How Our Slow, Gentle Infusion Process Protects the Full Spectrum of Marijuana’s Cannabinoids
At Mary Jane’s Medicinals, we use only the highest-quality whole-plant cannabis to infuse our products with all the beneficial compounds this plant has to offer. We source sun-grown cannabis that is cultivated using all organic methods. We carefully select our strains with cannabinoid profiles in mind so our products have the ratios of these chemicals that we have found to be most effective for topical application. We choose cannabis with floral terpene profiles, and as a result our production facility is filled with the wonderfully aromatic florals of blissful buds—and our products smell great too!
When I first started making cannabis infused oils, I cooked them in a crock pot in my pantry. As you might imagine, our process is a lot more sophisticated now. But the intention is the same, which is to maintain the delicate synergy that the whole plant has to offer.
Some other products on the market use a technique for distilling marijuana that heats the cannabis at very high temperatures. This high heat destroys natural plant compounds, including burning off the terpenes that give cannabis strains their unique scents. Terpenes also play an important role in working together with other compounds called cannabinoids—a.k.a. the entourage effect—to provide more wellness benefits.
Heating marijuana also causes important chemical reactions. The most famous cannabis compound, THC, is actually not produced in significant quantities by the cannabis plant. A non-psychoactive compound called THC-A (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) is what’s found in abundance in the plant’s sticky trichomes. When THC-A is heated, a chemical compound called a carboxyl ring (COOH) is released and the result is a conversion to psychoactive THC.
This fascinating process is known as cannabis decarboxylation.
Our tried-and-true, calculated infusion process maintains terpenes and the full spectrum of cannabinoids. Our proprietary method insures that both THC and THC-A are infused in our oils. The powerful healing powers of THC-A are maintained rather than lost in the conversion. THC-A is known to reduce inflammation, protect cells, and help with cramps and muscle spasms. In lab studies of animal models, findings suggest cannabinoids inhibit the growth of cancer cells, and we look forward to more definitive research in this area.
Basically, we treat our plant material very gently so we can maintain many of the beneficial phytochemicals that are lost in the extraction methods commonly used by many of our competitors. I can’t give away our trade secrets, but I can say we’ve been perfecting our process for a decade to get it just right. And, as our customers tell us regularly, it works.