PANIC STATIONS - Council Visit!

PANIC!

We live in local authority accommodation – it took several years before we managed to get somewhere, and even longer before we got somewhere that catered to my disabilities. So, obviously, one of my concerns about using cannabis (even medicinal) was how the council would react if there were complaints.

In the middle of August, out of nowhere, I received a text informing me that we were booked in for a Home Check. I instantly panicked. What if someone had complained about the smell and this was the council’s way of catching me out? We had to reschedule as the first appointment clashed with a medical appointment, and I then proceeded to spend the next week in an agony of fear that we were going to lose our home.

I tidied away anything that could be interpreted as illegal, including the things that I haven’t used but bought because they were cute. I made sure everyone in the house had a copy of my prescription from MaMedica, out out the tubs of medical cannabis, and even went onto Reddit for reassurance from anyone who had already been through anything similar.

The actual Home Check turned out to be just that – a home check where the council was trying to catch up with everyone following Covid and all of those restrictions. She did ask about drugs and I explained about the cannabis, ready and eager to show her my prescription and everything. A complete lack of interest as soon as I explained that I had a prescription. She said that there hadn’t been any complaints but obviously if they did receive any, they now knew that I was being prescribed by a private clinic so there wouldn’t be a need to get in touch.

The relief was IMMENSE – like, I felt my shoulders drop from around my ears. It was so nice to speak to someone who seemed to understand that a prescription meant that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and to be reassured that I wasn’t going to get into any trouble.

It also meant I could stop making voodoo dolls of my neighbours and thinking that they had complained about the smell or something like that. Apologies if any of them felt any twinges!

Now that I’m feeling all reassured, I can set up my ‘ganja bar’ as my mother and sister insist on calling it to look as pretty as possible! Oh, and it’s time for me to try to do my first repeat prescription!

Accessories ⟫ Grinders

One of the first things I did when I decided to try medicinal cannabis was to order a basic ‘kit’ from eBay that came with a grinder, tray, small bong and some papers. But me being me and wanting things to be ‘pretty’ I soon branched out and bought a few other grinders.

I didn’t realise there was such a difference out there in what was available but from what I’ve been able to discover, your choice in grinder is a personal one. What works for one person might grind the herb too finely/coarsely for another. My first grinder was plastic, came as part of a basic kit and did the job absolutely fine as far as I could tell.

The next grinder I bought was from Amazon. Actually, settle an argument/discussion please – I would describe this as rainbow coloured or anodised. Book-grim says the colour is oil-spill. Stripes said oil-spill but said rainbow is also correct. I don’t think most people would know what someone meant by the colour ‘oil-spill’ – so what would you call it?

I have a bit of a thing for how rainbow chrome (or oil-spill) things look so I bought a tall rainbow grinder and I must admit, I still love it.

I think it’s a decent grinder, with a spacious storage unit that the herb automatically drops into as it is ground up. There is a cute little flap for the herb to come out of if you don’t want to unscrew the lid and risk dropping everything/the dry herb being caught in the breeze from a nearby fan or being knocked over by an enthusiastic cat that thinks you’re opening the catnip tub! Quite obviously my current favourite grinder – decorative and useful, a perfect combination!

Golden skull grinder ⟫ looks fun and maybe a little gaudy. The grinder is average but the storage space is good. I don’t like the fact that in order to store the herb in the ‘head’, I have to unscrew it and tip it in, which can be messy and cause you to lose some of the herb.

Round rainbow grinder ⟫ looks very pretty. Because of it’s shape and smoothness, the grinder is actually a little slippy and annoying to use, and I found that herb got stuck in the teeth. The storage container is quite shallow and it’s a faff to get the herb into it.

Metallic green grinder ⟫ Very pretty colour, a decent grinder but the storage section is too shallow. The dry herb goes straight through as you grind but because the container is so shallow, it’s easy for the herb to fall out/off when you open the grinder.

Graffiti lips grinder ⟫ I chose this one because I thought the images used were cool – again, a decent grinder but the storage section is too shallow. The dry herb goes straight through as you grind but because the container is so shallow, it’s easy for the herb to fall out/off when you open the grinder.

As I said before, it’s a personal choice what kind of grinder you use, but do try to take into account whether or not you want to store your herb in the grinder, how much you grind up at a time and whether you’re a butter-fingers like me and will drop great heaps of ground up herb onto your bed because your arm jerked at the wrong moment!

ADVEN FLOS Dried Flower Medical Cannabis Review - EMT1 and EMC1

Adven FLOS Dried Flower – EMC1 and EMT1

The first review is for what was recommended as a daytime strain. EMC1 which contained 0 THC 13 CBD and Dr Rob and I were hoping for an alleviation of pain whilst still allowing me to be ‘active’ during the day. Upon opening the jar, I was very surprised at the sheer amount of flower that was there. It didn’t smell of anything much, was very fluffy looking and what seemed to be a lot of neat-looking mini trees.

I vaped this using the Mighty at 181 degrees and would say that my first thoughts were that it was very bland, tasted very vaguely green and was inoffensive. There were no coughs (I am currently trying to beat a persistent cough so vaping has been difficult) and once again the overwhelming thought I had was that everything was just a bit bland – surface-level with no depth whatsoever. I found it to be vaguely appetite-suppressing and after half an hour, I was left feeling a sense of disconnect from the people and surroundings and this gradually faded over time.

I think my overall feeling about this was that it was nice – no major complaints, it masked some of the pain I deal with and was okay.

EMT1 had a pungent smell when I opened the container and had small, dark-looking trees. There didn’t seem to be as much as in the CBD container but I guess that’s because the bushes were tighter in formation.

I used a bong with ice-cold water to take this the first time. There seemed to be no real flavour and it felt really sharp at the back of my throat. Now admittedly, this might be because of the aforementioned cough that I am struggling to get rid of. After that, I found that I enjoyed a mellow feeling that I’m pretty sure would have led me to sleep but we were watching ‘Alias’ and I didn’t power down.

Daily, I have separated my flower into ‘doses’, including at least one mix of EMT and EMC and will try to make more notes as the month goes by. I am also awaiting the delivery of a new vape which might change my feelings about both of these.

Finally, I need to check the rules regarding use because for some reason I thought using a bong was okay but now I’m not so sure. There is so much ‘hidden’ information – I have taken to keeping my prescription ready on my phone in case someone knocks on the door to complain!

MaMedica Dispensary - Part 2

Saturday 12th August, I received my second delivery from MaMedica’s dispensary. Now, the fact that I had to make several phone calls in order to receive the correct invoice and check stock has made me feel a little dissatisfied. It would be easy to brush it off as teething issues, but it looks like there are other people who are struggling with the same thing.

I don’t want to move to another clinic – from what I can tell, it’s a case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. From what I can tell, everyone is trying to find their place in the market and provide a service, make a profit whilst keeping customers happy. It also sounds like MaMedica has had some changeover in staff recently which may have affected things.

Yet I still find myself feeling a sense of dissatisfaction. If it was any other prescription, the thought that I should have to keep calling to check on stock levels with no idea as to when I would receive the goods I have paid for would be unacceptable. So surely, it should be unacceptable here? This is not going on the black market to get hold of some weed – this is through a private clinic, prescribed and paid for. It has given me food for thought.

I also find myself reluctant to get too reliant on how the dry herb helps me. I don’t want to think that I have found the panacea for all of my ailments, only to find that I have to wait because there is no idea how much stock is in the warehouse.

Perhaps I should hold off until I’ve tried to put through a repeat prescription which should happen at the end of the month. I will post my first impressions of my latest prescription soon – at the moment, I’m using a mixture of the Mighty, the Max 3 and a bong and results have varied, especially as I seem to have gone down with a nasty cough which is affecting my ability to inhale anything.

Cannabutter

 All right, so we tried edibles. And they didn't impress us that much.

Our next idea was, could we make our own? So we hit the world wide web in search of instructions, hints and tips for making our own edibles. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku3v-eLSmA4 

 We wanted something simple. Easy. As close to impossible to fuck up as we could get. When we came across this video, she made it sound like all of those things. Instead of decarboxylating the flowers, we used what came out of SK's vape (which Book informs me is referred to as resin). It had already been heated but it wasn't burnt, meaning that the psychoactive compounds should be activated. Meaning, hopefully, that we would make actual, legitimate edibles.

 We went for the slow cooker method. Mainly because we had a slow cooker, flowers, clean jars and butter. Seemed simple enough. 

If memory serves, we used 250g of butter and 8g of decarboxylated flowers, which we cooked for around four hours on the low setting of our slow cooker. We stirred it every hour or so, before straining it over a muslin to separate the butter from the resin. I completely forgot to take a picture of our cannabutter in the jar, so unfortunately can't show you exactly what it looked like. It was kind of green-ish. Not full on Hulk, but sort of tinged. 

 It definitely smelt like weed. Not offensively so - or I wouldn't say so, at least - but you could definitely tell it wasn't normal butter. Once it had had the chance to cool a little, we followed the recommendation from the video - test it. Book gamely fell upon the sword for us, trying 10g of cannabutter on a slice of toast (she wanted to make garlic bread, but we reasoned that we needed to know how much it affected the flavour). And it worked. It wasn't knock-you-on-your-arse strong, but after an hour or so, Book definitely seemed to be feeling it. 

 Because we'd used SK's leftover resin - which I think was shake from Dispenseree - we weren't able to pick and choose what kind of high we were going for. It would be luck of the draw. Going forward, we could choose a specific flower to generate a specific kind of high, and use that as the base for our cannabutter. Honestly, this was more to see if we could. If we could use what we already had, MacGyver it with what we had to hand and make something that kind of works. 

 The next stage - the fun part - was to get baking!

MaMedica Dispensary and Customer Service

The next day after my consultation with Dr Rob, I received the invoice which I tried to pay.

However, for some reason my bank is not in their drop-down box so I had to contact the dispensary to request an alternative payment method. I was going to send an email but decided that, based on previous experience, a phone call was more effective.

I was on hold for about 10 mins which was no problem – I had my phone by my side whilst I did other things. When the call connected, the lady at the end of the line couldn’t hear me so hung up pretty much straight away! So I called back. This time, no queue and she could kinda hear me – enough to hear my name and understand what I was asking for. I requested a new payment method and she said she would email that through to me straight away. I asked when I would receive my items after I had paid and she explained that they were waiting on a delivery of one of the items on my prescription, but once it had been received I would get notification of it being posted.

I asked about splitting up the prescription so that I didn’t have to wait for the arrival of the out-of-stock items, but she explained that that would incur a £10 charge to send it out separately. She said the best thing to do would be to pay the invoice when it arrived, then call the next day to confirm stock/when things would be posted out.

Nothing turned up in my inbox and although I didn’t want to be that aggravating person that keeps hounding and harassing, I really wanted this done and dusted so I knew what I had in my pain relief arsenal. I waited 45 minutes and got through to the same lady, who told me that the lines were very busy but that she would send me the email.

Another 45 minutes later, it was getting close to the end of the day and still no email. I called again and spoke to someone else entirely – the email turned up whilst I was on the call (make of that what you will). I paid immediately because I was still hopeful that delivery would be by the weekend, but again it was suggested that I call the next day to confirm that everything would be in stock.

Friday morning (today) and I called to check on when things would be sent out and was told the best thing to do would be to call back on Monday to get a clearer idea. So, I’ve successfully got through my second consultation and paid for my second prescription and am back in hurry up and wait mode.

I think the service in most places depends very much on who you get to speak to. Sometimes, you get someone who’s feeling stressed and pressured and maybe doesn’t have the bandwidth to take on what you are looking for. And then the next person you speak to is feeling ticketyboo and makes everything look easy. I think it’s important to remember that we’re all human, dealing with our own shit, and that most of the time, it really isn’t personal, even if it feels like it is.

Customer service and word of mouth are really important and I think MaMedica are aware of it but not necessarily on top of it. I think there needs to be more cohesion in the information given out to callers: one member of staff said they were waiting on deliveries whilst the next one was quite adamant that there were no stock issues – somewhere along the way, wires have gotten crossed. I would also prefer if someone was honest with me about when I can expect things – don’t tell me you’re going to do something straight away and then leave it for days. Few things get me more enraged than people not sticking to their word.

Hopefully, I don’t sound too ranty but to be completely honest, it feels like the dispensary side of things is so much harder than the consultation. I have dealt with pharmacies for a LONG time with a large number of prescriptions and I understand stock issues, communication between the dispensary and the surgery – all matter of things. But I truly believe that a more transparent narrative would go a long way to avoiding some of the griping and complaints I have seen online.

But I guess that’s easy for me to say – I’m not the one who has to deal with the potentially angry person being told that none of their items are in and maybe next week? In the meantime, I’ve been given the link to somewhere else 420 to explore!

MaMedica - First follow up appointment

As scheduled, I had my first follow up appointment with MaMedica on Tuesday and spoke to Dr Rob Forbes. He asked me how I had found things, whether it had helped or not and how long it had lasted.

I’d managed to work myself up into a knot of nerves by the time the call came through (probably should have microdosed before taking the call) but I calmed down as he led me through his questions. We both agreed that I needed to consider moving a bigger dose of THC at night-time in an attempt to get me to sleep, and use the CBD based flower during the day to keep the pain under control.

He asked about finances and whether or not I had any particular strains in mind. I explained that I was paying for this from my monthly PIP so had a budget and he took that into consideration when he wrote the prescription. He checked the final total with me to be sure I was okay with it then suggested I move to ‘shared’ care. This means that I don’t have to speak to the consultant next month, I can just do a repeat prescription approximately ten days before I need it. I received an email confirming that I have moved to shared care and including a link to enable me to do repeat prescriptions.

He asked me if I had any questions or concerns and when I said no, that was pretty much it. Nice, simple, easy.

Then we get to the dispensary part which is a post all of it's own!

Accessories - Cat Spoons

As I’ve delved deeper into the whole dry herb vaping, I have fallen in love with some of the accessories and pretty things you can buy – ranging from rolling trays to grinders, basic to very pretty rolling machines.

Once it’s been ground down, the dry herb needs to get into your vaporiser somehow. We tried small pieces of cardboard folded in half, then pouring the herb in; tweezers which required patience and took a little bit of time; grabbing ‘pinches’ between our fingers and dropping them into the bowl.

However, we loved the idea of dry herb ‘shovels’ and there began a trip down the rabbit hole looking for pretty accessories. And I found these absolutely divine and cute ‘cat coffee spoons on Amazon. Their front legs are set up so that you can have them ‘leaning’ over the lip of a cup which makes it nice and easy to put them away – I have a small tub of spoons, lighters, incense, etc on my table. They are exactly the right size to fill a bowl in the Mighty and the Xmax V3 Pro with minimal mess and fuss. So far, there is no sign of discolouration and they do exactly what we need them to do.

And they look pretty whilst doing so!

A Beginner to Vaping Flowers - Part 2

The Xmax V3 Pro

After my less than successful attempts at using the Dynavap, I went back and did some more research. The main names that kept coming up were The Mighty+ and the Xmax V3 Pro. I didn’t feel that I could justify the price of the Mighty+ after the Dynavap worked out badly but felt that the Xmax was a decent compromise. That, and my kids convinced me that this was exactly what my PIP money was for – things to make my existence easier.

Holding it in my hand, the Xmax feels very much like an old-school recorder from back in the day, although it’s shape is less rounded than the musical instrument. It’s got a nice weight to it, works quite intuitively and didn’t make anyone hack up a lung! It’s not necessarily what I would call discreet, but it certainly doesn’t call any more attention to itself than a ‘normal’ vape pen does.

I’m about to get really picky so prepare to be vexed (allegedly, I’m known for being quite vexing). The bowl size is deep rather than wide, which meant whenever I filled it I invariably made a mess. We tried pieces of card folded in half and pouring the herb in, teeny-tiny shovels I bought on eBay and tweezers to fill the bowl neatly and I can pretty much guarantee that we probably managed not to make a mess twice if that. I get the idea behind the design but because it’s too small for a teaspoon but too large for a snuff spoon, it’s a bit aggravating to fill.

Notice I didn’t say it was hard to fill it in. It was simple but it always felt just a little more messy than necessary.

I had zero issues using the Xmax Pro – having had a lot of experience vaping over the last few years, it was easy to get used to the set up. The mouthpiece never got uncomfortably warm and a ‘session’ was enough for me to feel that I was getting what I needed. I think that both Book-grim and Stripeless found it easier to use than the Dynavap and as far as I know, neither of them have any experience vaping.

It does seem to need charging a lot but that’s just my impression. I set it up to charge overnight, use it in the morning then charge it again for the evening. I don’t know if that’s other people’s experience – I didn’t think too much of it initially, but now I’m wondering if I perhaps have one with a faulty battery?

It heats up to the temperature you input quite quickly and judging by the herb remnants in the bowl, it seems to heat things evenly as well. Cleaning-wise, I’ve just used isopropyl alcohol and cotton buds, although I haven’t taken the whole unit apart to do a full clean. If and when that becomes necessary, I’ll update the review to my experiences.

I think for a budget-conscious choice if you are just taking baby steps into the whole medicinal cannabis/vaping herb route, the Xmax represents a decent buy. I got mine from Amazon but there are numerous places on the web where they can be purchased.