I was just wondering if anyone out there knows of an alternative to tobacco for inclusion in smoking mixes? I've tried mint and a few other aromatic herbs, but have found that the burning temperature of aromatic herbs is too high, sometimes resulting in scorching of the bronchial tubes. Also, I want to avoid tobacco for health reasons, including the adverse mental health effects (refer to thread "Nicotine - the dark horse of Cannabis Psychosis"), as well as the better known reasons. Cheers.
well tobacco will hav a lower burning point than any substitute you look for. my mum uses marshmellow plant, and her friend uses parsley. i hate both of them, i have strongly enjoyed however minty or fruity tea infusions.
Basically it's like this, 30 years ago when we first smoked pot, the buds were so low in THC (compared to now), unclipped, and typically with some leaf - it wasn't necessary to cut it with tobacco. Probably the lower resin content also meant a lower burning temperature - which inherently reduced scorching of the bronchial tubes. Now with skunk, we have more resin, higher potency, higher burning temperature, and we have drifted towards a greater need to dilute the high potency skunk with lower burning temperature tobacco. It's not good. It seems that most non-tobacco smoking herbs are not as good as tobacco for mixing with Cannabis - although the tobacco of course is addictive and toxic. Perhaps it's worth considering what qualities tobacco has, and create an ideal non-tobacco alternative for mull, rather then expect that we will stumble across a suitable alternative. Most dried herbs are not suitable because the moisture content is too low (8 to 10%), often with a high essential oil content - which means the burning is too high to compliment highly resinous modern strains of Cannabis. If one looks at tobacco: it's a non aromatic leaf (some aromatics are added for flavour), it's cured, with a 20% moisture content in the finished product. These characteristics specifcally make it a better smokng product. Non-tobacco smoking products have included white beet leaf, sugar beet leaf, sunflower leaf, lettuce leaf and sugar cane leaf - which can all be cured to make a product that is similar to tobacco. But specifically without the nicotine. We need something like that for mull mixes.
White Sage never did me wrong, 50/50 mix with grass tastes very nice. You can make very tasty tea with it if you're that way inclined. Rasberry leaf is ok to smoke as well but not the best.
why would you not smoke straight stuff? isnt it just extra unnessecary smoke getting into your lungs?
Certainly cannabis leaf is preferable to tobacco. But the reality is that most pot is now premo quality bud so it has to be mixed with something else. Straight heads also have a high burning temperature that tends to scorch the throat when smoked in joints. So it needs to be cut with a non-tobacco alternative that cools the smoking mix to avoid that coarse throat burning effect.
mint is best when cured properly. get fresh mint and cured it in the oven and cut it up in strips, just like home grown tobbacco.
this might be helpful, its in the FAQ http://home.teleport.com/~howieb/smoking/smoke1.html know how and means to grow quality marijuana may be more widespread than it once was, and a larger portion of marijuana on the market may now be devoted to good pot than was once upon a time, but it's a far cry to claim that most pot these days is some sort of superbud. at least in north america, the backbone of the marijuana market lies in a range from anywhere from decent to god-awful...middies, shwag, commercial grade, all the other terms people may use for various qualities of middle and lower-grade marijuana.... at least around here its far more difficult and more costly to come by really good gear than really lousy gear....i could take 10 bucks to a corner store in a shady part of town late at night and come away with a blunt's worth of some bad pot, or i could make any number phone calls trying to track down where the good pot is, get $50 for just an eighth, then go get it that way....... i doubt it's the same everywhere, but at least in most of the US most pot is NOT good pot, even if thats all some people and some groups of people smoke. regardless, glass pipes designed for cannabis use are far more common than in years gone by, and are a more economical and healthy way to smoke pot that requires absolutely no filler or even paper to smoke.... better yet are quality vaporizers and food. there are a plethora of ways to enjoy marijuana; NOBODY needs to mix it with anything for any reason other than personal taste....it really has nothing to do with how good the pot is. hell, i've smoked blunts containing a full 3.5g of extremely high quality nuggets....it can definitely be done. still, a pipe is the best bet for all around smoking. why add a bunch of unnecessary stuff like tobacco, other herbs, paper, or blunt wraps? especially if it IS good pot, i like the flavor of just plain pot. quality pot is simply delicious on its own..... joints are by no means an ideal means of smoking. if you have to bulk it up to smoke it, you dont have enough for a joint!
if its the harshness of the smoke your worried about, why not just get a water bong and smoke small amounts?