RSO has become a very popular home remedy and all reports indicate it is proving to be successful. Recently I have been making medicated coconut oil (previous post) for a friend that was diagnosed with lung cancer, and it got me curious about making a better, richer, more medicinally potent RSO for home healing. You can even experiment, extracting other botanicals with additional healing properties with cannabis or just add your choice of flavor.

RSO is short for ‘Rick Simpson Oil’, named after the man that made it famous and has helped an unfathomable number of people with his ‘Run From the Cure’ documentary showcasing the cancer curing attributes of cannabis. It is a full extraction rather than what would be used for smoking or recreation edibles. By ‘full extraction’ I refer to the use of a more vigorous wash to bring out the most beneficial compounds of the cannabis plant. The longer, more vigorous, deeper wash results in a very dark extraction. Unlike extractions used for smoking, RSO is ingested orally, most often placing a few drops under the tongue, so the extra plant material that turns the extract dark green is considered acceptable and medicinally beneficial.

HOW TO MAKE RSO?

  1. DECARB: If you don’t know how to do this please go to the “How do you decarb cannabis?” heading on this website.
  2. WASH: Add 95% Ethonal, like 190-proof Everclear, to the decarbed cannabis (the ‘wash’) until the alcohol completely covers the cannabis plus a little extra for good measure. Allow the combination to soak for as short as 5 minutes to as long as overnight. Opinions vary on how long the alcohol needs to interact with the cannabis to get the best extraction results. From my experience 15 minutes is plenty for cannabis, but I would highly encourage everyone to experiment and find what works best for you. If quality flower is being used, repeating this step and performing a second wash with the same cannabis material can collect the 15-20% of THC and CBD left behind in the first wash, however, if you are using low quality flower or trim a second wash is not productive.
  3. FILTER: Separate the alcohol solution from the cannabis material by filtering through an unbleached coffee filter. It is important to filter well or the particulate concentration will become mud like. Make this step a little easier by doing the wash in a ziplock, cutting a small corner from the ziplock, and draining slowly into a coffee filter (makes cleanup very easy).
  4. PURGE: Separate the alcohol from the cannabis extraction and presto! You have crafted your own RSO!
  5. EXERCISING YOUR CRAFTING SKILLS: Lastly, exercise your crafting skills and combine other botanical extractions with the RSO to charge it with additional healing properties or add great flavor. There are a few ways this can be accomplished.

First, if the additional botanical is of similar extraction characteristics to cannabis, like hops, add it right in with the cannabis at the ‘wash’ stage, wash them together, and complete the extraction as directed. Second, if the required wash time of the additional botanical(s) is substantially different from cannabis, like oak chips or citrus peel, wash separately from the cannabis but combine the washes and purge together. Third, if you have a previously prepared botanical extraction and would like to incorporate it with your RSO you can either dissolve it into the alcohol solution during the RSO wash stage, or, after the RSO extraction is complete simply mix the previously prepared concentrate into the RSO while it’s still warm.