DOSE: T+ 0:00 2 Tbsp oral Various (liquid) T+ 0:25 4 Tbsp oral Various (liquid)
BODY WEIGHT:
225 lb
After reading about Green Dragon, where marijuana is placed in alcohol to dissolve the THC and other interesting substance, I was curious to try it. When searching, I found that the amount of marijuana and the amount of alcohol varied all over the place, and it was hard to find anything approaching an experience report that also mentioned the strength and method of the preparation and went beyond 'I drank this and I got fuckin' lit,' so I decided to write up my experience.
I purchased a liter of Devil's Springs 80% ethanol 'vodka,' the strongest alcohol labelled for human consumption available near me. I imagine you'd get practically identical results with Everclear at 95%, Bacardi 151 at 75.5% or anything around that range, although you'd probably have a hard time finding something to mix with to make 151-based Green Dragon taste decent.
I ground up 1/4 oz. (7 g.) of decent pot (I'd say somewhat above average quality for NYC, not that I'm a pot judge or anything.) and put it all into the bottle. I made no attempt to 'bake' the pot in an oven for increased potency. I might try that if I do this again. The alcohol pretty quickly began turning green and within a few hours was a nice dark green that was more or less the final color - it was actually quite close to a dark green beer bottle. I let the bottle sit in a dark cabinet for about 3 weeks. More or less once a day I would take it out and invert it to mix everything up.
I used a coffee filter and a funnel to decant, filtering out the plant material. Some of the Internet material I found recommended squeezing out the plant matter in the filter at the end, as this was the most potent liquid. I did this, but I had to use about an ounce of water to wash the last bits of the plant into the filter. I think at the potency I was preparing this, neither the 'potent' squeezing or the slight dilution made much difference at all. Be careful not to break the filter if you squeeze it out at the end.
For my first time trying this, I took decent notes on the experience. For this section of notes I hadn't actually filtered the stuff yet, just poured some off the top, avoiding gross plant material (because the store nearby didn't have any funnels). I don't think this made any difference except possibly it tasted a little worse:
T=0 - Mixed 2 tbsp. liquor with about 8 oz. Sprite and start drinking. It tastes like 'herbal' flavored Sprite and looks like Mountain Dew. I drink the drink in about 10 minutes and am feeling a bit high by the time I finish it. The start of the high feels maybe a little 'trippy' but nothing I haven't occasionally gotten from smoking.
T+25 - A bit high, decide to mix a second one, this time with 4 tbsp of the liquor, same amount of Sprite, and adding some honey to the mix. The honey clouds it, making it look like green milk. At this strength it basically tastes like pot, not Sprite. There's a bad aftertaste - not in the short term, five-seconds-long we usually use the word 'aftertaste' for, but in the sense that after drinking this my mouth tasted like pot (not pot smoke, pot.) About halfway through drinking this one I diluted it because of the taste and for the rest of the liter stuck to 2 tbsp. or less liquor per drink and just had two if I wanted to.
T+30 - Start drinking the 2nd one in earnest.
T+45 - Still not done with the 2nd one. I wish I had a mint for this aftertaste.
T+50 - Noting a little tension in my neck, not painful or too annoying. I have friends who say they've gotten this from smoking, though I haven't.
T+55 - Drink's 1/2 to 2/3 gone. I feel a minor headache, which I would have had no reason to expect tonight.
T+1:06 - The quality of my notes at this point indicates that I'm pretty baked. Tension in the neck pretty much gone.
T+1:08 - It seems like I'm titrating the drink the way I titrate my smoking - having a little sip now and then. I've read about others' Green Dragon experience being closer to eating brownies than to smoking - taking longer to kick in, getting ridiculously blazed. It could be because mine is on the weak end of marijuana potency from what I've read - I've read about people dumping 1/4-1/2 oz. into a fifth, where I put 1/4 oz. into a liter.
T+1:13 - Enjoying Pink Floyd as is customary when stoned.
T+1:19 - I always thought redeye was some peculiar way that marijuana smoke externally irritated the eyes. Guess not, as I smoked nothing tonight and my eyes are like stoplights.
T+1:40 - Finished the second drink.
T+1:51 - Just got back from laying down for a few minutes, had some minor visuals going on. Closed eye at first, and once I looked for it, a bit of a shimmery sense to the walls with open eyes. Probably nothing I would have noticed before the first time I tripped and learned what to look for in visuals. This stuff keeps kicking in - that is, I'm used to smoking where the effects generally get weaker over time, this stuff seems to stay at the same level or get a bit stronger over time for quite a while.
T+2:00 - Cracked a glow stick I had by chance and watched it leave trails for a while. Mostly seemed like the 'afterimages' or persistence of vision effect were taking awhile to clear from my vision.
T+2:07 - Drymouth. Feeling a bit tired. Decided to go on a walk outside. I greatly enjoyed my walk and was very high the whole time.
T+3:07 - Got back from my great walk, ate some munchies, going to bed soon.
The second day I took a few notes, but they're basically uninteresting things about dosages & times.
To summarize my overall experience as I went through a liter of this stuff, I found that 2 tbsp. (or less, if I didn't want to get too high) was a good amount to make into a drink, mixed with about 8 oz. Sprite and a dollop of honey. I could have a few of these in a night. I never made it substantially stronger than that after the first night. I have to stir well to mix up the honey, and once I've gotten it right it actually tastes alright - the Sprite hides the alcohol and provides a basic flavor while the honey and marijuana seem to mix to provide a decent flavor on top of that, compared to just marijuana & sprite which is drinkable, but not tasty. I tasted some of the unmixed liquor if it spilled on my fingers - basically nasty strong alcohol and weed. I could take it straight if I wanted to (it certainly tasted less nasty than shrooms do to me) but if I can afford pot and liquor there's no reason I can't afford Sprite to mix it in. I also tried mixing it with Iced Tea, which did a decent job making the marijuana flavor alright but not so much the alcohol flavor. I also found that my first night's dosage of 6 tbsp. was a decent amount for a night's overall use - I don't think I ever got substantially far above that.
It definitely kicked in over a longer period than smoking. From drinking this I'd be high within ten minutes, but an hour later I'd be the same high or a bit higher, whereas with smoking it kicks in quick and then weakens over time. One of my friends described it as coming in waves. He'd be high, start to sober slightly, then feel real high again.
I never really noticed the trippy effects after the first night. As I said, I do catch a bit of a trippy feeling due to weed from time to time, and it was really nothing more than that. I did occasionally notice the slight headache, which is probably caused by low-quality high-strength alcohol. It was never a big deal.
It proved to mix well with smoking pot. Have a drink to get high, and then smoke joints afterwards. My friends thought it tasted acceptable to delicious and enjoyed the effects. Overall, I'd do this again, although I didn't find too many real advantages over smoking. It gave my lungs a break, but at this strength I was consuming enough alcohol to transfer the damage to liver. I haven't talked about the alcohol effects yet - by any objective measure I was consuming a decent amount, and the effects were there, but the weed effects were primary.
My reading indicates this can be made at much higher potency - you'd certainly consume less alcohol, which is good, although you might lose the ability to titrate your dosage that I found at this strength. Keep in mind that at the time I drank this I'd been smoking a decent amount of weed for a while and probably had a bit of a tolerance (and I'm a big guy) - where I tried my first drink with 2 tbsp, there'd be no problem with starting off with 1 tbsp or 1/2 tbsp. Personally the worst that happens from too much weed for me is that I fall asleep, so I wasn't worried for myself. I know some people have a bad time if they smoke too much or unexpectedly catch a high dose on brownies etc. Myself, I drank 1 tbsp drinks often enough when that's how much of a high I felt like.
I think this would prove an excellent way to sneak weed into places that you could reasonably sneak alcohol into - it maybe smells of weed if you hold it to your nose, but otherwise it's just a mixed drink. Sometime maybe I'll make it a higher strength to see if I can make this a health alternative to smoking without just transferring the damage to alcohol.
Exp Year: 2007ExpID: 65200 Gender: Male Age at time of experience: Not Given Published: Jun 13, 2010Views: Not Supported [ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
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