dropped without prejudice, the question remains if she should ever have been arrested in the first place. She was technically outside the law, but also clearly a patient.

Saltzman told Fox 17 that she hopes getting her story out there helps others. “That’s what I want people to do: don’t be ashamed of something that’s going to help you feel better,” she stated proudly. Though chances are she’ll be keeping her mmj card current from now on…

Is A Marijuana Breathalyzer Finally A Reality?

With marijuana legalization taking hold in Canada and parts of the United States, it has become more important than ever for law enforcement to have a proper tool to gauge impairment. Because cannabis metabolizes in the human body in a way that is much different from alcohol, there has not been a roadside testing method that can effectively determine whether a motorist is actually driving high or just someone who has smoked weed at some point over the past month. But one California tech firm claims to have the solution. Oakland-based Hound Labs says it has finally perfected a roadside Breathalyzer test that makes it as easy to test for marijuana as it is for alcohol.

Up to this point, police have been forced to rely on the same field sobriety tests designed to spot alcohol impairment to try and catch stoned drivers. But these methods — walking a straight line, etc — are flawed and have been known to get innocent people jammed up on suspicion of drugged driving. However, the device created by Hound Labs will supposedly seal the scientific divide. The company’s breathalyzer, which tests for both alcohol and marijuana, can detect pot use within a couple of hours, according to NPR.

“When you find THC in breath, you can be pretty darn sure that somebody smoked pot in the last couple of hours,” Hound Labs CEO Mike Lynn told the news source. “And we don’t want to have people driving during that time period or, frankly, at a work site in a construction zone.”

If the test actually works, it would be a game changer. Canada’s law enforcement will be forced to use a 12-step drug recognition expert (DRE) evaluation when the country launches it recreational marijuana market later this year. As Forbes pointed out in a recent report, this method, which involves testing a person’s muscle tone and eyes, will likely put responsible cannabis users in a position of having to fight stoned driving charges.

“While some specific components of the DRE evaluation may have some correlation with recent cannabis use, many of these indicators may also be triggered by subjects who have not used cannabis at all,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director at NORML. “Moreover, other components of the test, such as the rigid muscle tone or pupil size, have no validation for cannabis. Ideally, both of these examinations should be amended and updated to better utilize measures that are validated for discerning subjects who may be under the influence of cannabis versus those who are not.”

So far, more than half the U.S. has legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. Still, police are out there rubbing two sticks together trying to figure out who is stoned behind the wheel. This is making it difficult to prosecute high driving cases in legal marijuana states.

So, an effective marijuana breathalyzer is certainly needed. But whether Hound Labs has actually achieved this remains to be seen. While the company’s roadside device is said to have the power to detect marijuana use within a couple of hours, it cannot tell how much THC was consumed. This means a person could take a hit off a joint or smoke it in its entirety – the results would turn out the same. This factor alone could be enough of a discrepancy for accused stoned drivers to challenge the results in court.

The company says law enforcement agencies will start testing the breathalyzer later this fall.

Somatik Founder Talks About His Quest To Normalize Cannabis

When I was 24,  I drank a homemade cannabis product dubbed “weed milk” — a sort of lumpy, dairy based liquid you were best served to take in room where you couldn’t actually see the consistency — and attended an avante-garde jazz concert. Alone or combined, neither of these activities were good ideas. I spent most of the evening high to the point of fear, hoping my friend wouldn’t stray too far so if I needed use the restroom they could hold my hand and walk me there.

I wish I was exaggerating, I wish that when I think back to an evening 14 years prior, my forehead wouldn’t break out in sweat. But it does. And I am not alone in an experience like this. For those who’ve consumed edibles in their lifetime, there has been that moment (I can think of three, maybe four off the top of my head) when you have incorrectly dosed yourself and you are trapped in a near psychedelic middle ground between real and altered states, curled into a necessary fetal position, willing your body to metabolize faster. Edibles, as many of us have experienced, can be dangerous — that is, if grasping for a hold on reality is a danger to you.

The recent spate of state legalization of weed has offered new and improved edible experiences. With legalization — and the lead up to it — comes regulation, and with regulation and packaging instructions, comes a better chance for consumers to properly consume the product. Even better, edibles aren’t just brownies your friend experimented with after a few glasses of wine; edibles are produced in test kitchens by people who care about both the flavor and the experience they’re providing. People like Somatik founder Christopher Schroeder and his partner (in business and life) Clayton Coker. Their products — cannabis-infused chocolate covered Ritual Coffee beans and goji berries (“Sparks”) and cannabis-infused iced coffee — aren’t just vessels for super-high experiences; they taste good, and, taken properly, they make you feel good, focused, productive even. And this is no accident.

Photos courtesy of Somatik

Before taking the leap and opening Somatik, Schroeder had ruptured two discs in his back. He’d buoyed his physical therapy with cannabis and the resulting experience turned on the lightbulb. “I can see why this works now,” he said of the experience, “and now I want to create a product that provides a more comfortable way to try it.” Smoking — cannabis or otherwise — connotes health risks, so edibles are an easier sell for those looking to give marijuana a try. Schroeder wanted to create a product that played up the “really good qualities of things people already have relationships with.” Things like coffee in the morning, or an iced beverage when it’s hot outside —routines that he saw as entry points for people to insert low-dose, high quality marijuana products into.

Eileen Rinaldi, the founder of San Francisco coffee roaster Ritual Coffee, had done something similar with her company and Schroeder was drawn to it. “It was a natural parallel,” he says, “industries that had taken a product and created a connoisseur version of it.” For Somatik, Schroeder wanted to normalize the idea of ingesting cannabis, like Rinaldi had normalized drinking high-end coffee. After talking, he thought maybe they could do something together, maybe they could try and bring his want of a high-quality, good-tasting, low-dose edible to the market. So they did.

Schroeder likes that the combination of coffee and THC is synergetic, the two working together on the brain’s receptors to get a “more euphoric feeling.”

Photos courtesy of Somatik

The purpose of Somatik’s products aren’t to knock you on your ass (though the potential is there), it’s for folks to be able to micro-dose, to control their high and with it feel a boost in their mood. It’s illegal for cannabis products to have additive supplements, so the combination of coffee and weed is the only way to add an energy factor to the marijuana experience. For Schroeder, though, it goes beyond this: “I’d love to see Somatik at people’s desk at work. They take a sip here, they take a sip there. It keeps you focused but without the physical stress.”

I’ve tried Somatik’s beans a few times and if you follow the helpful dosing guide on the side of the box, it works great. I felt focused and actually did some writing that wasn’t just descriptions of colors and doodles. My experience with the coffee — a probably too large amount prior to a terrifying film in a crowded theater — was more intense, the affects longer lasting and more debilitating. I’ll chalk that up to my choice of activity and probably not being overly careful about how much I consumed.

Talking to Schroeder and Clayton about their business is refreshing. It’s two people whose main strategy is “good quality things that taste good and make you feel good.” Two people who want to carve out a sustainable, consumer-friendly niche in a rapidly expanding market. They won’t stop with coffee and chocolate covered edibles; a wide variety of other beverages and products are already in the works. But they will stick to the plan: make tasty things that make you feel good.  And by doing so continue to pull the stereotype of edibles away from wide-eyed nights full of fear and avante-garde jazz. And for that, I think I can say thank you, for myself and for the rest of us.

US News Report On Cannabis Yet Another Sign Of The Times

In a vast spectrum of reporting that ranged in quotes from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) to the objections from Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), U.S. News released an article titled “Recreational Marijuana: A Business Boon for States?” on the pros and cons of legalization.

The main focuses were the economies in both Colorado, which legalized cannabis in 2012 and Massachusetts, legal since 2016. Big takeaways were that Colorado schools were benefitting from the tax revenues, and, social reform, such as keeping nonviolent “criminals” out of jail for cannabis related offenses, were crucial facets of the legalization movement.

The U.S. News is another mainstream news source in a parade of many to come out with extensive reporting on cannabis, and with good reason. Nine states and Washington D.C. have legalized recreational cannabis, while 30 states and D.C. have medical marijuana laws. Public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of cannabis related legislature and politicians on both sides of the isle have supportive opinions. Weed can no longer be ignored or poo pooed.

Scientific studies are coming in from around the world, making all the funding the U.S. government put toward negative research look foolish. It’s still nearly impossible to get FDA approval to research cannabis and its effects on our endocannabinoid systems, different diseases, inflammations and more. However, if the study aims to show the negative aspects of impairment, then it is much more likely to be funded and allowed into the annals.

It’s high time that researchers were given the chance to catch up to reporters, who have plenty of facts to work with, but more anecdotal evidence as to maladies than concrete science. Like the Biblical doubting Thomas, some of the hive needs to see in order to believe, and it’s not unreasonable. If the cannabis community were able to back of some of their most ambitious medical claims, they’d not only be adding the most important components to pharmacology to have been discovered in decades, if not ever, they would have definitely made their point.

For now, public education is still expanding, and a lot of the coverage out there is positive. There will still be groups like SAM that want to control the cannabis plant and when and how it’s allowed as long as the remains of pot prohibition stand, but thankfully there will also be groups like NORML as well as the general masses, who quite clearly want their cannabis, the tax revenue it generates and, above all, the justice it means for those who are or would be serving time or losing privileges over an innocuous weed.

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