Why You Should Consider Incorporating RSO Into Your Cannabis Diet
RSO, also known as Rick Simpson oil, is a cannabis extract that contains many components of the cannabis plant that it’s derived from. This includes cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, chlorophyll, and lipids. Having all of these “ingredients” present will provide you with a multitude of medicinal benefits and nutrients, as well as something called the entourage effect. The entourage effect refers to the synergistic relationship between all cannabis compounds, where the combined effects are more efficient than when these compounds are found alone. Long story short, this stuff makes the perfect canna-cocktail for getting you really high on top of being good for your health. Best of both worlds! Those who are looking to medicinally benefit from RSO without getting too high can pair it with CBD for less psychoactive effects.
You may be wondering how RSO differs from other cannabis goods. Let’s compare it to distillate, one of the most used and infused extracts in the industry. Distillate is a refined cannabis oil that is found in most cartridges, tinctures, pills, edibles, and more, unless they specifically say otherwise. During the distillation process, things like lipids and flavonoids are often destroyed while the THC is isolated. This results in products with high THC percentages that can be appealing to consumers at face value, but lacks all the feel-good things that contribute to the entourage effect and larger array of therapeutic results. I once heard someone compare it to ice cream vs. an ice cream sundae. Having the sprinkles, fudge, peanuts, whipped cream, and cherry on your ice cream will add to the overall experience. Many people find that this is also true when it comes to everything that makes up the cannabis plant.
There’s a few different options for consuming Rick Simpson oil. There are many tincture oils and edibles that are infused with it for your convenience, such as products from Cannatini and Treeworks in the Massachusetts market. These are great options for those experimenting to see how it affects them. There are also syringes of straight RSO that can be more effective, but must be handled more cautiously. A starting dose for beginners would be the size of a grain of rice. You can apply this straight into your mouth, but I prefer to add it to a candy or cracker of my choice due to its stickiness and sometimes unpleasant taste depending on the strain it’s derived from. Using the oil topically is also a very popular method. There are incredible before and after photos posted online of people treating their skin cancer with topical RSO treatments. I personally use RSO orally for stomach issues. I often wake up with stomach pain and nausea in the mornings, unless I use the oil before bed. I have several family members who use it orally as well to tame their arthritis. It’s not a miracle product for everyone, but I think it’s at least worth checking out.
Note: For the sake of simplicity I’ve used the term RSO throughout this article, but a lot of the RSO products on the market are technically FSO (full spectrum oil) which is a similar product. FSO typically uses ethanol and cooler temperatures to retain more of the cannabis compounds so it can be more therapeutic depending on what you’re using it for. Because Rick Simpson is a fairly popular name in the cannabis industry, many people slap his name on their oil despite tweaking the original recipe. I recommend experimenting with a variety of RSO/FSO products to see what benefits you the most.
