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Solubility of cannabinoids

Reverend Random

Reverend Random

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 26, 2013
Messages
334
This question has undoubtedly been asked before, but since the search function of BL generally blows, I'll just create a new topic. Sorry if I shouldn't have.

Something that's been bugging me is this. I have always learned that the psychoactive ingredients of cannabis are hydrophobic and lipophilic - meaning they can be dissolved in fat and not in water. However, the official governmental department of the Dutch Health Department recommends patients - who are prescribed medical cannabis - to either vaporize or to make a tea with the buds. Why would they do that if the psychoactives were completely hydrophobic? And that being said, I know some patients who have claimed to experience effects from drinking cannabis tea (without high fat milk or butter or anything).

What are your thoughts on this?
 
I don't know but I would guess that making tea, although profoundly less intense than eating prepared cannabis, definetly gives some effect.
Maybe not the "high" from THC, but there would definetly be some cannabinoids in there. Which is probably why they recommend to make a tea of it.
I wouldn't wanna know what would happen if every medical user (that was not a recreational user beforehand) ingested brownies... :)
 
Unless there's some oil or fat in there none of the cannabinoid content not in suspension will be dissolved. My guess is that the people that made the recommendation were not cannabis users themselves. I've heard of a doctor who gives out cannabis recommendations being under the impression that a vaporizer is like one of those used with Vicks vapor rub when you have a cold. He thought you boil the cannabis in water and inhale the vapor by putting a towel over your head.

If there's any fat in there, such as even just from a bit of milk, then that's a different story.
 
Yes, that's what I always thought, but without any scientific proof I'm suspending my beliefs.

The Dutch government actually gives a quite detailed description of how to make tea, so I'm guessing they did some research into it before publishing the flyer with patient information. If anyone's interested in the text, I don't mind posting it (it is in Dutch though)

NSFW:
Instructies voor gebruik en dosering
Als thee
De variëteit Bedrocan is het meest geschikt voor het bereiden van thee, deze
bereidt u als volgt:
• Breng 500 ml (0,5 liter) water afgedekt aan de kook.
• Voeg 0,5 gram (ongeveer 2 theelepels of 1 maatschepje) medicinale cannabis toe.
• Draai het vuur zacht en laat de thee nog 15 minuten zachtjes met de deksel op
de pan doorkoken.
• Neem de thee van het vuur en zeef de thee.
• Bewaar de thee in een thermoskan als u deze nog op dezelfde dag wilt drinken.
Als u thee voor een aantal dagen wilt zetten, gebruik dan 1 gram (ongeveer
4 theelepels of 2 maatschepjes) medicinale cannabis op 1 liter water.
Na de bereiding zoals hierboven beschreven voegt u een zakje of theelepel
koffiemelkpoeder toe aan de nog warme thee. Daarna laat u de thee afkoelen
en bewaart u de afgekoelde thee in de koelkast. Na afkoelen is de thee een aantal
dagen houdbaar in de koelkast. Koffiemelkpoeder voorkomt dat de werkzame
stoffen in de thee na het afkoelen gaan plakken aan de binnenkant van de theekan
of mok waardoor de thee minder werkzaam wordt.
Als u thee uit de koelkast wilt gebruiken, mag u deze weer opwarmen. Ook mag u
suiker, siroop of honing toevoegen om de smaak te verbeteren.
Dosering:
U start met het drinken van 1 kop (0,2 liter) thee ’s avonds. Als u na een tot twee
weken een onbevredigend resultaat heeft, dan kunt u in overleg met uw arts
’s ochtends een extra kop (0,2 liter) thee drinken. Geeft de thee bij u onvoldoende
verlichting van de klachten, dan kunt u samen met uw arts inhalatie van
medicinale cannabis overwegen. Inhalatie werkt sneller en sterker dan thee.
Bovendien is de juiste dosering makkelijker te bepalen.
 
Reverend Random said:
Yes, that's what I always thought, but without any scientific proof I'm suspending my beliefs.

The Dutch government actually gives a quite detailed description of how to make tea, so I'm guessing they did some research into it before publishing the flyer with patient information. If anyone's interested in the text, I don't mind posting it (it is in Dutch though)

NSFW:
Instructies voor gebruik en dosering
Als thee
De variëteit Bedrocan is het meest geschikt voor het bereiden van thee, deze
bereidt u als volgt:
• Breng 500 ml (0,5 liter) water afgedekt aan de kook.
• Voeg 0,5 gram (ongeveer 2 theelepels of 1 maatschepje) medicinale cannabis toe.
• Draai het vuur zacht en laat de thee nog 15 minuten zachtjes met de deksel op
de pan doorkoken.
• Neem de thee van het vuur en zeef de thee.
• Bewaar de thee in een thermoskan als u deze nog op dezelfde dag wilt drinken.
Als u thee voor een aantal dagen wilt zetten, gebruik dan 1 gram (ongeveer
4 theelepels of 2 maatschepjes) medicinale cannabis op 1 liter water.
Na de bereiding zoals hierboven beschreven voegt u een zakje of theelepel
koffiemelkpoeder toe aan de nog warme thee. Daarna laat u de thee afkoelen
en bewaart u de afgekoelde thee in de koelkast. Na afkoelen is de thee een aantal
dagen houdbaar in de koelkast. Koffiemelkpoeder voorkomt dat de werkzame
stoffen in de thee na het afkoelen gaan plakken aan de binnenkant van de theekan
of mok waardoor de thee minder werkzaam wordt.
Als u thee uit de koelkast wilt gebruiken, mag u deze weer opwarmen. Ook mag u
suiker, siroop of honing toevoegen om de smaak te verbeteren.
Dosering:
U start met het drinken van 1 kop (0,2 liter) thee ’s avonds. Als u na een tot twee
weken een onbevredigend resultaat heeft, dan kunt u in overleg met uw arts
’s ochtends een extra kop (0,2 liter) thee drinken. Geeft de thee bij u onvoldoende
verlichting van de klachten, dan kunt u samen met uw arts inhalatie van
medicinale cannabis overwegen. Inhalatie werkt sneller en sterker dan thee.
Bovendien is de juiste dosering makkelijker te bepalen.
Click to expand...

Isn't that the explanation ? They tell you to add milk powder, I'd think there's some fat in there.
 
They write that you need to add milk powder in case you want to store the tea, to prevent the active ingredients from sticking to the side of the thermos.
 
THC is very slightly soluble in water, especially if it's hot. It's potent enough that you'd get a mild effect from drinking tea, but nowhere near if you'd made an alcohol tincture or bhang or something. Making tea is therefore a good option for people who like the more mild f/x. And you could actually re-steep it quite a few times before it lost all activity.

Milk powder will act as an emulsifier and keep the THC in solution as it cools down. Otherwise it will 'oil out' and can just form greasy deposits on the rim of the cup.
 
When ingesting the tea you also ingest tiny particles rich in THC and other cannabinoids, despite them not being soluble in water.
To emphasize, imagine sand. it isn't soluble in water obviously. However, drinking a glass of water with sand in it WILL get some of the sand into your digestive system.
Obviously there are much more efficient ways to consume cannabis, but tea is also an option.
 
if you just crush up plant material in water there will be all kinds of stuff suspended colloidally. maybe something else in the plant acts as an emulsifier?

But if you extract with polar solvent like butane - leaves no chorophyll I think - then try to dissolve the oil in water??? I think wont work very well.
 
Id put it down in all honesty to be a question of osmolarity. As the semi dried buds are immersed in hot water the THC although hydrophobic will indeed leech out due to simple osmosis. It will create a partial pressure differential inside the plant cells and allow THC and other cannabinoids to enter suspension through the semi permiable membrane. An emulsifier would help (like mixing oil and water it forms globular structures.) or adding a non ionic surfactant (polyethoxylate sorbate?) or form of detergent would however make it dissolve in water as it breaks down the lipid heads around the structure leaving hydrophillic triglyceride tails. Interesting thought though im going to look deeper into this :)
 
Last edited:
It becomes suspended in the water and the water acts as a carrier agent. Simple. Have you ever made soup with a large amount of meat and observed the oil from the meat collecting in the water? If you drink the water or broth, that oil gets ingested, doesn't it? Solubility doesn't fucking matter. If something is carried into the body it is carried into the body. And your digestive system is capable of breaking it down. Solubility only truly comes into play when you want to talk about optimizing boavailability... getting into the topic of making a microemulsion out of hash.
 
Fair assumption but it isn't really the same thing that's being discussed hear A. The structure of animal fats and vegetable fats differ greatly and will not cross membranes as readily as animal ones. B. The soup will tend to be cooked over long periods of time allowing more to leech than simply pouring boiling water on it. Also you eat the meat in a soup. Most of the lipids will still be in the meat. Same as the buds in the case of cannabis.
Microemultion is a point, but in all honesty you need a surfactanct to get a true microemultion anyway so find one that makes it soluble. In all honesty though if you want cannabinoids to dissolve use a light alkane. Much easier... Not that im suggesting you try to drink liquified alkanes after like lol
 
Another example is amino acids. When I was younger I didn't realize that amino acids aren't water soluble. A few times, I put them in a glass of water, and they would just sit on the top of the water. If I tried to mix them, they would just come back up. But downing the preparation would still get them into my body...
 
Shouldn't cannabinoids dissolve in the stomach anyway if eaten as raw powder / crystals? I ask because I have tried (not with THC but with different synthetics) and I've never gotten any effects at all whatsoever, even though I increase the dosage by ALOT. I mean, I've eaten more than a gram of JWH-073 and nothing happened. Maybe they are just orally inactive?

Same goes for THC, ground down like 5 grams of hash and mixed it with butter/milk and drank and again almost zero effects. I don't understand why I don't get high from eating cannabinoids. Do you have to increase the dosage by a totally riddiculous amount?

Or does it take a riddiculous amount of time for the effects to set in? I think I've always gotten the idea late at night and when I've not noticed any effects after 2 hours I just went to bed and fell asleep.
 
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