It’s one of those questions that’s been disputed for years in cannabis circles: what’s the best temperature to use? Whether the subject in question is decarboxylating, making firecrackers, cannabis oil, or glycerin tincture, everyone seems to have a different opinion.

Well, I have lots of opinions myself, but I prefer facts. So I decided to test some of these important procedures once and for all.

Nah, who am I kidding? I’m going to test all of them! I admit it: I’ve been using certain times and temperatures because those are the ones I was taught, but it’s quite possible (or even likely) that they’re derived from oral tradition on some level, like so many other things in this rapidly-becoming-legal world of marijuana.

With the help of certain lab equipment currently being evaluated, I’ll be very accurately making batches of all these edible substances, and using some experiments to influence other ones. For instance, I’m starting with cannabis-infused coconut oil (which can be used for cooking oil as well as for making Canna Caps). Once I find the best temperature for making that, I’ll be making multiple batches of cannabis oil at that magic temperature, but varying the decarboxylation temperature to see how that affects the potency.

Of course, I don’t have the advantage of high-end lab equipment like Major Mass Spec and his lovely assistant.

So I’m falling back on one of my job descriptions: Bioassay Specialist. That’s a fancy-sounding term that basically means “I test drugs on myself”. And I know the Highness Scale inside and out. I came up with a single-blind procedure in which I labeled the bottoms of the specimen containers with the temperature used, and the tops with a single digit (after randomly mixing them up while I was still so sleepy I barely knew what I was doing anyway). I’m taking a single teaspoon of each on salad, once a day after eating a regular meal, and recording the results. So by next week, hopefully this first little mystery will be solved…even if my testing procedure doesn’t pass muster at the NIH.

Of course, if there are any testing labs out there in California willing to donate some lab time to the cause…?