Fresh Leaf! By Rhea Graham

This is the time of year to be “cleaning out” your Cannabis plants so that all areas are able to get more sunlight. When you pinch off those leaves you should be saving them for you or others to enjoy their medicinal benefits. After rinsing, they can be used to make any number of things, or you can simply boil them and enjoy the tea it makes.

Leaf can be used in a smoothie to stop spasms, seizures, lower inflammation and more. Remove the stems from about 10 leaves and put them in your smoothie near the end of your blending and you will be pleasantly surprised. If you do not ‘over-blend’ you won’t decarboxylate the THC and you won’t get any high. I make a simple smoothie with a frozen over-ripe banana, a cup of frozen berries, a tablespoon or two of vanilla yogurt, a teaspoon of food-grade Diatomaceous Earth and a cup of almond milk.

You can also use that same leaf to make salve if you like. It won’t be the strongest there is, but it will certainly generate some relief. If you don’t want to make salve, you can easily use it to make Canna Butter. Clarified butter makes a much better product as water in the regular butter extracts more chlorophyll since chlorophyll is water soluble.

Tired of smoking cigarettes? You can smoke Cannabis leaf and get the same hack and throat burn. Smoking Cannabis does NOT cause cancer and can help you stop the cigarettes; you should consider that if you are a smoker. Besides, it smells better!

Those of you who are growing organically, if you are cleaning out your plants and have no use for the leaf, please contact me as I give it away all year long to patients who use it as medicine. Keep this in mind at harvest time, too, if you would please! We accept all strains, even the unknown. If you know what it is, it’s nice to share that information with the patient, but most choose by the smell (terpenes), not the name, when selecting strains.