Eating
It is a myth that dried marijuana is completely inactive and must be heated before being consumed to activate the cannabanoids. While heating can increase potency by converting a less potent form of THC through decarboxylation[1], some psychoactivity is present even in fresh leaves and buds. Raw, dried cannabis taken orally can be quite strong, according to numerous first hand reports. Cooking extractions such as using butter or olive oil in a pan with heat are the most common ways to make cannabis-based foods and is considered to result in near maximum potency. [Section edited by Erowid Jul 2009].
The traditional method of eating it is to cook it in a brownie, especially when it is in the form of hashish, though it can be used in any number of things. The recommended method of eating marijuana is to saute it in butter or margarine over medium heat, then to strain the remaining solids out and use the butter to cook with. One can use this marijuana butter to make brownies, cook vegetables, or however else one might use butter to cook with, one can even spread it on a slice of bread. Many people will mix the the residual solids in with whatever they are cooking in hopes of making use of whatever cannabanoids might still be in them, but if done properly this in not generally valuable. A typical ratio for making the marijuana butter is one stick of butter to one eight of an ounce of marijuana, and headed for fifteen to twenty minutes.