A Medical Cannabis Tincture: Relieve Your Pain With This Easy Green Dragon Tincture Recipe

Green Dragon tincture will not turn you into a dragon nor a kung fu master. It can, however, help you if you find yourself dragging or wanting to learn kung fu but can’t because of pain. Pain can certainly slow us down. When the body hurts, there’s no way around it. You’re just not as productive. When we find ways to alleviate pain, our production level increases as well as our overall happiness and well-being. Green Dragon tincture can help you stop dragging and put a little pep in your step by helping to alleviate pain and inflammation quickly.

Managing Pain With Cannabis 

Green Dragon is a tincture made from cannabis. The therapeutic benefits of cannabis are many. Cannabinoids such as THC, CBD, and others are known to provide relief from pain, inflammation, depression, anxiety, menstrual cramps, migraine headaches, and more. There are also many ways to consume cannabis. Many people who utilize cannabinoid therapies for pain management use cannabis oils and tinctures. There is a reason for this. Smoking cannabis is one of the quickest ways to feel the effects. This doesn’t mean you get the full effect of cannabis. Edibles by far produce a much more intoxicating effect than just smoking.

The problem with cannabis-infused edibles is that they have to work their way through the body before they start to take effect. This means someone consuming a cannabis-infused edible could wait anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours before feeling any kind of relief. A cannabis tincture is much different and works much faster.

Cannabis tincture can be made using MCT oil or other oils but is most commonly made using PGA or pure grain alcohol. To maximize potency, Everclear is the alcohol recommended when making Green Dragon tincture at home. If you are unable to purchase Everclear in your state, ideally you would want 150 alcohol. But do note that if you use anything less potent, the tincture will also come out less potent.

When taken orally, cannabis tinctures can work in as little as 5 to 15 minutes. The reason they work so much quicker than edibles is that cannabis tincture is absorbed sublingually under the tongue. You can add cannabis tincture to sugar or edibles too, but the most preferred method for consumption is under the tongue. This supplies the body with the quickest relief because it is where the sublingual gland is found.

Those who don’t like Green Dragon tincture usually don’t like it because of the flavor. The taste of alcohol and the bitter potency of cannabis together can be a bit much for some people. This is when it would be optimal to add the tincture to a food or beverage.

How To Make Green Dragon Tincture

Making Green Dragon tincture is very easy and requires nothing more than some cannabis, a canning jar such as a Mason jar, and some pure grain alcohol. Fill your glass jar about 3/4 of the way full with cannabis. You can pack it down but don’t overpack it. Then fill the jar with Everclear until it completely covers the cannabis material. Generally, about a finger above the plant material will give you good results. Put the lid on and give it a good shake. Now place your jar in a cool, dark place for storage. Shake it up once a day. Then comes the hard part. You must wait 21 days and then you can dump the material out, strain it, separating the plant material from the liquid using a cheesecloth and small strainer, and you have a Green Dragon tincture.

You can turn this tincture into a thick oil like RSO by applying slow heat to it using a slow simmer crockpot. If you decide to go this extra step, be vigilant because the material is extremely flammable as it was made from pure green alcohol. So be sure to keep it away from all open sources of flame. There are many different devices on the market that can help you make top-quality tinctures at home, or you can use this method to make your own.

Below you will find an ingredient list and a specific set of instructions to make Green Dragon Tincture. These instructions are for a small batch of tincture. Simply multiply ingredients for larger batches.

Materials Needed:

• 1/8 of decarboxylated cannabis flower
• 2 oz of Everclear or comparable alcohol
• A glass canning jar such as a Mason or Ball jar

Directions:

• Combine cannabis and alcohol in the glass jar.
• Close the lid, and let it sit for 20 days on a shelf in a closet or cabinet.
• Shake once daily.
• After 20 days, strain mixture separating plant material from liquid.

The liquid can be stored in a small bottle preferably with a smaller dropper. This method should produce approximately 1 oz of tincture. When completed, your tincture should be a dark green or brown color.

You can speed this process up using one of the many infusion machines on the market or by placing the alcohol and cannabis mixture with a lid on it into a shallow pot of hot water. Using a digital thermometer, make sure the temperature does not go above 170° F, and let the mixture rest in hot water for 20 minutes. Remove and strain the mixture to separate plant material from liquid. The tincture, just like the other method, will be greenish or brownish in color. However, with this method, the tincture is ready for use immediately.