New Jersey is set to become the 14th state to allow medical marijuana for terminally ill patients as prescribed by a doctor. The bill, proposed by Sen. Nicholas Scutari  D-Linden, would allow sufferers of specific illnesses the ability to grow up to six marijuana plants or have them grown at authorized treatment centers.

The bill passed the State Senate by a vote of 22-16 and is now set to go before the New Jersey assembly.

“For the sake of our most vulnerable, our sick and dying patients struggling for relief, now is the time for New Jersey to join the growing list of states allowing compassionate use of medical marijuana,” said Roseanne Scotti of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports the bill.

The compassion shown by the 13 states up to now is more than promising, the dominoes are falling one by one. There is a lot more attention in the media, and also open discussion among adults concerning the benefits of medical marijuana as well as an economic stimulant.The marijuana legalization movement has a lot of steam.

Everybody needs to do their part, even if it is something as small as correcting misinformation when you hear it. The propaganda against marijuana is so hard ingrained into the public that an entire consciousness shift is necessary.

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Find out more about Herbal Vaporizers

So, after mentioning them briefly in a previous post, I thought I’d take the time to go ahead and offer a full review, and a few tips for using the Ubie vaporizer.  First off, let’s review.

The primary question is whether or not the utility of the Ubie vaporizer justifies its cost. If you get them from the manufacturer, you can get them for $15 a piece, or even lower if you’re willing to purchase multiples.  So, the cost factor is very friendly. Friendlier even than most traditional smoke generating pieces. In short, yes, the Ubie is worth $15.

But how well do they work?

Well, they can be a bit tricky, but after some experimentation, Healthy and I were able to get them working pretty darn nicely. They’re pretty easy to load.

You put the herbal blend in the longer, larger tube,

then put the smaller one in place behind it

Its true, over heating, and thus burning is possible.  This can be a very unpleasant experience as vaped herbal blend is most foul tasting when burnt. However, with a little practice and know how, the Ubie is an easy to use, low cost entry level vaporizer for people wanting to make the switch to smokeless toking but do not have the $250 – $500 required for a nice high end model.  In short, neither I, nor Healthy, have any objections to this device and recommend it, especially to people wanting to get into vaporizing without making a huge financial commitment in the process.

So, with that said.  Some tips for using your Ubie.

1)  Do NOT let the flame touch the Ubie.  This is a fast way to a lung full of smoke, which defeats the purpose.

A few centimeters away is plenty close to do the trick

2) Break that shit up!  No, really, break it up very finely.  I know this was kind of hard for me, as I have an ingrained desire to try to not break up my sticky herbal blend so it burns nice and slow… but when you’re goal is vaporizing it, the smaller the better.  Got a grinder?  Use it.

Healthy says you need to break your “tobacco” up even more than this

3) Point it up.  It may look, or even feel, a little wrong… (At times I find myself flicking the Ubie I’m using to better pack the herbal blend I’m vaporizing and feel like I’m some junkie flicking his needle) but don’t be afraid to elevate the far end of the Ubie, you want to keep the herbal blend compacted as best you can.  Besides, it’s the perfect opportunity to break out the Penguin impersonation you’ve been saving up to impress your friends.  Ladies, this is your chance to BE Holly Golightly.  Live it up.

Modified to protect the not so innocent Bruco

4) Breath slowly.  You’ll want to inhale slowly as this will allow the hot air to vaporize more of the active ingredients and thus you’ll be getting bigger vape hits.  You’re going to have to accept that the first few hits might be small, and you probably will have to take away your heat source before you’ve filled your lungs to capacity (especially you, Michael Phelps) but you can get sizable puffs.  They do work.  Oh yea, and did I mention they taste delicious.  Seriously.  Mmmmm.

5) Warm your Ubie up.  Don’t expect, or even try, to get vape on your first inhalation.  Just flick the lighter on, inhale slowly a few seconds, and flick it off.  If you want, you can keep inhaling and flick it again briefly.  The point is, you want to warm the weed up so you’re basically getting vapor action as long as the heat’s supplied.  A few short pulls just to get it closer to the magic 400 degree mark isn’t wasting time when you can then flick the lighter 2 seconds and pull a nice puff of vapor quickly and easily in.

If you follow these tips, and get a little practice with your technique, you’ll soon find your self quite stoned with out the harmful smoke.  Is it a nice air blowing electric heated thermostat controlled $250+ top of the line vaporizer?  No.  Is it functional?  You bet.  And while, I wouldn’t recommend putting anything on top of your Ubie, it’s tough enough for the occasional gravity induced trip to the CARPETED floor. For those of you still sitting on the fence, this is it, your entry ticket to the wonderland of vapor.

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As you can probably tell, I am a pop culture junkie, hence the homage to the Colbert Report.  Obviously I’m going to go ahead and weigh in on that whole “Michael Phelps smoking pot photo” brouhaha that has everybody talking.

Well Mr Phelps, we here at the HealthyToker are not going to give you a hard time about toking.  As a matter of fact, we’ll “tip our hats” to you for it.  After all, we believe in it, it’s all natural, its a good time, and sadly you could have been doing keg stands and it would have garnered less attention thanks to the USA’s ass backwards drug policies.

However, Mr Phelps, a “wag of the finger” from us here at HealthyToker for using a bong.  Your lungs, the ones that have won you like, what a dozen gold medals (14, but who’s counting?) between 2 olympic competitions?  Those pink babies are priceless.  Worth more than their weight in platinum and there you are mucking them up with, ugh, smoke.  Next time Michael do your self a favor, use a vaporizer.  Or better yet, get together with some friends and bake some.  I’m sure you swim enough laps to sweat off the butter, and what’s more?  You wouldn’t have lost a Kellog’s sponsorship over a photo of you eating a brownie.

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First off, if any of you use Hulu and have seen the film called Johnny Appleweed on there, do your self a favor, don’t watch it.  It’s utter shit.  Seriously.  I like movies in spite of bad acting, bad writing, and bad production values.

For example?  I own a copy of a film called The Unnameable 2 which is, frankly, a terrible bastardiztion of HP Lovecraft’s fiction.  However, despite the bad acting, writing, and terrible production values, I still like the movie because I’m so fond of the source material on which it is based.  The fact that the “source material” for this piece of shit Johnny Appleweed movie is essentially the same idea that gave birth to the Johnny Weedseed Project means, in theory, I should be somewhat benevolent towards this movie, and I’m not.

It sucks.  Don’t watch it.  HOWEVER!  It is not all bad.  My attempt to turn this into an internet movement may have been 10 years delayed, but it seems that now IS the time for this idea to become reality.  Bad movies are being made, a few other websites are popping up, and Healthy, being the tech genius of the two of us, has brought it to my attention that we’ve had a few people wander onto the site curtousy of google searches and the Johnny Weedseed Project.

Welcome to any and all wishing to embrace the idea of legalization through proliferation.  Please, go out, plant your seeds.  Encourage your friends and dealers to join in.  We can do this.  Now, I’m going to retreat to my cave so I can resume my research on fatty acids and how THC bonds to them.  If any of you are bio-chem majors and want to help enlighten me, feel free to drop Healthy or I a line.

Adieu mon amis!

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