How to Consume Cannabis Safely During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Toilet paper isn’t the only commodity disappearing from retail shelves nowadays. Along with the run on pasta, beans, and hand sanitizer, cannabis dispensaries are experiencing a big rush.

Customers with too much time on their hands and too much anxiety on their nerves, they are looking for comfort and escape. But there are risks in cannabis consumption during this coronavirus pandemic.

There is no time here for lengthy scientific study, but in a climate easily misled into consuming bleach for a cure, consumption cannot be left to common sense.

What does Coronavirus do?

 Despite all the noise, scientists are not 100% sure how Coronavirus works. There has been little time to research the disease during its rapid spread.

COVID-19 was first reported in China in December 2019. That date gave this “pneumonia of undetermined etiology” the name COVID-19. Since then, it has been classified along with the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.

Whatever its cause, Coronavirus has hit the world so hard the response has been supportive and preventive with limited attention to the way it works.

It appears the infection produces a super immune reaction, a reaction to powerful and widespread that it also produces extensive damage too tissues. The infection triggers the production of some cells and inhibits the growth of others. 

Consequently, it launches a super response as if the body were being attacked by autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular diseases, inflammation, infection, and some forms of cancer. While that may sound like a good thing, the attack also creates acute systemic inflammatory syndrome, fever, and multiple organ failure.

While most infected persons show mild symptoms and do recover, severe cases (5% of the infected) experience respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multiple organ dysfunction or failure. One study of patients’ lungs published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology found tumors, edema, and “important proteinaceous exudates as large protein globules… vascular congestion combined with inflammatory clusters of fibrinoid material and multinucleated giant cells and hyperplasia of pneumocytes.” To translate the researchers’ findings, you want to avoid this Coronavirus — in case you haven’t gotten the message so far! 

Given the facts, how are you to smoke cannabis?

The best answer is, “DO NOT SMOKE OR VAPE!” There has not been time to study the correlation between smoking cannabis and the occurrence or severity of COVID-19. But a few problems should make the risk obvious.

♦ A dry cough is one symptom of COVID-19, and a dry cough is a side-effect of smoking most cannabis strains. That cannabis cough could put off testing for the real thing.

♦ Smoking anything — tobacco, cannabis, or whatever — is a process that involves the combustion of carbon. Despite the benefits you might find in inhaling smoke, it will bring foreign elements into the lungs. And, in the case, of cannabis smoking, it will pull that mixture of stuff deep into the lungs. Vaping presents on slightly less of a risk, but you really don’t want to do anything that irritates the lungs at this time.

This virus has “spikes” on it that attach to the lung linings. So, if the lung lining is irritated before or after the infection, it will exacerbate the infection results. Also, the value in the cannabis experience comes from the access the lungs have to the blood system. That thin layer of lining lets cannabis’ benefits flow through the brain, body, and endocannabinoid system. However, in the case of infection, it takes up room in the blood system better given to curative mechanisms.

♦ Sharing use is positively bad. The number of infections and consequent deaths shows how contagious this experience is. You should not be using with others, and you should certainly not share joints, blunts, bongs, or any other apparatus.

Your best bet for safe cannabis consumption! 

The most sensible way to consume cannabis safely is in cooking. Cannabis-infused oil and butter will fortify any meal you have in mind from appetizer to soup, salad, entree, and dessert. Buy it or make your own, it will eat up a lot of the time you find on your hands and still deliver the recreational and/or medicinal benefits you are looking for.