What Is Cannabis Tincture And How To Use It
What is THC Tincture and How It’s Used?
Do you love the fast-acting effects of inhaling cannabis but would like to reduce how much you smoke? Do you find difficulties in dosing cannabis edibles and want more control over the effects? Are you looking for cannabis products with minimum additives due to dietary restrictions? Cannabis tinctures could be a great solution! At Maine Cannabis Exchange, we’re big advocates for tincture use. The ability to precision dose and experience fast-acting and long lasting effects make tinctures a perfect option for most cannabis users! Tinctures also allow you to choose a specific cannabinoid profile that would best benefit you. Whether you’re wondering, “what is THC tincture?” or you’re a canna-pro, we hope you find this article helpful! Let's get into why a tincture might be the right choice for you and how to use THC tincture!
A tincture is an extract made from cannabis plant material soaked in high-proof alcohol for some time and strained. Most of our tinctures are a cannabis extract diluted in organic MCT coconut oil for increased palatability and efficacy!
Onset of Tincture’s Effects
Have you found timing your edible difficult? Do you use cannabis for sleep? Are you experiencing prolonged grogginess in the morning when taking an edible? Need relief quickly when feeling symptoms? If you’re looking for something between the immediate effect of smoking and the long-lasting effects of an edible, a tincture could be the solution!
Tinctures have better bioavailability compared to edibles. With a tincture, you may absorb more of what you take! The recommendation for increased absorption is to take a tincture under your tongue and hold it for 15-30 seconds. But why is that? This method of ingestion is called sublingual administration. When you take a tincture sublingually, it enters your bloodstream via the blood vessels in your mouth. The tincture quickly absorbs into our mucus membranes. When taking tincture sublingually, the product takes a shortcut into your system instead of slowly passing through your liver and digestive system like an edible. A tincture's rapid absorption makes it a desirable option for anyone who requires fast-acting relief.
The onset of effects when using a tincture is about 15-45 minutes after dosing, while an edible generally may take 30-90 minutes. The effects' duration when using a tincture is around 4-5 hours or more. In comparison, the peak onset of an edible could be 2-3+ hours after taking and may last 4-12 hours.
Our metabolism, what we’ve eaten, and the composition of the edible can all impact edible onset and effect. You can see why a tincture can be a helpful tool for a more predictable experience!
You may choose to ingest your tincture like an edible by swallowing if you desire the effect and onset of an edible. Inevitably even when taking a tincture sublingually, one likely swallows some, thus altering the duration and effect slightly.
In many ways, a tincture resolves the issue of waiting for your cannabis edible to take effect!
Dosing Cannabis Tincture
Finding the best dose for you with any cannabis product can be a balancing act. A tincture allows you to have much more control while discovering your therapeutic window. A new cannabis user should slowly increase the dose daily until they achieve maximum benefits and minimum discomfort. If you’re new to using cannabis therapeutically, the recommendation is to start at 2.5mg of THC and increase dose by 1 mg daily until you find relief without adverse effects. At Maine CannDosingabis Exchange, our in-house THC tincture is 1mg per individual drop! Our tincture is an ideal starting point for folks.
Bypassing the digestive system with a tincture generally delivers more consistent results and experience. Have you ever had an unpredictable edible experience? The increased psychoactive potential of an edible and prolonged onset makes it easy to dose too high unintentionally. Many people have an experience where they don’t feel anything initially and believe they didn’t take enough, so they double up on the dose and then get too strong of an effect when the initial and subsequent doses both kick in.
The quick-acting onset of a tincture gives you more control to determine if you’re at the correct dose for your needs. The ability to precision dose makes it much more feasible to take your dose up by a small increment if needed. Tinctures are a fantastic option to mitigate unwanted feelings of impairment and intoxication by controlling the amount you take by the exact milligram.
Strain Specific Tinctures
Are you looking for strain-specifics in your tincture? Sativa tincture effects? A daytime appropriate low dose 1:1 THC to CBD? A sleep-promoting Indica tincture featuring CBN? A tincture allows you to choose more than just your dose but also what cannabis cultivar went into it! Strain specifics offer a lot of precision when experimenting to find your desired effect. If a THC tincture felt a little more intense or psychoactive than intended, a CBD: THC tincture may help mitigate that! Wherever you start in your tincture journey, you can adjust the dose, strain, or cannabinoid composition as needed.
In addition, you can absorb terpenes more effectively sublingually. When eating an edible, terpenes, the organic molecules that give flavor and smell as well as effect to cannabis, degrade significantly in the stomach acid. A tincture is one of the easiest ways to dial in dose and strain specifics that benefits you most.
Who Benefits Most From a Cannabis Tincture?
The versatility of a tincture makes it a potential option for any cannabis user! While a new cannabis consumer can manage dose easily, a seasoned individual can also dose to their desire easily. Tinctures are generally a more affordable price point per milligram. Tinctures come in various concentrations that one can dose as needed.
The same tincture may offer very different effects depending on the milligrams you take. Someone may find that the same 1:1 CBD: THC tincture they microdose in the day provides them with sleep benefits when taking a higher dose! Taking note of the milligram dose that works for you is a great way to replicate a positive experience.
A question we often hear is, “what is the difference between a tincture high vs a flower high?”. Flower still is slightly faster acting and dissipates in effect sooner. Tincture metabolizes differently than smoking flower and has a unique sensation. Everyone may have a different experience. Most report tincture to be much easier to control effect and potentially milder in effect, but that depends on dose. One of the biggest pros when skipping flower for tincture is avoiding combustion and giving your lungs a break!
Our Cannabis Tincture Line-Up
At Maine Cannabis Exchange we offer many options in our tincture lineup. You may wonder, “what are your tinctures made of?”. All our tinctures are full-spectrum extracts suspended in organic coconut MCT oil. We love that the clean ingredient list makes tinctures a possibility for many people with dietary restrictions or allergies.
Full spectrum is a term you’ve probably heard! It refers to a whole plant preparation made from cannabis that includes all the cannabinoids, terpenes, and other compounds naturally found in the plant. The synergy between these counterparts is considered the entourage effect. The entourage effect explains why a full-spectrum product is often more medicinally beneficial or balanced than a product made with pure, distilled THC.
At Maine Cannabis Exchange we currently have in our lineup:
-Our very popular RSO THC tincture
-A range of strain-specific THC tinctures
-A CBD tincture made with locally sourced MOFGA certified organic hemp
-A 1:1 CBD:THC tincture that is .5mg of ea per individual drop
-A CBG tincture
-A 1:1 CBD:CBG tincture
-A 25:1 CBD:THC strain-specific ACDC tincture
- A CBN Tincture
Our ACDC tincture is an excellent way to explore potential relief with lessened impairment. Our ACDC tincture has vast potential benefits with little to no psychoactivity. ACDC is a powerhouse, high CBD strain found to have therapeutic effects for many. The low content of THC makes this a wonderful option for those looking for potential relief while remaining clear-headed. Even a relatively small amount of THC may aid in shifting your perception of pain at the correct dose. The high CBD content may mitigate some of the adverse effects of THC. This is a great way to reap the potential anti-inflammatory benefits of both cannabinoids. Our ACDC tincture is a perfect example of the entourage effect in action! Our patients have found success using this tincture to control neurological conditions like seizures and tremors, inflammatory conditions like IBS and gastric colitis, anxiety, and to assist in sleeping through the night, among other uses.
Our in-house RSO THC tincture is a customer favorite due to its versatile therapeutic potential. RSO stands for Rick Simpson Oil. RSO is an extraction process that retains a vast spectrum of cannabinoids, terpenes, and other plant compounds from the flower. Folks who may find a shift of perception of pain, appetite stimulation, and sleep promotion from cannabis oils often turn to our RSO tincture for these needs.
We’re so happy to offer tinctures made with our house-grown flower and locally sourced hemp. The benefits of tincture make it a product we’re thrilled to get in our customer’s hands! We love hearing how tincture use gives our customers and staff control over their desired effects. We’re always grateful to be able to offer a product that helps our customers and welcome your feedback and stories!
Sources
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Vazquez Mitchell, Carolina. Myth-Busting: Are ‘Strain-Specific’ Cannabis Edibles Effective? mg Magazine. May 2023. West Hills, CA
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Heid, Markham. Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) for Cancer: Does It Work? Web.MD. May 2022.
5. https://www.nuggmd.com/blog/tincture-vs-edible-which-is-better Olmos, Rebecca. Tincture vs. Edible: Which is Better (for You)? NuggMD. October 2022.
THC and inflammation: What does the relationship between the two mean for health? Healthing. November 2021.Toronto, Ontario
